Poor. Brokenhearted. Captive. Imprisoned. Mourning. Such a picture of despair, darkness, helplessness, and hopelessness! Yet these are the words that Isaiah uses in our Scripture reading for today to describe the people God the Father had in mind when he chose to send Jesus as the world’s Savior.

In the original context, Isaiah was speaking about the Israelites who were held captive in Babylon for 70 years as a punishment for their defiance against God. We read about what happened in Daniel 1:1,2: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God.”

The Lord delivered them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and into captivity. Before this account, Judah would have seen the northern ten tribes of Israel crushed by the Assyrians as a result of rebelling against God. Clearly, Judah didn’t learn from Israel’s example. Instead, they persisted in their sinful ways, and the Holy One of Israel allowed them to suffer punishment for it. Blood, tears, torment, and loss became their new existence. This may hurt our hearts to think about, but we must also remember that sin has consequences—for Judah back then, for the people of Jesus’ time, and for us today.

During Jesus’ ministry on earth, those first-century Jews would certainly have remembered the horrors of the Babylonian captivity and what it meant for their people. Babylon was a symbol of evil, bitterness, destruction, and enemies of God. But as Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecies in their presence, his followers witnessed a different type of deliverance—Jesus had come to heal them.

Can you imagine how awesome it would have been to witness these healings? To watch the blind person suddenly able to see God’s creation, loved ones, and the face of the Healer? To see the lame person walk for the first time? To see the diseased person set free? To see Lazarus emerge from the grave? Each of these accounts provides such a glorious, tangible picture of what it feels like to be delivered from a bodily form of captivity.

Jesus healed many people of their physical hurts, diseases, and even death, but this wasn’t the ultimate form of healing or deliverance for which he came to this world. It was for the spiritually poor who are bankrupted by their sin. It was for broken sinful natures. It was for the lives lived in captivity, imprisonment, and mourning because of defiance against a holy God.

Jesus’ healing was for them, and his healing is for you this Advent season! Instead of despair and darkness, you have deliverance. Instead of helplessness and hopelessness, you are held in the hands of your loving Lord. Praise God for sending his Servant, our Jesus, to proclaim this good news, bind up our broken hearts, declare us free, and give us comfort for all eternity!