Prepare ye the way of the Lord

Isaiah had a vision: it was one of peace, one in which the predator and prey were safe, where no thing and no one hurt or destroyed on the holy mountain of God.

In 700 B.C.E., Israel had been engaged in conflict with other nations for 40 years, first the Assyrians, then the Egyptians, then the Assyrians again, and then the Egyptians. Isaiah was tired of war, of battles, of death.

Isaiah longed for peace

Isaiah’s dream of peace was ideal: the lamb and the leopard shall lie down together. The small child shall play with wasps and not be stung, over snakes’ dens and not be harmed. What does it take to have peace? Isaiah’s recipe for peace was the power of the Spirit of God. The messiah, according to Isaiah would have the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the compassion of God.

700 years later, John the Baptist dressed for serious preaching, in the tradition of the prophets, called for repentance, for preparation for the Lord, the Messiah. John’s vocation was to lead the heart of everyone who would listen to the place where God can speak and be heard. The heart is here a metaphor for the core of spiritual being. Repentance is a change of heart that leads to a change of behavior. Preparing the way is difficult – it requires that we find time to be still, to listen to God, and to be stirred in our inner most self. It means taking time away from all the hectic pace of work and preparation for the “events of Christmas” and let God prepare a place in our heart for the king of kings and Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace. It means taking our sin seriously and being willing to repent!

Repentance is not a simple, I’m sorry, without a sincere sorrow for the wrongs done by intent or neglect. It is not enough to apologize when we have no plan to act differently. The first time we hurt a family member or friend we may do so with innocence, without intent, but if we repeat the injury with foreknowledge that it is harmful and hurtful, then the sin is deliberate. While we are assured that God is more than willing to forgive us when we wander far from God, we should not expect a blanket credit card to cover all our omissions and commissions without true and sincere repentance. Repentance means turning around, changing our mind, heart, and behavior. If we expect sincere apology to mean an honest effort not to repeat the same error, then we too should mean it when we say we confess that we have not loved God with all our heart, our entire mind and our neighbors as ourselves.

John the Baptist exposed the false claims of kings, possessions, and positions that have captured our allegiance. John the Baptist is not willing to let us get away with self-deception but unmasks the falseness and lays it bear, so that by honest awareness we can truly repent and turn to the Lord. That is preparing the way.

How do we prepare? We shop until we drop. We clean the house, put out fresh, seasonal towels, hang new decorative wreaths on the door, put lights on the house, trees, shrubs, and dress up our houses, cars, trucks, and lives for Santa. How much preparation are you putting toward the coming of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Prince of Peace? Is the coming of the Lord of hosts as important in your heart of hearts as getting everyone at least a satisfactory gift if not the perfect one? Have we spent time in prayer and study to appreciate this year as if for the first time the miracle of birth celebrated on Christmas? God is patient and gentle, forgiving and compassion, and yes, God will forgive us for putting spiritual matters aside while we shop and cook and decorate. God will wait.

It is not mere literary license to have John the Baptist in the desert, eating locust and honey. The desert is the traditional place of cleansing. Prophets for ages have gone away from the crowds, from the demands others put on us, to be still and know God. The hermits went into the desert to study the word of God, to pray, to fast, and to care for the work of the soul. The desert helps purify and simplify, to realize what is good and essential and realign our lives so God can come in and share the love and peace we so desire.

The value of spiritual reflection, confession and repentance is that we can clean out the garbage and make room for God. We sense in repentance the promise that God is present, waiting to abide in us, with us, and make us whole. When the Spirit of the Prince of Peace lives inside you, it results in righteousness – right relationship between people, between nations, and between God and us. To keep peace and right relations requires being willing to forgive hurts and injury.

The Spirit of Peace also requires justice…there will be no peace without justice. God cares about and is aware of the poor people living on this earth our island home. Their hunger, their lack of clean water, adequate housing, gainful employment, the whole web of social justice matters to God. When you let the Prince of Peace dwell in you, you will notice injustice, and work for justice. You have to work for justice: it is not one of those things that happen spontaneously.

Things are not yet what they will be when the Kingdom comes….so we wait…as if it is something we need not work for … because God and only God, and God alone can bring it to fulfillment. While that is in part true, it is not consistent with the Gospel accounts. In the Gospels Jesus trained disciples to do the work of ministry, and after the resurrection, commissioned mere men and women to go into all the world, preach the gospel, baptize, and Jesus, the risen Lord promised to be with them until the end of the age. The kingdom has come near, in Christ, and the kingdom work is given to the church to continue in the Spirit of Christ. We are representatives of the kingdom today. We are those who live and move and have our being in Christ. We live in the faith of Christ. We have the Spirit of Christ.

It is a serious thing to understand that we represent Christ to the world. What has to change to represent the kingdom faithfully? Matthew 3:8 says, bear fruit worthy of repentance. In Isaiah, it is knowledge that brings about change. The Spirit of the Lord fills the earth with peace, so knowledge of the Lord and peace is one of the fruits John the Baptist is talking about.

Repentance is the lifestyle of people living in the kingdom now. By repenting we prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. That means we allow God to act in God’s way. We turn away from the distractions and turn toward God. We open to God’s love, redemption, forgiveness, and peace. We wait for the coming of the Christ child, as a small vulnerable baby, the Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, God with us.

Prepare the way of the Lord – make his paths straight!