"And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 40:5)
You can hear, in your mind, the triumphant choir from Handel's "Messiah" resounding.
This whole chapter is a prophecy of the Lord's advent. In the preceding verses, it's been talking about our need to prepare ourselves spiritually so that love to the Lord, and love towards our neighbors, can be born in our hearts.
Here's verse 3:
"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3).
This prophesies the work of John the Baptist, 700 years later, to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. In our own journeys, this work stands for the preparation of our minds and hearts: learning initial truths, examining ourselves, and acknowledging our faults and starting to fight against them.
Here's verse 4:
"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." (Isaiah 40:4)
For us, this means that we need to learn humility; the pride of worldly power and self-intelligence needs to be "brought low".
Then, the crescendo in verse 5:
"And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 40:5)
- The "glory of the Lord" is the new outpouring — the opening up — of Divine Truth that would take place through the Lord's ministry here on earth.
- 'all flesh' means everybody — the entire human race.
- 'shall see it' means that there will be a new opportunity for all people to understand the Lord's truth.
- "[T]he mouth of the Lord has spoken it". The Lord speaks the Word to us.
From the very beginning of human spiritual consciousness, God has been communicating with us. He knows that, as soon as we are able to choose between doing good and evil, we have to also be able to discern between them. He hopes that we will learn truths about what is good, and then put those truths to work as we try to do good.
As humankind has developed, we've stood in need of different kinds of communication from God. At the time of the Lord's birth on earth, we were deaf to the direct influx that had led the earliest people. We'd also lost the knowledge of the symbolism — the correspondences between spiritual and natural levels — that exists in the world, and that runs throughout the Old Testament. You can see from the actions and indignance of the scribes and Pharisees that they valued empty ritual over real love of God and of the neighbor.
The Lord's Advent was the opening of the way for the Word of God to again reach "all flesh", as Jesus, the Christ or Messiah — God incarnate — walked among us, taught the multitudes, and sent his disciples out to preach the new Gospel throughout the world.
