To close out the third portion of Isaiah, we get these words:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. (Isaiah 64:4-8)

The hope found, even in grief and despair, is the same hope we need this Christmas. We haven’t always lived up to our end of God’s covenant with us, but God is still the ‘potter, and we are the clay.’ Carrying this kind of hope in the midst of the darkness is what we need this Christmas.