“You better watch out.

Better heed my cry

To start clearing out.

I’m telling you why.

Jesus Christ is coming to town.”

 

OK, I know that’s not the way the song goes.   But that’s what John the Baptist would be singing if he had his way.

Yes, it’s that time of year again when John the Baptist comes intruding into our Christmas preparations, demanding our attention with his loud bellowing.  John is a crazy-looking guy who wears clothes made of camel’s hair and subsists on a diet of locusts and honey, and he shows up in our Scripture lessons every year during Advent.  At just the time we want to focus on the sweet image of the baby lying in a manger, John comes along hollering about sin and selfishness, calling us to repent, and warning us that we must do some serious self-examination in order to be ready for the coming of Christ. 

 

John comes to fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah [40:3-5], which are echoed in this morning’s Old Testament lesson from Malachi [3:1a]; he is a voice calling out in the wilderness to "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 be made straight, and the rough ways be made smooth."

 

Isaiah wrote these words to the ancient Hebrews who were in exile in Babylon.  They had been captured by the Babylonians and taken far away from their homeland, far away from their much-loved city Jerusalem and from their beloved temple.  Many times out there in the wilderness of exile, they felt far away from God, too.

 

They knew that it was their own actions that had landed them in the wilderness.  Ignoring the warnings that had come to them through the prophets, the people had turned away from their God and God’s ways. 

 

But in this morning’s words from Isaiah, God is calling the exiles home: “Comfort, comfort O my people.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, her penalty is paid.”

 

But before they can head out of the wilderness, all the obstacles which block the way back home must be removed.  "Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, and rough ways made smooth." 

 

When Isaiah wrote these words, there were soldiers specially designated to go ahead of a traveling king to smooth out the road for the monarch's chariot.  They leveled hills, filled in ditches and removed all obstacles in the king's way. 

 

In this morning’s Gospel lesson from Luke, John the Baptist lifts the imagery of Isaiah’s mountains and valleys and crooked and rough places from the very real physical geography of ancient Judea and places them in the spiritual geography of the human soul.  He calls for a clearing not of roads, but of hearts.  We are to get rid of everything in our lives that is a barrier to God; all the obstacles that could block the coming of the King of kings into our hearts are to be removed.  And the instrument for clearing the way is the heavy machinery of repentance.

 

In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word for repentance is metanoia, which means literally “to turn around.”  And the reason we need to repent, says John, is because of sin.  Ah, I know what you’re saying about now – “There she goes again, talking about sin” -- right?  But the Scriptures tell us that "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and there is no truth in us" (1 John 1:8).

 

Sin is separation – separation from God, from God’s people, from God’s creation, and from God’s purpose for our lives.  If sin is turning away from God, then repentance is turning around, turning back toward God.

 

The Biblical image of the wilderness is a metaphor for separation and estrangement from God, and I know there are many of us who feel like we’re in the wilderness right now.  Maybe it’s a death, a divorce, a disappointment, a depression that has left us feeling alone and abandoned by God. 

 

The image of the wilderness resonates in us, for we all experience wilderness times in our lives – times of loss and confusion, of sorrow and difficulty, of chaos and disorder.  These wilderness times may happen to us personally, or as a family, a community, or even a nation.  They are times of despair, emptiness, loneliness, fear, insecurity when we feel trapped and overwhelmed by failure, loss, and disappointment.  The Christmas season – supposedly “the most wonderful time of the year” – only accentuates our pain, and we need someone to help us find our way out of the wilderness; we want a Savior so we can find our way back to God. 

 

The message of John is that the road out of the wilderness begins with us, in us, right here in our hearts.  We turn back to God by turning away from everything that is contrary to the way God wants us to live, by clearing away everything that stands between God and us. 

 

Maybe we have some relationships that need mending.  Maybe God has been calling us to act and we've been hesitating.  Maybe we need to let go of something or someone we've been hanging onto for too long.  Maybe we have some unhealthy habits or addictions we need to deal with.  There are mountains and hills in our lives that need to be torn down, pits and potholes that need to be filled in.  All the obstacles that keep us estranged and separated from God are to be cleared away, filled in, straightened out, smoothed over, so that we can come out of the wilderness. 

 

At its heart, Advent is about homecoming – our coming home to God.  And lying in the manger is the One who will lead us there.  Jesus comes into the world to give us hope in troubled times; he comes to guide us out of grief and guilt and despair, to lead us out of the wilderness and back to God who is our home.
 

And so, over these last few weeks leading up to Christmas, let us get ready by preparing the way of our hearts, by filling in the valleys of our failings, by smoothing the rough places of our regret, by straightening out the crooked pathways of our weakness. 

 

Let us get ready for Jesus, who will lead us out of the wilderness and back to the One who welcomes and love us unconditionally, back to the One whose loving arms enfold us, back to the One who whispers in our ear and says, “Welcome home.  I’ve missed you.  Stay with me forever, for this is where you belong.”  Amen.