This week’s gospel reading is the familiar account of the appearance of John the Baptist in the Judean desert, here translated wilderness. Luke employs the language of Isaiah, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” This is the classic promise of God spoken through the prophets to the people Israel over their history, that they will be delivered from that which besets them, from that under which they are oppressed. The context of Isaiah’s prophecy is the captivity in Babylon. For Luke the context is the brutal occupation of Palestine by the Romans and their Jewish vassals.
To my mind there are several theological points to be made here. The word for voice in the Greek can also mean thunder. Eugene Peterson, biblical scholar and translator, in his New Testament translation names this scene “thunder in the desert.” Often in scripture the voice of God is likened to thunder. So there is an admonition here to listen up. Listen to the thunder out there in the deserts, the wildernesses of the world…That is where God shows up; those are the places God enters this world….God comes via the margins of existence to begin the world’s salvation there….among the undignified, among the poor and disenfranchised, the infirm and lonely…It is among these the least of us for whom God thunders, “prepare the way.”
So we are not passive bystanders to this thunderous message. The command is for all the faithful to make way for this coming restoration. It is a thunderous call to vocation. It is for us to be at work enabling this gracious new order to take shape…in our personal lives, in our businesses and professions, as a community who believes that this vision of a just and peaceful world is indeed possible. In this season of Advent, we are to wait and watch and listen for the thunder, and when we hear it, get busy clearing the way for God’s gracious commonweal that breaks upon us.
In our personal lives and families as well….listen for the thunder from the places we’d rather avoid… from the wilderness and desert places of our lives listen for the thunder, for there God is showing up to release us from that which enslaves us….and as citizens of God’s coming commonweal, pay attention, listen for the thunder….and when you hear it spring to the responsibility of enacting God’s vision for our world in our own day…..listen for the thunder just out there.
