This is the 3^rd sermon of this year’s Advent series, Awakened Imaginations.  Each of our focus passages so far this Advent season have been inspiring visions of God’s heart and mind.  Isaiah 2… there will come a day when weapons will become obsolete and swords will be beaten into plowshares.  Psalm 72…  some day we will be ruled by one who brings justice for the poor and needy and judges in righteousness.  This week, Isaiah 35…  the time is coming when joy will not be fleeting but will be everlasting with sorrow and mourning fleeing away.  This promise of God coming to save gives us reason to rejoice, reason to praise even at the strangest of times.  Isaiah is writing to a people in exile having lost temple, land and sovereignty and is encouraging them to rejoice.  Can we be that same kind of people who have reason to rejoice in God despite current life circumstance?