GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 3:4-6
4 As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. 5 Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places made smooth. 6 And all flesh shall see God’s salvation.’”
John the Baptist understood that the first part of Isaiah 40 was about him, personally. He said so when a group of Pharisees asked him who he was and what he was doing: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’” (John 1:23). All four Gospels quote these words from Isaiah 40:3-5, or a part of them, and apply them to John the Baptist just as John himself did. The Hebrew text has “In the wilderness” as part of what was being cried out. In the Greek Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament, the words “in the wilderness” are not in the quotation, but the place where the crying would take place. The New Testament evangelists follow the Greek text the same way as John did. Both are correct; both statements are true.
John’s task as the forerunner of the King was to get the highway ready. If there were bumps they had to be smoothed down. If there were potholes they had to be filled in. Even the hills were to be brought down, and even the valleys were to be raised up. No task is too big or too daunting in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah. The scale is incredible. Mountains? Valleys? A crooked road? The lesson is clear: Nothing in my life is too big to move for the sake of Christ. Nothing in my world is permanent except Christ. Nothing in my heart is welded to the deck. Everything can go. If it needs to go, everything must go; everything and anything that doesn’t welcome Christ.
The theology of the Old and New Testaments about man’s role is identical: Man cannot come to Christ; Christ must come to man. We get ready for his arrival, but he is the one who comes to us. Commentator Lenski points out that three of the words quoted by Luke have a moral as well as a geographic meaning. “Crooked” (σκολιὰ) also means deceitful, “straight” (εὐθείαν) also means “right” or “just,” and “rough places” (τραχεῖαι) in Hebrew usually means what we would call a rough crowd or an evil, corrupt association or gang (Psalm 31:21), and only by derivation does is refer to geography that is “rough” in any way, or the “haste” (a rough time?) of Isaiah 52:12. So we are correct in applying this in every way to our preparation in repentance. Whatever is sinful, whatever is wrong, whatever is shameful, whatever is not worthy for the approach of God, all must be swept away, like the yeast swept clear of the houses of the Jews before Passover (Exodus 12:15).
Hymn 1 of our hymnal is called “The Advent of our King.” It’s about the coming of Jesus, both his first coming (at Christmas time) and his second coming, still on its way. Its words remind us of preparing our hearts:
Before the dawning Day
Let sin’s dark deeds be gone,
The sinful self be put away,
The new self now put on. (CW 1, verse 5)
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota