A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 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.
5 Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Isaiah 40:3-5
As I sit here at my dining room table looking out my windows to the foot of snow sitting on the ground, I begin to ponder the work needed to shovel my driveway. With the depth of snow and the possible ice underneath, our cars are going to have great difficulty getting to the road. I will have to shovel the concrete to make the driveway clear for the tires to grip and I will have to brush and scrape the cars to be able to get in them and to be able to see out of the windshield where we are going. We are not going to be able to just hop in and drive to work or school, I have work to do before that happens. I must prepare to drive.
Just as I must prepare the driveway and cars to drive after a blizzard, so too did Israel need to prepare for God’s return to them, in the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD. I must shovel the snow to make a path for our cars, Israel was called by a voice in the wilderness to make a path for the LORD to return. Being in Babylon meant that if God was to return to them, the road was through the desert or wilderness. But the people were called to prepare the road for God’s coming, to shovel the snow so that God has a path. Just as it is with Israel, so too is it with the church. Advent is about shoveling the snow, or making a path, or preparing the road for God’s coming to us as Jesus of Nazareth.
In our text from Isaiah, the two main images of roadwork the people are called to do are leveling and smoothing: 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. What are the hills and valleys in our lives that we might need to correct or to level to prepare for Jesus’ coming? Have we been praying, studying, worshiping, and serving? Do we have holes in our discipleship or mountains standing in the way of following Jesus’ commands? What is rough that needs to be made smooth? We pray but is it always? We study but do we know more than we knew a year ago? We worship but is it every Lord’s Day, in community, and is it every day, in our families? We serve but is it to the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, or imprisoned? The preparations we need to make for the coming of Christ are to start doing what we have not been doing and to do better what we currently are doing: to level/fill and to sand.
Here we come to our problem surrounding Christmas, we think of cookies, presents, decorations and cards as our preparations for Christmas instead of the work of repentance. We have forgotten that Christmas is about the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. Christmas is about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, the Coming of God to his people. This is what the Angels announced to shepherds in the desert with the Glory of God in the skies. God is here among us. This is what we truly need to prepare for and to take this as seriously if not more seriously than hams, trees, and football games: the revelation of God in glory and everyone will see it.
Are you ready? What preparations for the coming of Christ do we need to make? What needs leveled or filled, what needs smoothed, what needs to be prioritized to be ready for the coming of Christ? More prayer, more study, more worship, more service? Maybe even to start doing these things that we have never done, or begin doing them again if we stopped? Now is the time to prepare the road for Christ’s coming, but it isn’t your driveway that needs shoveled, it is your hearts that need shoveled. Now is the time to prepare, will you be ready? Amen.
In Christ, Rev. Mark
Thank you