Make Straight The Path

Today’s readings: Psalms 104; 150, Isaiah 40:1-11, Hebrews 1:1-12, John 1:1-7, 19-20, 29-34

The prophet Isaiah, when addressing the exiled nation of Israel, talked about preparing a highway for the Lord. Mountains would be leveled and valleys filled in anticipation of His arrival. In that time and place, kings who planned to travel over difficult terrain would send workers out ahead of them to prepare the path for smooth travel. John the Baptist quotes Isaiah in expectation of the arrival of Christ, crying: “Make straight the way of the Lord!” (John 23) While Christ traveled many literal roads, God certainly doesn’t need a highway to enter any part of the world. What might it mean for us to prepare the way of the Lord?

Isaiah and John were both speaking to people living under oppression. The valleys and mountains represented obstacles that kept the people from experiencing the justice of God’s kingdom. Making them straight meant removing sources of injustice. It’s tempting to interpret the mountains as wealth and the valleys as poverty, and the leveling as an equalization, but justice is about more than wealth redistribution. Justice is about seeing and treating each other as the equally loved children of God that we are.

What obstacles do we need to remove today? Racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, religious intolerance – these and other forms of oppression continue to exist. Laws may prohibit them, but not truly stop them. The poor and imprisoned can become trapped in legal but unmerciful systems designed to keep them poor and imprisoned. Human justice exists in courts, while God’s justice resides in our hearts.

The task of working for justice may seem as insurmountable as literally filling valleys and razing mountains, but as the king never sent out just one guy into the wilderness to ready the whole path, neither do we do it alone. Only a few of us are called to be on the front line leading the way, but each of us is called to participate in the successful completion of the project. Making straight the way of the Lord requires a community willing to band together to brave the wild places in our society. These places may be in our homes, our workplaces, our municipalities, or even our churches.

Where will you plant your shovel?

Evening readings: Psalm 29