“A voice of one calling in the desert,‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’” –Luke 3:5-6
Every Advent, somehow, these words are read. These are the words John the Baptist was proclaiming in the wilderness as he called people to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
The original context has particular significance. Isaiah is predicting the freedom of the people who were in exile in Babylon. They come as Isaiah is wanting to comfort God’s people with the hope that their period of suffering and correction in Babylon would soon be over.
These words are a prediction related to the fact that God’s plans to free his people through the wilderness would not be stopped. His plan and ability to free his people was so obviously going to happen, it would be as though the geography and topography of the passage between Babylon and Jerusalem would straighten out, valleys would be filled, roads would straighten! Nothing can stop God from freely exercising his plan in the lives of his people!
That’s so encouraging for us today! The path from spiritual bondage is designated in Jesus Christ. He is the way out of the place where we are stuck. He is the place we can come home to, and nothing at all will stop that from happening in the lives of his people.
Freedom.
Liberation.
Complete peace–
It’s all there for us in Christ, our passage out of captivity! All mankind will see it!