"Look, your God is coming. He is coming to save you." (Is: 35:4). Israel was in a state of political unrest when Isaiah wrote this, a part of a series of prophecies which foretold the coming of a period of peace, under a just and righteous ruler. He saw not only the reconciliation of men, but also of conflicting worldly elements. On the surface, this was a prediction of the restoration of a glorious kingdom, obedient to God, yet underlying this was even more emphatically a promise of a messianic hope. Human problems and difficulties could only be overcome by a turning to God alone. Trusting in the providence of God would surely lead to the new Creation proclaimed so joyously by Isaiah, a new order in which Jesus was the fulfilment of Israel's hope Isaiah spoke poetically of the coming of God, describing the external changes associated with it. However, the coming of God as man, the Incarnation in a historical situation, is more than an external manifestation. The more significant aspect of it is the inward one, where God enters all human nature and touches humankind in its deepest core and transforms lives for union with him.It is this aspect we see described in Luke's Gospel account of the healing of the paralytic. Not only is the man healed physically, his sins are also forgiven - he is a changed man inside and out - and the onlookers are visibly impressed and moved, enough to be transformed also.