It took me until a couple months ago to realize what John the Baptist means when he quotes Isaiah talking about preparing the way of the Lord. Every mountain and hill shall be made low, he says, and every valley be raised up. Every crooked path shall be made straight. For years, I liked the image but didn't get why this needed to happen. "That's not very nice to the mountains and valleys," I thought, having been raised in an age and a home where we respect differences and diversity. What a boring world it would be if everything were flat and every line straight! When did homogeneity become the goal?
But this Advent, when we read that kind of thing a lot, it struck me that it's not about sameness. It's about ease of travel. We lower the mountains and raise the valleys in order to open up paths for God's presence and work. We straighten the paths to make his way clear and simple. We have to create a world, or at least a life, where God's movement is unhindered. I know my heart is full of jagged mountains, and sometimes it seems like they will never smooth out. We all have things that make it harder than necessary for God to move in us. Lent is a good time to identify those and seek clarity on how to move them out of the way and eventually eliminate them altogether.
1 comment:
I like this too! The Isa. passage speaks to the Hebrew people in exile (who were located across some mountains, valleys, hills, and desert)... the return route was much shorter and quicker than the route they took when kicked out... so this jives totally!
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