Context
This is a word of comfort and consolation to the Jews during the Babylonian exile. This was a time when an entire generation was being taken captive from Israel, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and their land was laid waste. From chapters 40 onwards till the end (chapter 66), are prophecies of comfort and hope to a people in despair that God would liberate and restore. It also points to Jesus as the ultimate liberator and restorer in chapter 53.
1. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. I was quite intrigued by the use of the word ‘feet’ here. It could also be put as how lovely on the mountains are those who bring good news, but Isaiah prefers ‘feet’. Messengers in those days had to carry the messages on foot mostly. It’s not like nowadays at all, when we can send messages not only by post or email but on whatsapp, Instagram and your message is gone in an instant. No need for us to go in person to deliver a message. We can sit in our rooms or offices and speak to people in faraway places. There is a separation of the message from the messenger physically. But what is beautiful to God here are the feet of those who bring good news.
If your feet are carrying a message, it means you travel, you walk. Your feet do the hard work. The feet are connected to the body. Your body carries the message. It involves every part of you. I can’t I think the message I am meant to carry in my head and imagine it will be delivered to people. It needs your whole body to take the message to who is meant to hear it.
Your body carries the good news of God’s comfort to a dejected people. There is no dichotomy between the Good news and us. There is no dichotomy between our message and our lives. For those of who chose to follow God and live for Him, there is no is difference between what we preach and who we are, how we live our lives. This is what Isaiah calls beautiful. Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Cor.3: 2 “ You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
The disciple, John said of Jesus in John 1: 14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
What is beautiful is the Word made Flesh. Jesus didn’t preach only (he preached publicly only for 3 years) but he touched and healed, He lived the message and died for it. The tragedy often for us, has been that the Word has not been made flesh. What is not beautiful to God is a life that has a separation between our message and our lives and who we are. Nowadays, we become so ‘professional’ that teaching the Word, worshipping and worship leading are now a profession around which industries and businesses are built and there is little emphasis on integrity, truth and accountability. What breaks the heart of God is a church that does not make manifest in the flesh, the message of Hope and God’s comfort to a broken world. We may have many great things happening, many activities, great and wonderful buildings and programs but if people, leaders in the church are not living out the Good news to the world around us, it is not beautiful to God. We have seen, heard of many popular ministers and ministries exposed because of this dichotomy between the messages they preach and their private lives. We have seen how the church in our times have not lived up to the message of the Cross, the message of God’s intention for our world. We need to recover a hunger for what God calls ‘beautiful’ and what He is pleased by.
The feet also indicate movement. The feet enables movement in our body for walking, running. It takes us from one place to another. Paul says in Ephesians 6: 14 -15 “14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”
The good news of the Gospel was meant to spread to the ends of the earth, not remain in Jerusalem or in just one place.
That’s what happened after the Pentecost day (today is Pentecost Sunday). The disciples and the people filled with the Holy Spirit carried far and wide the message of Jesus into all the world, including India. If we say we belong to God we are meant to be ready to go where God sends us to go. It may be to places we don’t want to go but if we have given ourselves to God, we say yes.
The gospel of peace includes bringing peace, the Shalom of God into the lives of people that are broken and hurting. How else will a troubled and hurting child know God’s peace and love and hope unless someone practically lives it out for her? How else will a child who have gone through horrendous abuse and have no hope for her life, know what is the Good News, unless someone walks alongside and demonstrate it for her?
Are our feet willing to go and carry the Good news? Are we willing to be the Gospel of peace to those who needs to see, hear, feel and experience it in their lives, in their situations? In this digital age, is the church located where we are meant to be – online or offline? Are we going to the places of despair, brokenness, strife with the Good News? Are we missional people who would leave everything to go where God sends us, never looking back, never quitting, never having a backup plan?
2. Who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings
What is good tidings or good news is the news of peace. We now live in a world where there are two wars going on and where violence and aggression is employed with impunity. In our own country just two weeks back, four peace makers were shot and killed in the part of the country where there is a sizable Christian population. Voices of hatred, suspicion, fear and violence continues to rise louder than the voices of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. Peace is unpopular in our world today. Aggressive populist, nationalist, exclusive majoritarian narrative sells. In Matthew 5:9, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called the children of God”. The criteria for being called God’s children is being a peace maker. The church is meant to be a peace maker in our world. We cannot claim to be children of God if we are not engaged in peace making in our respective spheres of influence.
Let’s also remember that the Word of comfort that the Prophet Isaiah was bringing, was to a people, in the context of a nation going through a hard time – not for an individual. The message of peace with God through the experience of personal salvation has implications on communal and national lives. Peace-making not just at the political, national level but within the body of Christ itself is needed. We are a fragmented, disunited body where our differences matter more than what Jesus did at the Cross for us. But Ephesians 2: 14-18 says:
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
The comfort and restoration of God for the nation of Israel in captivity was not an immediate, short-term relief, band aid like, symptomatic treatment of their chronic problem. Nor was it an exclusive relief only for them. God’s cure and the healing of the nation Israel was to treat the root cause of their disease. The only cure would be in Jesus. They needed to wait for the coming of Jesus, they needed to live through their exile days in Babylon. Their hearts needed to be humble, repentant and trusting in the God who loved and watched over them.
