Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Third Sunday in Advent

Rejoice, thirsty deserted land! Let a deserted land be cheerful, and let it blossom like a lily. And the desolate places of the Jordan will blossom and rejoice. The glory of Lebanon was given to it, and the honor of Carmel. And my people will see the glory of the Lord and the exaltation of God. Be strong, hands at ease and feeble knees! Give comfort, fainthearted in mind! Be strong; do not be frightened! Look, our God is repaying judgment, and he will repay! He himself will come and save us! Then blind people’s eyes will be opened, and dumb people’s ears will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the stammerer’s tongue will be clear, because water has broken forth in the desert, and a ravine in a thirsting land. And the waterless place will turn into marshes, and there will be a spring of water in the thirsty land; there birds’ cheerfulness will be a dwelling of reed and marshes. A pure path will be there, and it will be called a holy path, and certainly no impure person will pass by there, nor will there be an impure path there, but those who are scattered abroad will walk on it; they will certainly not be misguided. And there will be no lion there, and certainly none of the evil beasts will come up to it or be found there, but rather a people will walk in it that are redeemed and gathered because of the Lord; and they will return and come into Zion with cheerfulness, and eternal cheerfulness will be over their head. There will be praise and rejoicing, and cheerfulness will overtake them; pangs and sorrow and groaning have fled away! (Isaiah 35:1–10 LXX)

Now the reason the eyes will be opened, the ears will hear, the blind will leap and the tongue of the mute will be free, is because the waters of the baptism of the Savior have broken out or “burst forth” in the onetime desert of the church, and streams or torrents in the wilderness, namely, the various spiritual graces; and that which was dry land has been turned into a pool and swamp, so that not only has burning thirst ended, but it has become passable by boat and well watered, and it has very many springs, for which the deer longs. The one who drinks from them is able to bless the Lord, as it is written: “Bless the Lord from the springs of Israel.” In the dens of the souls of the Gentiles, in which dragons dwelt before, there will be reeds and bulrushes, on which is written the faith of the Lord, and on which formerly weary limbs may rest; or “there will be a joy of birds and a sheepfold for flocks,” that the doves might receive wings, and the lowly ones who remain may hurry to the heights and be able to say with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want; he makes me lie down in the place of pasture, he has led me out to the waters of refreshment”.

There will be there a path and a most clean way, which shall be called holy, and which itself says of itself, “I am the way,” through which he who is polluted shall not be able to pass. This is also why it is said in the psalm: “Blessed are the blameless in the way.” And this way, that is our God, will be for us so straight and level and flat that it shall hold no error, and the foolish and the senseless are able to walk on it, to whom wisdom speaks in Proverbs, “If anyone is a little one, let him come to me, and to the foolish she said: ‘Come and eat my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mixed for you, leave infancy, and live, and walk by the ways of prudence.’”

Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 10