"Prepare the way for the LORD."
Luke 3:4
Again we take another look at yesterday's Gospel text. There is
something persistently compelling about the figure of John the Baptist
with his wild-eyed, locust eater, wrapped in animal skins, roaming
about on the margins of the civilized world, pointing an accusing
finger at the complacent of his day. His ministry was in the wilderness
and he spoke as a voice from the wilderness.
It may be possible, as we prepare for the coming of Christ this season,
that the voice that inspires us and instructs us in straightening the
paths of our hearts may very will be a voice from the wilderness. It
may be the voice of a stranger who has . . .
"Prepare the way for the LORD."
Luke 3:4
Again we take another look at yesterday's Gospel text. There is something persistently compelling about the figure of John the Baptist with his wild-eyed, locust eater, wrapped in animal skins, roaming about on the margins of the civilized world, pointing an accusing finger at the complacent of his day. His ministry was in the wilderness and he spoke as a voice from the wilderness.
It may be possible, as we prepare for the coming of Christ this season, that the voice that inspires us and instructs us in straightening the paths of our hearts may very will be a voice from the wilderness. It may be the voice of a stranger who has been battered, abused or forgotten. Perhaps it will be the voice of a marginalized part of ourselves crying out to be attended to or healed. Whatever the voice, John's eccentric person, the radical insistence of his call, invites us to being our preparations at the margins, in the wilderness of our lives. God meets us there, not as familiar friend but as unexpected invitation, as a beckoning call to fill the valleys and level the mountains of our lives so that Christ the King might enter by the long, wide, level road our hearts.
On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
Announces that the LORD is nigh;
Awake and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings of the King of kings!
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: God of the wilderness, gives us ears to hear the cries of the forgotten and marginalizes our world and our hearts.