Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On December 4, 2005

By Pastor Thomas C. Davis

Texts:

Isaiah 40: 1-11

Voice 1:  Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.  A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."  A voice says, "Cry out!"

Voice 2:  And I said, "What shall I cry?"  All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

Voice 1:  (Yes), the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.  Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, "Here is your God!"  See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.  He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

2 Peter 3: 8-15  (From the paraphrase version of the Bible called "The Message", by Eugene Peterson)

Don't overlook the obvious here, friends.  With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day.  God isn't late with his promise as some measure lateness.  God is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the end because he doesn't want anyone lost.  He's giving everyone space and time to change.  But when the day of God's judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief.  The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of judgment.  Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life?  Daily expect the day of God, eager for its arrival.  The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day?but we'll hardly notice.  We'll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.

Sermon Text

As Alice and I prepared to fly to California to spend Thanksgiving with our new daughter-in-law and her parents and our son, Adam, we couldn't help noticing that Christmas was racing toward us, full speed.  There were decorations in the airports, and holiday music to put us in a buying spirit?all this well before Advent, the season of our waiting for the Lord.  This morning we read a familiar Advent text from the prophet Isaiah, the one that bids Christians:  "Prepare the way of the Lord!"  But what does that mean?  What are we to do to prepare for the Lord's coming?

The prophet Isaiah complained that his fellow citizens weren't ready to deal with that question.  People are like grass, he complained to God.  They are frail in spirit.  They don't stay with anything very long.  They are here today, gone tomorrow.  Isaiah whined:  "How am I to preach about being patient and faithful and constant to people like that?

God replied to the reluctant prophet:  O.K., you're right, Isaiah.  People are like grass; some of them, anyway.  But I'm not!  And I'm determined to turn things around.  So, don't be drug down by the frail and the fickle.  Shout my good news from the rooftops to anyone who has ears to hear!  Here's the news:  God is coming to comfort you.  God is coming to enfold you, the way a mother sheep bends her body around her lambs to protect them.  Don't be discouraged by all the craziness around you, especially by the ridiculous message that you have to buy love.  Don't be intimidated by violent people.  Don't be worn down by your daily struggle to survive.  In short, dear people, hang in there!  God has not forgotten you.  God loves you, and will come to you and gather you together, to save you.  Oh, and there is one more thing:  While you're waiting, you could make my way a little easier, fill in the hollow places and pull down the barriers to my progress.  There's work to be done while you wait.  Don't stand around with your hands in your pockets.  Prepare the way of the Lord.  Make an expressway for God, a highway through your wilderness.

In Peter's time people get tired of waiting.  Some got so tired they became cynical, and they scoffed at the very idea that Jesus was ever coming back.  "Oh yeah," they railed, "what's taking God so long then?  The Messiah was supposed to save the world a long time ago.  Our ancestors thought he was coming back right away to mop up; but did he?  No!  So, this is just silly pie-in-the-sky talk.  There won't be any second coming.  That's baloney!" 

Well, that's the noise Peter had to deal with, just a generation after the church began.  Your can read about it in the verses that lead up to this morning's passage.  And here's how Peter answered the cynics:  "Who are you to figure God's timing?  God alone knows when the end will come, so don't prance, you fancy pants!  The prophets bid us to wait, and so we shall?patiently, faithfully." 

Peter also consoled himself and other patient Christians by looking forward to a violent punishment for all the fancy pants.  Down through the ages, weary, waiting people have tended to console themselves that way, by beating the apocalyptic drum, and preaching that God is going to rain down destruction on evil doers and scoffers.  I for one do not find that sort of message comforting.  Peter obviously took some comfort in it, but I don't.  I believe Jesus' message was that the transformation of humankind will come by way of people appreciating and accepting the mercy of God, letting that mercy transform them inwardly.  God didn't save the world through violence at Jesus' first coming, and I don't expect God to save the world through violence the second time around.  I don't believe that violence promotes good, whether it's violence inflicted by human beings or God. 

This is an important matter, for the way we conceive of Jesus' second coming will surely influence the way we wait.  If we believe that certain people are done-for, that they are too evil to save, that they are consorts of the devil and deserve destruction, then of course we will not reach out to them and try to work with them toward a more just and peaceful world.  I don't believe that this is what old Isaiah intended when he told us to prepare the way of the Lord; do you?  Did he mean that we should circle the wagons, and pray down destruction on those who don't agree with us?  Did Jesus ever tell his disciples to conduct themselves that way?  Not that I have heard.  No, he told them to love each other.  And he told them to love even their enemies. 

Filling in the hollow places and pulling down the barriers to the Lord's progress, making an easy way through the wilderness, that's the work of peacemakers.  Let's continue with that work, Hanover.  Let's continue to wait patiently, faithfully, not with our hands in our pockets, but doing the reconciling work of Jesus as we wait for the redemption of our world.