Isaiah-51:11

For Reading and Meditation:     Isaiah 51:1-16

We spend one last day meditating on Jesus' words: "Blessed [or happy] are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Facing negative feelings such as grief, sorrow, hurt and emotional pain is essential if we are to know our Lord's purpose for our lives. When we are willing to go down into the hurt and feel it, then...

In its setting, this prophecy of Isaiah looked forward to the joyous return of God's chosen people from their seventy-year captivity in Babylon.

It may also refer to Israel's still-future restoration when the Messiah will regather them to the land from all over the world. That too will be a time of great jubilation.

But in its widest sense, we are justified in applying the verse to the rapture of the Church. Awakened by the shout of the Lord, the voice of the archangel, and the...

Time and again the Lord brought back his ancient people from captivity, even those that valued the liberty of returning; and each time perhaps they thought it was the final redemption of which the prophets had spoken such glorious things, and were looking for crowns of everlasting joy. But in the times preceding the first advent of the Messiah they discovered by bitter experience that it was possible for them to be enslaved even in their own land, in the midst of Jerusalem, in the courts of...