"Mail Early" is a slogan we often see and hear during these Advent days. The Postal Service would like the four billion Christmas cards sent annually in America in the mail by this second Sunday in Advent. American families send Christmas greetings costing an average of 35 cents per card plus a 32 cent stamp to send it. This amounts to a cost of $2.68 billion. That is a tremendous amount of money, time and trouble invested in just sending season's greetings to friends and families. What message could be worth that amount?

This is the season to send a message to each other. What are we saying on these Christmas cards in a period of bad times? Are we saying "Cheer up" or "Sorry about that misfortune" or with Job's wife, "Curse God and die"? Isaiah had this problem, too. When Deutero-Isaiah wa…