Making the path straight
This week's study is on Luke 3:2-6:
These verses are from when John the Baptist was telling people to repent of their sins. It was a message that prepared the way for what Jesus came to do. It prepared people for the idea of the forgiveness of sins and to encounter Jesus free of the illusion that they were irredeemable or without need of forgiveness.
When a king would come, there used to be infrastructure projects. He would need a road that could support his carriage and entourage, and on which he could move quickly in case of danger. There needed to be clear lines of site to where ambushes could potentially happen. And because he was the king, people wanted him to enjoy his trip through the region and leave with a favourable impression. A twisted, rutted, muddy road would not do.
So John the Baptist was like the first foreman sent out into a new region to get those infrastructure projects under way. Like the king's foreman, he would have encountered a vast savage wilderness. It would have been a mess. In that wilderness he would have had to round people up and start telling them what changes needed to be made.
But in a way, the sorts of changes that would be made for a king's travel through a new region of his kingdom would be similar to the sorts of changes that would be made in us as we become convicted of sin and aware of the salvation being offered. People who are crooked and twisted become open and honest. People who are in a pit of despair are given hope. People who put themselves on a pedestal are brought low. Our rough patches are made smooth.
Without that awareness that sin exists, and that forgiveness is not only possible but on offer, none of those changes would take place. It's a sign of how important that truth is that the prophet Isaiah announced that this news would come hundreds of years before it actually happened.
During the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘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 people will see God’s salvation.’”
These verses are from when John the Baptist was telling people to repent of their sins. It was a message that prepared the way for what Jesus came to do. It prepared people for the idea of the forgiveness of sins and to encounter Jesus free of the illusion that they were irredeemable or without need of forgiveness.
When a king would come, there used to be infrastructure projects. He would need a road that could support his carriage and entourage, and on which he could move quickly in case of danger. There needed to be clear lines of site to where ambushes could potentially happen. And because he was the king, people wanted him to enjoy his trip through the region and leave with a favourable impression. A twisted, rutted, muddy road would not do.
So John the Baptist was like the first foreman sent out into a new region to get those infrastructure projects under way. Like the king's foreman, he would have encountered a vast savage wilderness. It would have been a mess. In that wilderness he would have had to round people up and start telling them what changes needed to be made.
But in a way, the sorts of changes that would be made for a king's travel through a new region of his kingdom would be similar to the sorts of changes that would be made in us as we become convicted of sin and aware of the salvation being offered. People who are crooked and twisted become open and honest. People who are in a pit of despair are given hope. People who put themselves on a pedestal are brought low. Our rough patches are made smooth.
Without that awareness that sin exists, and that forgiveness is not only possible but on offer, none of those changes would take place. It's a sign of how important that truth is that the prophet Isaiah announced that this news would come hundreds of years before it actually happened.
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