This cure in Jesus was for all humanity because Israel and her ailment (spiritual, social, political) was a reflection of chronic ailment of humanity, the product of sin.
God’s comfort and restoration, answer to our prayers, is not often an immediate relief to our desperate cries for intervention (sometimes he does that too) or only for our specific situation (He does that too). God is looking at a much, much bigger picture than what we can see and His comfort often comes in the ‘fullness of time’, not according to our time frame. He will act in His wisdom and in His great mercy. We need to trust, love Him and remain loyal to Him.
There were 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew. But Jesus, the comforter of Israel did come in the fullness of time, as prophesied by Isaiah! Blessed are those who waited for Him and put their trust in Him.
3. Lastly, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion “Your God reigns” (paraphrased).
What really is the salvation message here? We understand salvation now as the sacrifice of Jesus for us but in the time of the Babylonian exile, what did Isaiah mean by ‘salvation’ and the message that God reigns?
We need to remember that Isaiah was writing to a people who felt God had forsaken them (though it was the consequences of their own disobedience that led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile for 70 years), a people for whom there is no hope of living in freedom in their own land, that no one can rescue or help them. The Jews lived at a time when they felt powerless, overwhelmed, in the face of such mighty empires like the Babylonians who did not know Yahweh. So, the message of salvation consisted of God, Yahweh, telling them there is restoration, God will bring them back to their land, their exile in Babylon will end and that he has a purpose for them. Isaiah 49:8,9 – This is what the Lord says:
“In the time of my favor I will answer you,
and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’
The message of salvation says there is hope for the nation in exile because they have not been forgotten, that, Yahweh is still the one who reigns, not the Babylonian powers and their gods. Isaiah then prophesied about the coming of Jesus who is the ultimate hope, the ultimate deliverer and restorer for His people. Throughout the history of the Jews in the Bible, what God was longing for and looking to do for the Jews wasn’t just political, physical restoration and return. He was looking and longing for a spiritual restoration of His people to Him. This was why He sent His son to the world. This longing of God still remains today for us, for all people, not only the Jews.
We have a message of salvation and hope for the world because Jesus had come and completed the work through His death and resurrection. We have an advantage over the Jews during the time of the prophet Isaiah because we have the Gospel and we have the Holy Spirit in us and among us. Today is Pentecost Sunday. The Holy Spirit was poured out to the disciples and there has been many outpourings of the Spirit in history that brought great transformation in nations across the world. The message of the outpouring of the Spirit has been that there is hope in God’s love for everyone, especially for the ones who are lost, broken, given up, that God reigns. Since the Pentecost the church grew all over the world, no human power, political tyranny and might could prevail against the church. The message is that God reigns and no gates of Hades will stand against it. When God truly reigns in the hearts of people, no persecution and tribulation can stop them. This is why the early church leaders (all the disciples except John) were all martyred, ordinary people who chose to follow Jesus died for Him under the hands of emperor Nero. And the church continues to grow today. We have heard of the church in China and in other closed countries where the church is growing today. It is the movement of God.
If we carry the message of salvation, we are meant to be preparing ourselves and people to live as though only God reigns and no other power reigns. Our loyalty is only to God not to the powers and principalities that exhibits earthly power. This is the comfort and the hope we proclaim, not only with our words but with our lives.
Do our lives carry the message of hope that there is God who cares, concerned about the ones who are suffering, who are in despair and given up on God? Many of our young people, living in despair, putting all their hopes in systems, jobs, career and money, living under tremendous pressure starting from a very young age. Many young people from the NE here in Delhi and in other cities lost and in despair, given up on God and the church as they know and experience it. Perhaps the church in our country is also going through a time where “Babylonian powers” threaten to capture us, our freedoms are taken away and we are being scattered. The Church needs to wake up to hear God afresh and what He is saying to us. He is bringing words of comfort, consolation, hope and that He reigns, no matter what is going on in the world around us.
Conclusion
As people represented from all across the country here today, let’s give ourselves afresh to God and not give ourselves to religion and man -made traditions. Like on the Pentecost day may God pour out His Spirit upon us, His church, fill and equip us to be the feet, the lives that bring good news, proclaim peace and salvation and that God reigns. Amen.
(Thanksgiving Message given by Eunice Pamei, for the 9th Theological Students Internship on the 24th May 2026 at TRACI House)
Eunice Pamei currently leads The New Generation Trust working among women and children from difficult backgrounds and marginalized communities in Delhi. She, along with a team also leads The Hub Church, Delhi. She is also TRACI Society Member.