Preparing the Way of the Lord (December 8, 2024)
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 1:68-79; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
What does it mean to say that the calling of John the Baptist was to “prepare the way of the Lord”? For a long time I used to assume that the Lord is about to come to us and so John’s task was to prepare the Lord’s way, to fill in the valleys and bring down the mountaintops and make it easier for the Lord to come to us, whether that was in the time of Jesus, or now at Christmas, or perhaps even when Christ returns at the end of time. I always assumed that it was John’s job, and it is now our job, to make it as easy as possible for the Lord to come to us.
I don’t know if that’s how I heard the role of John the Baptist described in sermons growing up, or if it was just an assumption that I made based on everyday experience. If someone is coming to visit your home, your first impulse is to clean up. Get that dirty laundry off the floor. Wash the dishes, dust the coffee table, make things presentable. If you’re on a deployment and your commanding office is scheduled to show up, or a VIP is coming to visit your workplace or school, it’s only natural to take that as a reason to get things in order. Put a fresh coat of paint on the walls, fix the light fixture that isn’t working, that sort of thing. So I just figured that’s why John the Baptist came along – the Lord is coming to his people, so let’s get whip the people into shape, make a good impression.
But of course this can’t possibly be right. God does not need any help to come to us. The road may be rough and take you through peaks and valleys, but it’s nothing God is unable to handle. And we certainly don’t need to make ourselves presentable before God will come to us. God already knows us better than we know ourselves, God will see right through our pathetic attempts to sit up straight and put on our Sunday best. God already knows where all the messes are in our lives and in our world, and God wants to come and be with us anyway, so who are we trying to kid? God doesn’t need our help in order to come to us.
So what then does it mean that John the Baptist was “the voice crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths”? Well, as Luke reminds us, these words come from the book of the prophet Isaiah, specifically at the beginning of the section that starts in Chapter 40 of that book, which announces the return of the people of Israel from their time of exile in Babylon. Good news: the time of exile is over, the time of forgiveness and new beginnings has arrived, everybody get ready because we’re going home! The good news being announced by the voice crying in the wilderness is not that God is coming to us but that we are going back to the place where we belong, the place that God has created for us, the place that we lost but that God is now bring us back to.
And so the “way of the Lord” is not really the path that God takes to come to us, but the path that the people will take from their place of exile back home, back to Jerusalem. Just like “Richmond Highway” is not the road that Richmond takes to get to us but the road that we take to get to Richmond, “the Way of the Lord” is the path that we take to get to where God is calling us. If the road is rough, and scales mountains and plunges into valleys and takes terrifying curves along the way, let’s fix it up because this road is about to get a lot of traffic and we want everybody to get home safely.
And this, Luke tells us, is the same good news that John the Baptist was announcing in the wilderness. The Kingdom of God that we have been waiting for is at hand. Let’s get on the road and start making our way there. Only this time it’s not a physical road we have to follow, it’s not a matter of a change in physical location. But it is a matter of repentance – which doesn’t mean feeling really bad about bad things you’ve done. It’s about a course correction, facing in the right direction, getting in the right mindset. This is what John’s calling was all about – inviting people to turn around and get their bearings for the new thing that God was about to do.
John proclaimed this message in the wilderness outside of the Promised Land itself, on the other side of the Jordan River north of Jerusalem. I’ve never been there, but I’m told that in parts of that area the Jordan River is not very much of a river. In the dry seasons the river is so shallow you can basically wade right across. According to the book of Joshua, when the people had left Egypt and wandered forty years in the wilderness, this is where they finally entered the Promised Land, by walking across the Jordan River. Walking across the Red Sea was high drama, like in the movies, but walking across the Jordan River wasn’t that big of a deal. In any case, this is where John invited people to embody their change of direction, their refocus and repurposing, walking across the Jordan into the Promised Land like their ancestors, as if for the first time. And this time, when the Lord comes to us, we’ll be ready.
There are times when we need a change of direction more than others, and perhaps we are living through one of those times right now. Opinion polls suggest that large majorities of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, a sense that goes beyond which party is currently or about to be in charge of the government. We have international agreements that defined the maximum amount of global warming we could have without causing permanent, long-term damage, and it seems that this year, 2024, is the first year that we will break through those targets, with no plan in place to avoid catastrophic consequences for the next generations. We are seeing open violence in the streets as people begin to feel that peaceful redress of grievances doesn’t work anymore. Our churches, which ought to be speaking to this moment, are largely empty these days – so clearly a change in direction is needed if we are to witness to God’s presence in a new and unfamiliar time.
And so we I think need to hear what Paul said to the first Christians at Philippi, as we read today, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” We can be confident that God has not stopped acting, that God’s presence is still in our midst, that God’s promises never fail. God will come to be with us in all of our trials and all of our needs, whether we have prepared the way for God or not. But if we want to see what God is doing, if we want to perceive God’s presence and cooperate with God in the new thing that God is doing today, it helps to be looking in the right direction.
This was the good news John came to announce – the voice crying in the wilderness, the Lord is coming, the Lord really is coming, the Lord is truly close at hand, so turn around and be ready to join him as soon as he appears. This is the good news for us to hear as well. As John’s father said at his birth, in the response we read earlier today, don’t be afraid. “In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”