Readings
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Today I want to start with the passage we heard from Isaiah. “A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”
Because of our tradition, it would be easy to jump to John the Baptist when hearing this all too familiar passage from Isaiah. But Isaiah wrote this centuries before John and is speaking a word of hope to the Israelites. Written during the exile in Babylon, this is meant to be comfort to the broken hearted. It is offered to give encouragement when all seems lost.
In verse 3 we hear a voice cry out in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord. He speaks of valleys being raised up and mountains leveled. This is nothing less than a total transformation of reality. It is the promise to ancient Israel that their home will be restored and what is alien will once again become familiar. It is the promise that what was once hard will be made easy.
And in the midst of this passage, we hear the reality of the human condition. The deep reality that we are mortal and that like the grass we wither away. But the promise of Isaiah’s vision is that God will not abandon us, and the mortality of our bodies is not the whole story. No, in Isaiah’s vision God leads all his people into a place of comfort, sustenance, and rest.
We need remember this vision of Isaiah when looking at John the Baptist. Because we know the other versions of his story we see his message and the message of Isaiah tied together. We can confuse them and think that the passage quoted from Isaiah references a cataclysm that is to come. But if we do then we miss the point.
No, even though John came proclaiming repentance and offering a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, we must remember that his too was ultimately a vision of comfort. Rather than just a transformation of the world around him, he sought the transformation of the people to whom he proclaimed. His message was one of hope and comfort for the people based on their relationship to God.
But let’s be honest, by our standards today, John the Baptist is a strange guy. He lived the life of a hermit in the wilderness, wore rough clothes, ate bugs, and had, by all accounts, a fiery message that both scared and motivated people to come to terms with their sins. If he were alive today we would, to say the least, find him suspect.
But, as I have already said, in his own context, John was a prophetic voice, who like the prophets who came before him firmly believed that God was at work in the world and was bringing about a total transformation of everyone and everything. In the end John points to Jesus as the one who will bring this transformation.
In the wake of John’s message what do we do? Is it simply enough to patiently wait for Christmas? Is it enough to simply wait for the second coming of Christ at the end of all time? Or does the voice of John the Baptist ring in our hearts a need for self-examination, repentance, and openness to the living presence of God where we least expect to find it?
The one who John proclaimed not only has come but, in our day and time, is still coming. The living Christ is still breaking into our lives every day if we but have the faith to see it. Christ is waiting to baptize us with the Holy Spirit so that we, like John, might proclaim his coming and be his hands and heart in this broken and hurting world.
Take comfort, my friends. May we with patience wait for the transformative in-breaking of Christ in our lives. May we have the vision to see that God is at work in the world and in us as well. Let us know that our difficulties will be eased, and we will be restored to wholeness. Yes, beloved, God is at hand, ready to enter into the world, ready to bring us transformation, wholeness, and hope.