Picture a massive road building project cutting through hills and valleys to create a new straight, level road. The vision from Isaiah (Isaiah 40: 1-11) that John the Baptist quotes in our Gospel reading (Mark 1: 1-8) is one that seems to require bulldozers. It reads like the specification for a new motorway or by-pass. “Get the road ready … make a straight path for travel.” “Every valley must be filled up” and “every hill and mountain levelled off.”
John the Baptist uses this image to describe his role in preparing for the coming of Jesus. His aim is for the whole human race to see God’s coming salvation. The idea is that everything that would obscure or obstruct sight of God’s salvation would be torn down or raised up so that throughout the entire world there would be no obstacle able to prevent people from seeing God’s salvation. Everyone should be able to see Jesus because there would be nothing impeding our view; no mountains blocking our vision and no valleys from within which we would be unable to look out. The purpose of John the Baptist’s ministry was that everyone should clearly see who God is and what God does. Picture a vast flat expanse across which the light of Christ can be seen from wherever you stand and you will get the intended idea.
The purpose of this road building project – in other words, the purpose of John the Baptist’s ministry – is that Jesus, God’s salvation, should be plainly seen walking down the road towards us. Everyone is able to see him because there is nothing to block our view; no mountains blocking our vision of Jesus and no valleys from within which we are unable to look out. The purpose of John’s ministry then is that everyone should see Jesus clearly.
So it is worth asking, what are the mountains in our lives that could prevent us from seeing Jesus? John’s ministry was a call to repentance, turning away from all that is wrong in our lives in order to turn to Jesus. The mountains that need to be torn down are the sins that we cling onto, those things that we struggle to renounce or leave behind and which therefore stand in our lives in the place where only God should be; the centre. When we put something or someone at the centre of our lives then that thing or person becomes a barrier which prevents us from seeing God.
As individuals there could be many things which may obscure our vision of Jesus. There might be things in our lives that take precedence over seeking after God. We may have besetting sins; things that we know before God are wrong and yet we are unable to bring ourselves to actually give them up. We might worship our car or home or making money, for example, and our love of these things may prevent us from making our relationship with Jesus our priority. Our priorities may need changing particularly at Christmas when there is so much pressure on us all simply to consume without regard for the person who is actually central to the season.
What might these things be in our lives? Well, that is for us to decide individually, but, in Church history, people have sometimes talked in terms of the seven deadly sins; of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
The words of Isaiah and John also speak about valleys. When we are in a valley we are low down, in a depression, and can’t see a way out; so can’t see God. Here we are not talking about sins which block our view of God, instead we are talking about fears, anxieties, hurts and depressions which bring us down so that we cannot look up and out and see God. What are the fears, anxieties, hurts and depressions in our lives at present? If we want to see God more clearly then we need to be raised up so that we are no longer looking at life from the depths of a depression.
For some of us it may be that instead of barriers between us and Jesus which need to be torn down there are depressions that need to be raised up. Many of us are prevented from seeing Jesus because we feel that we are not good enough to be found in his presence. As a teenager, that was very much how I felt and, for me, those feelings only changed after I felt God speak personally to me in some words from Romans 5: “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” God’s love for us has nothing to do with how we act. None of us are good enough for God and yet he loves us and showed that love by dying for us. I found that love liberating and, for me, it raised me up so that I could begin to see the glory of God in Jesus for myself.
All this talk of tearing down and raising up is not something that is just for us as individuals though. It is also something that needs to go on in our society too and is part of the role that we can play as Christians in society. Think for yourselves for a moment about some of the barriers that need to come down if our society is to fully see the glory of God in Jesus. During my curacy in Barking & Dagenham I chose to get involved in setting up a Faith Forum because I was aware of the many people who equate religion with conflict and, for whom, this idea is a major barrier to their seeing truth in Christianity. To tear down that barrier it was necessary to demonstrate that people of different faiths could live and talk and work together peacefully.
In a similar way, there are many disadvantaged people within society that need to be raised up if they and others are to be able to see the glory of God in Jesus. We have seen this kind of activity before in the involvement of Christians in the abolition of slavery and in the struggle against apartheid. More recently it has been seen in campaigns to make poverty history, with which the Church has been intimately involved.
Tearing down barriers and raising up depressions leads in Isaiah’s vision to a flat land and a straight path. A similar contemporary phrase might be a level playing field; a phrase that comes from our contemporary concern with equality. It seems possible that Isaiah’s vision is suggesting to us that the glory of God can seen in the achievement of equality, as barriers to inequality are torn down and those who have been treated unequally are raised up.
Isaiah’s vision challenges us to look at ourselves and identify where we have barriers or depressions which prevent us from seeing Jesus which need to be dealt with. But his vision also challenges us to be active in our world to address the barriers and inequalities that prevent many from seeing for themselves the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This Advent let us resolve to prepare for Christmas by tearing down barriers and raising up those who are down that we might prepare a level playing field on which all peoples can see the salvation of God.
John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is the construction project for our lives which enables us to see and receive God’s salvation in Jesus. As we turn away from the mountains of sin and the valleys of depression, we turn towards Jesus who stands ever ready to receive us with open arms.
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Steve Bell & Malcolm Guite - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
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