God Prepares a Way

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Isaiah 40:1-11

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

“Prepare the way of the Lord!” That imperative, that command, rings through all our scripture readings for today, this Second Sunday of Advent. We Christians are perhaps most familiar with that imperative as proclaimed by John the Baptist, preparing the way for the public ministry of Jesus. But the image of a Way prepared for God is far older and far broader than just John the Baptist — and when we look closely at some of those other versions of the image, what we see is not just how we prepare a way for God, but how God prepares a way for us, how God is at work in the world to open for us the way to become more alive, more compassionate, more just, more peaceable, more like the fully realized people God gives us the potential to be. Advent is our season for witnessing how God prepares the way for our fulfillment, both now in this mortal life, and in the greater life that is yet to come.

How God prepares the way for us is the theme of our scripture readings today. And what these readings tell us is that the Way God prepares is not always easy, it’s not always gentle and quiet and free of risk; but God’s way is trustworthy, and God’s way is sure, and God’s way will lead to a reality where righteousness is at home.

That message really comes through in our First Testament lesson today, this passage from the 40^th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 40 is the point at which the whole book of Isaiah turns, it shifts its direction suddenly from being a dire warning to the people that they must turn from their wickedness and follow God before God’s punishment falls upon them, and suddenly becomes a book of comfort, a series of prophecies that promise God’s consolation for the people, God’s restoration of the people. God promises to build a Way, a highway in the desert, that will bring the Jewish people back from their exile in Babylon to their home in Jerusalem, a Way that will bring all people back from their estrangement from God to their home in God’s love. A voice cries out to the heavenly powers: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” And on that divinely built highway, God himself “will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

The imagery of God’s Way in the desert is very familiar to us — perhaps even too familiar. It is so familiar to us that I think sometimes we miss the disturbing, the shocking dimension in these words. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low,” the prophet says, “the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” Think for a moment about what those words really mean, not just the beauty they lend to Handel’s Messiah, but the concrete scene they describe: mountains shaking to their very roots, falling down to become flat ground; valleys heaving up in monstrous earthquakes to become level with the plain. It’s a pretty frightening set of images. We had a small earthquake here in Virginia last summer — you can still see the cracks it left in the patio behind the rectory — and that little temblor was scary enough. Imagine if you looked up one day and saw the Blue Ridge mountains shaking, sliding, tumbling down to become level ground; imagine if our whole Shenandoah Valley were suddenly heaved up to make an even plain; imagine if Highway 250, winding its way through valley and ridgetop, were suddenly made straight and even and level and unimpeded. I’d be pretty scared if I saw all that happening. Isaiah describes a fearsome upheaval in the natural order of things, a terrifying disruption in the way-things-are, when God prepares a Way to bring his people home.

And even if we take the images strictly metaphorically, they still describe a terrible disruption in the lives of the people the prophet is addressing: many of the Jews of Second Isaiah’s time had grown comfortable in Babylon: some had risen to high positions in the Babylonian government, many had grown wealthy in Babylonian commerce. Going back to Judea to rebuild a ruined Jerusalem would have been a pretty scary prospect to many of them, as scary as watching mountains tumble and valleys rise.

But the meaning of these images, Isaiah says, is not fear or terror; the meaning is comfort, the meaning is consolation, the meaning is strengthening the people to put their trust in God and do the work God has given them to do. The prophet’s vision is that upheavals and disruptions and dislocations in our comfortable and settled lives can be God’s very way of preparing the path that will lead us to greater life. And the prophet’s message is that if we will trust in God’s way, if we will put our feet on God’s highway in the wilderness, then we too can be gathered into a City of Peace, where the glory of God shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together. The Way that God prepares is not always easy, but the Way of God will lead us to larger life.

And that is how we can come to know God’s Way with us, too. We may not be looking for a return from exile, as Isaiah’s people were; but we do know what it is like to live in a world of upheaval, we do know what it is like to experience disruptions and dislocations in our lives — and we too are called to let God shake us out of our comfortable, complacent routines and lead us on the highway through the desert to a larger way of life.

A friendship is damaged by betrayal or anger; but that dislocation also opens the opportunity for reconciliation, and a deeper commitment, and a friendship that is stronger in the long run.

A family is disrupted by alcoholism or addiction; but the pain of intervening in addictive behaviors becomes the way into recovery, the way to greater freedom and more genuine love for everyone in the family system.

An individual comes to a time of illness or loss or sadness or grief, when a whole entire life seems turned upside down; but that dislocation and disruption become the way of discovering a new sense of self, a new way of life, a new height of faith, a new depth of love.

A church finds its customs and habits challenged by changing patterns of participation, and shifting expectations of membership, and an increasing percentage of the general population who say that church and religion don’t really mean much of anything to them anyway; but facing those challenges opens a way for that church to move beyond “We’ve always done it that way,” and to become more intentional about the practices of its faith, and the centrality of prayer, and its mission to be Jesus for the world.

We know what it is like to live in a world of upheaval, to live lives touched by disruption and dislocation — so to us as well these scriptures speak, and promise that in the wilderness God prepares a Way, in the deserts and wastes and scary places of our lives, God makes the pathway straight; when everything around us seems to be dissolving and withering away, God is preparing the new possibility that will bring us into a larger life. For us, too, the message is that we may put our trust in God and do the work God gives us to do, we may strive to live lives of holiness and godliness now, looking ahead to when the fullness of grace will be revealed. For us, too, the message is “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God — because in your wilderness, too, the Way of the Lord is being prepared.” And that is the spirit of Advent we are invited to receive and embrace and live this day.