Making a Way for Peace
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness;
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
At the beginning of the Advent season, we often hear from John the Baptist. He is preaching in the wilderness to a lot of interesting people, kind of like you and me. He quotes Isaiah and utilizes familiar imagery from the world of that ancient prophet.
Great kings of those days, from Babylon and Persia for example, would occasionally venture out from their palatial estates to visit the provinces of their enormous empires.
To accommodate the king and his vast entourage, a roadway either had to be hugely improved or constructed outright. The crooked landscape needed to be made straight, the valleys lifted up and the mountains brought low. In other words, engineers, workers and hardworking, regular people created a new thing; in the wilderness, a highway for the king was made level, smooth and regally proper.
John’s image from Isaiah conveys a similar idea. We’ve got some good work to do. Together, we can make a way, anticipate, be ready. We can learn to see beyond ourselves and to share in glad partnership. We can imagine and then accomplish better actions and interactions. And we can labor together to make our encounters graceful, purposeful and accessible.
We are called to a grand preparation, readiness and work for a presence beyond ourselves. In royal anticipation, we can become a people of peace, an offering of God’s surprising grace to those around us. Let us prepare the way for Jesus in the hearts and lives of others – and ourselves.
“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me ...”
David Jordan
Senior Pastor