Preparing the Way (Advent 2C)

Scripture Reading

Luke 3:1–6 ESV

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

Opening Greeting

“Grace and peace to you from God who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead” (Revelation 1:4, 5 ESV). Amen.

Narrative Introduction

Ah…the season of Advent! The ground is white, the candles are lit, and we’re all kicking off the snow on our boots and putting away our coats as we walk in the door. It’s a season of longing and waiting, of hope, of expectation and joy, a season of light! …Except that for many of us here in the United States, our typical experience of this season often seems exactly the opposite: it becomes a time of fast-paced rushing from one place to another, a time saturated with material greed and envy, a time where the weather is cold and dark for seemingly endless stretches.

If you’re like me, often this is the time of the year that you take the pilgrimage back to wherever it is you came from, and while most recently that has meant long drives, there was a time where I participated in the annual flight back to my family during the holidays. Anybody else taken the holiday journey?

You know what’s it like! The airport is packed, the airplanes are packed, the suitcases are packed. Nobody wants to sit still with any sort of patience during the multi-hour trip that our ancestors would marvel at if they were alive today. And all through the journey we meet so many that help get us from one place to another: the people at the ticketing counter ready to take our bags; the TSA security officers we’re not making direct eye contact with (or perhaps making too much direct eye contact with) so they don’t pick us for a “random screening”; the gate-side check-in attendants ready to make sure we actually end up in Florida or Wisconsin or Oregon or wherever we intend to go and not the other side of the world; the in-flight crew there to make our voyage comfortable (and scold us when we’re out of our seats at the wrong time); even the pilots speak to us on the intercom throughout the flight and greet us after we’ve landed safely. But with so many people involved in supporting the journey, there’s one person—out on the tarmac—someone we never meet who is crucial to getting us on the right track…the aircraft marshal.

We’ve all seen them outside our oval windows, waving their orange wands around in some sort of liturgical dance, wearing their odd-looking clothes. But their purpose is significant. You see, they are there to prepare the way, to guide the people, to make the path straight for our journey home.

Ancient Context of the Text

400 years before his birth, John the Baptist was prophesied by Malachi, the final prophet of the Old Testament:

Malachi 3:1 ESV

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

Time and time again, God’s chosen people had fallen away from their creator. Time and time again, the Lord raised up messengers to call them back to him. And then, silence. After God delivered his final message through the prophet Malachi, he paused in his communications through men for the next four hundred years. His silence must have been deafening to the Jewish people — some demanded that he act as he had always acted… others probably felt that man was too sinful to hear from him, and that it was their lack of faith that was the cause of God’s silence and apparent inactivity. And then Jesus’ cousin, John, was born.

The work of John the Baptist and Christ

John enters the scene to a Jewish people convinced that the time of prophets is over. They’re in cold darkness. They’re living under occupation, and they’re concerned with material and physical possessions, deliverance, envy of power and authority. They are in a fast-paced rush from one teacher and “messiah” to another. It’s a wilderness.

And John appears wearing “a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” –his own strange clothes and props by the way (Matthew 3:4 ESV). And John preaches—he proclaims—“a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3 ESV)—a washing to purify themselves, to make themselves clean. And this repentance he preaches literally means to take a different path, a new path. You see, John is preparing the way for something—someone—great to come: “he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry” (Matthew 3:11 ESV).

The long and short of it is this, God’s silence was a part of his eternal plan. He had spoken on numerous occasions and through various people, but he was now preparing to speak his greatest and most powerful Word to mankind through his Son, Jesus Christ. The 400-year “pause” added incredible emphasis to his monumental revelation. And John was there to make the path straight.

What happens next

Luke 1:76–79 ESV

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The difference between this new path, this new covenant, and the one that Israel knew before is that it was a gift, a final fulfillment of a messiah who had come with tender mercy and grace to be the ultimate salvation, the ultimate deliverance—to usher in a new and lasting reign on the world, not a temporary one halted by their failings in the law. Christ has delivered us from it all.

The gospel for us

This advent, we remember Christ as the light in the darkness, as the fulfillment of hope for God’s people 2000 years ago, but we also remember that Christ is coming back again. We, too, are preparing for his light to shine for all eternity upon those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death.

If you go on your flight this winter, look outside your window at the aircraft marshals. In the winter, in the darkness, it often takes up to 6 of them to help a large plane navigate the path in the snow. Christ has called us to prepare for his return, to gather around the table, to proclaim his word, to baptize in his name. We, like John, are preparing the way in the snowy, dark, wilderness of our time, preparing for Christ who is the way, preparing for our eternal home. We are the aircraft marshals of this world. And yet here’s the beauty: in our weakness, in our failings, in our struggles and doubts, the Lord gives us a hallowed promise: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’” (Luke 3:4b-6 ESV).

Closing prayer

Father God, “may [our] love abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that [we] may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, [all for your] glory and praise” (Philippians 1:9-11 ESV). Amen.