+Luke 3:1-6
Do you remember the first time you heard these words of John the Baptizer? ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’. Or as I first heard it, ‘Prepare ye the Way of the Lord.’ The first time I heard these words with any sort of immediate recollection was when I was six and it wasn’t even in Church and it was my first visit to a theatre! My parents took me to see a local community theater company put on a production of the musical Godspell. In all seriousness hearing those words scared the HECK out of me!! We were sitting in our seats in the darkened theater, the lights had just dimmed and I sat there in that suspended reality of the in-between. We were isolated from the outside and the anticipation of the production weighed heavily on my six-year-old psyche. Just as the darkness was becoming unbearable and I was wondering if something was wrong…John the Baptist belts out a capella one of the signature songs from the production. ‘Prepare ye the Way of the Lord’. It was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. But maybe a little more on the terrifying side.
John the Baptizer is the precursor to Jesus, the forerunner—hence our fixation on John this morning. He is seen as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. You’ll notice that in place of a psalm this morning, we read together the Song of Zechariah—the celebrated words of the father of John the Baptist and (according to Luke’s Gospel) the uncle to Jesus. Hear the words Zechariah said to his infant son, John:
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way…to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death , and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
John, the forerunner to the coming of Christ, is the voice crying out in the wilderness we heard about in our Gospel lesson; he and his voice go before the face of the Lord.
We in this modern world often see the wilderness or the great outdoors as a place of refuge, as place of quiet comfort. And my immediate reaction when I hear these words of Isaiah, through the mouth of John the Baptist, is that John is a pest—up-turning the apple cart, and pestering the people of Palestine. From the bucolic setting of cabins, lakes, and mountain escapes who wouldn’t find any voice crying out in the wilderness as an unwelcome intrusion into our isolated ecstasy, our own personal wilderness. My immediate reaction to this idea of John as something akin to a noisy motorcycle in the distant background during an afternoon hike or a honking car on the Eden’s at the Botanic Gardens! We crave wilderness and the wild and we often seek to bury ourselves and hide from the tortures and ugliness of the outside world and clothe ourselves in natural beauty and remote isolation of the Earth. But in the time of Jesus and John, the wilderness was something very different. It was wild. The wilderness was something to be feared; in the wilderness food was lacking, shelter was equally scarce, and when your identity was inextricable linked to the people you belonged, to be in the wilderness meant you were separated from identity. A scary place to be.
But John’s words are words of comfort. They are words of reassurance that the love of God is coming close, that God’s presence is very near for all to experience. The sound of a voice crying out in the wilderness is as comforting as the call of a parent when one gets lost in the grocery store. Certainly for Isaiah writing in the midst of the Babylonian Exile and for John living under the tyranny of Roman hegemony and the division between temple worship and synagogue, to hear that God was with them and that their Savior was near was a comfort. For a long time John is seen as a crazy-man; he is said to eat locusts and wild honey and dresses himself in camel hair, but like the ancient prophets he is speaking out of love for his people. John cries out in impassioned love and from a desire to let all humanity know that restoration is coming, that health and healing are incipient; that God’s presence was breaking through the skepticism, cynicism and doubt and letting the world know —‘all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ What could be more comforting than to live in the knowledge that ALL flesh, all people, all nations shall see loving salvation of God. Wonderful words coming from a ‘crazy man;’ loving words crying out to ears aching for peace reassurance in uncertain times.
Listen to the comforting words of the prophets even in the midst of the uncomfortable even though all doubt and skepticism makes you want to say no. Listen to the loving call of the prophets calling us into right relationship with our neighbors, with our fellow human beings and with our own planet. Listen to the loving words of our modern prophets like Desmond Tutu, Billy Graham, and even Al Gore’s impassioned plea for environmental responsibility. But also, listen to the prophets who are in our midst, who are part of this community. Listen to the words of Deborah and Bp Daniel crying for help for his people. Listen to the words of Bp. Benito and Angelica calling us to strengthen our bonds of love and fellowship with the parish of Jesus de Nazareth Parish in SE Mexico, and recall earnest and heartfelt words during our stewardship campaign of the work that Christ Church is doing. All these many prophecies speak to the immensity of God’s love for God’s people and the never-ending invitation to become a part of God’s kingdom on earth.
Voices crying in the wilderness are words of comfort even though they may jar us and shake us out of our darkened stupor of hibernation. Listen to the voices in the wilderness, walk toward the voice that guides us to salvation and peace. Prepare ye the way of the lord. We have our way paved already, this center aisle, this is our way to peace. The abundant love of Christ, remembered in our Eucharist, our communion, in our sacrifice of praise and Thanksgiving will pave the path of Christ within us and will inspire us to pave the path of Christ to the end that all people shall see the salvation of God, here, in the flesh, in this lifetime. Prepare ye the way of the lord.
