Preparing the Way
Luke 3:1-6
Philippians 1:4-11
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene — during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’” (Luke 3:1-6, NIV)
In the year of our Lord, Two-thousand, eighteen . . . when world leaders met in Argentina for the G-20 . . . in the third year of Donald Trump's presidency . . . when Jared Polis was elected governor of Colorado . . . when Francoise Bettencourt Meyers was named the richest woman in the world . . . when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was in the 5th year of his papacy as Pope Francis . . . and in Joel Osteen's 19th year of pastor at Lakewood in Houston . . . the word of God came to John, living in a small, nondescript town apart from the centers of power and wealth.
While the names and titles in Luke's litany are mostly foreign to us, taken together they are Luke's way of reminding us who truly controls in human history . . . not presidents and kings and the wealthy and religious leaders.
No. God grants the course of history, not humans. And rather than visiting traditional halls of power, God chooses to bring reveal God's-self to John in the obscurity of desert.
John is an ordinary man living an ascetic life, stirred by the word of the Lord to proclaim a message that would prepare people to see God's anointed.
Preparation is John's message. Get ready. Wait, but in waiting, straighten what has become crooked. Bring down what has become high. Raise up what has fallen into disrepair.
Advent waiting is preparation, the preparation John proclaimed. And what has to be prepared? I do. And you. The road he describes is the way into you, the road into your interior. Make it straight, stop being crooked. Don't be too high and proud. Don't be too low and full of shame. Don't litter the way with impediments.
Because the One who is coming wants to enter you!!
As Paul says in the Philippians text, the Spirit who began this good work in you is going to bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6).
For Reflection:
Today is a time to prepare the road into your interior. Is there anything high in you that has been unduly inflated? Is there shame that keeps you lower than you truly are? Is there anything crooked that needs to be straightened? Today we make ourselves ready for the One who seeks to come to us.
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