2nd Sunday of Advent

Mountains and valleys are beautiful to look at until you have to climb or cross them.   

Jerusalem is  high up on a hill and to get to the mountain of Olives, You have to go down into the Kidron Valley cross through it and then climb  out of the valley and up into the mountain of olives.  

In Israel you were always either climbing a mountain or crossing a valley,

So when Isaiah says that God will fill in the valleys and lower the mountains, 

for people who have to walk everywhere imagine how wonderful that would be!

 But the real mountains that we climb and real valleys that we have to cross are those in our own minds and hearts.  

The fields are are beautiful, nice and flat and you can see for miles

 and then one day you wake up there is a mountain in front of you to climb 

or a valley so low that you think you will never be able to cross it.   

And we try everything at our disposal and all of our resources and knowledge and energy and we come up short.  

Jesus is the one the only one who can get us up those mountains and across those valleys because He has climbed His Mount Calvary and He is the Good Shepherd Who has crossed through the Valley of Death.  

Five times Saint Paul received 40 lashes less one; 

Three  times he was beaten with rods and was stoned; 

Three times he was ship wrecked and spent a day and a night adrift on the sea ; 

He spent many a night hungry and thirsty; 

attacked by Jews and Gentiles and betrayed by friends.  

How did he manage to climb those mountains and cross those valleys?  

As He said  “ I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.”

 Life is filled with mountains to climb and valleys to cross. 

 It is always best to have a Good Shepherd Who has crossed that Valley and a Guide Who has climbed that Mountain