Have you found yourself in such intense struggle you could barely find a path forward? All you could see were obstacles in your way? In Sunday’s lectionary passage, when John the Baptist says, “I am a voice crying out in the wilderness,” he is recalling a passage from Isaiah 40 when the prophet uses these same words. Isaiah spoke to Israel during a painful time of exile in Babylon. Led away as captives, they were forced out of their homeland. But Isaiah reassures them that not only will God rescue them, he will make the path home smooth—as though every mountain has been removed: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places like a plain” (Isa 40:4).
When John the Baptist says the words, “I am a voice crying out in the wilderness,” he speaks to people in Palestine in Jesus’ day who face similar dramatic obstacles. But instead of telling people that God will smooth out the path for them, he tells them to smooth out the path for Jesus. He says: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” In ancient paintings, John the Baptist is often depicted as pointing to Jesus. In this passage, when officials ask John “who are you?” Are you Messiah? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? John says no every time. Because, in his essence, he is there to point to Jesus. He uses the Isaiah passage to exhort the people to prepare the way for Jesus by removing obstacles to transformation—as though they are leveling mountains.
Removing Obstacles Prepares Us to Experience ‘Arrival’
Advent (meaning “arrival”) time, when we prepare the way for Jesus’ coming, is a time to remove obstacles to that arrival. It’s a time to reflect on what our particular obstacles are, how we put up barriers to the arrival of God’s intimate presence in our own lives. And to ask how we have become like the inn keepers who barred the door to Mary and Joseph prior to the momentous birth. How can we be more like the shepherds in the field who heard of Jesus’ birth and did all they could to attend to it? So many of the narratives of Christmas resound with this theme. They depict people who are either ready for the arrival of Emmanuel (“God with us”) or those like Herod, who are so opposed to that arrival that they make craven efforts to stop it. They depict people like the prophets Simeon and Anna in the Temple, who recognized immediately that Jesus was the awaited one; and the wise men, who recognized Jesus’ world-changing importance. The whole point of Advent is a time of preparation for Jesus’ arrival into our own hearts and lives. How can we bring down obstacles we erect between ourselves and God? How can we remove the mountains and make the paths level and clear? This, at its heart, is what Advent asks of us.
Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal
Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.
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