There’s a beautiful continuity in our Advent readings between the Prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew. We see it today – Wednesday in Advent’s first week .

On his holy mountain, Isaiah promises God will provide a feast of rich food and choice wines, wiping away tears from all faces. (Isaiah 25: 6-10)

On a mountain Jesus teaches, then “wipes away the tears from all faces,” Matthew’s Gospel says. “Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet, and he cured them.” Then he feeds them all from 7 loaves of bread and a few fish.

It’s not a ration to keep them till they get home. It’s a banquet providing more than enough – there are leftovers. ( Matthew 15: 32-38 )

For Isaiah and Matthew the mountain is a symbolic place. All nations will stream toward it, Isaiah announces. “Great crowds” come to it, Matthew says. The  mountain is a place for a feast. 

Is it a future feast, a future kingdom we should wait for, or is it something to strive for now? “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we say in the Lord’s Prayer. Even now, on earth, God’s wills his kingdom come. We need to strive for God’s kingdom to come, even now.  

What should we do? How can we beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks today? Can we work to destroy weapons of mass destruction and seek ways to disarm? Realists, like Ahaz, King of Judea, questioned Isaiah’s promises and said it couldn’t be done.

In a world where wealthy nations discriminate against poorer nations is it possible for all nations be fed? How can we bring all to share the fruits of the earth? And how can we care that the earth itself be respected for the common good?

Words from the past point to the present and the future. We’re called to bring about God’s kingdom now, on earth as it is in heaven.