Prepare the Way

Out in the rocky desert, a voice is shouting. Not in a palace. Not in the temple. In the middle of nowhere. And crowds are walking for miles, right out of the city, to hear it.

Mark's gospel is the shortest of the four, and it is in a hurry. It has no shepherds, no angels, no manger. Its very first words are like a headline: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Gospel means good news. And Mark says this good news begins with something God promised long ago. He quotes the prophets. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way. And from Isaiah: The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. In the ancient world, before a king visited, workers went ahead to level the road, filling holes and straightening bends. Someone was coming who needed the way prepared.

And here he is. John, out in the wilderness near the river Jordan, baptising people and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance means turning around, changing direction. And people come. Mark says all the country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. They walk down from the hills into the hot Jordan valley, and they are baptised by him in the river, confessing their sins. Picture the line of people wading into the brown water, one by one, saying out loud the wrong things they have done, and coming up washed.

John himself looks like no ordinary preacher. He wears clothing made of camel's hair, rough and scratchy, with a leather belt around his waist. And he eats locusts and wild honey, whatever the desert provides. Everything about him says that he has stepped out of ordinary life to do one thing. People who knew their Scriptures would have noticed something else too. The great prophet Elijah, hundreds of years earlier, was described as a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist. And the prophet Malachi had promised that God would send Elijah before the great day of the Lord.

But John does not point to himself. He says, “There comes one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.” Untying sandals was the job of the lowest servant in a household. John, whom crowds are flocking to see, says he is not even good enough for that. “I indeed have baptised you with water. But he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost.” John's water could wash the outside. The one coming would pour God's own Spirit into people. And just a few verses later, Jesus arrives from Nazareth, and is baptised by John in the Jordan.

John's strange diet was not as strange as it sounds. The law of Moses actually allowed people to eat certain kinds of locust, listing them as clean food. Locusts are still eaten in parts of the Middle East and Africa today, roasted or dried, and they are rich in protein. Wild honey was found in rocks and trees in the Judean wilderness.

Prepare the way. You can read it in Mark chapter one, verses one to eight. In many churches, the Sundays of Advent before Christmas tell John's story, because getting ready for Jesus means clearing a path for him in our hearts. Mark begins not with a baby, but with a voice saying: he is coming, get ready. So here is a question to carry with you. John prepared the way for Jesus. What could you clear out of the way this Advent, to make room for him?