“Ev’ry valley shall be exalted, and ev’ry mountain and hill made low …” Isaiah’s words as set to music by George Frederic Handel in his masterpiece The Messiah. For many of us these words are as closely linked to Christmas as fir trees and reindeer. But I’m afraid, just as there is no mention of fir trees or reindeer in the nativity story, the link with Isaiah’s prophecy isn’t too strong either.
The Book of Isaiah does contain many prophecies that can be linked directly to Jesus – and we hear them in our readings at Christmas and at Easter. However the passage we have today relates to the return of the Israelites from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem in the time of Cyrus the King of Persia: the return through the desert, the glory of the Lord shown to all people by the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. By contrast there was no raising of valleys, or leveling of hills, or any notice much at all taken of a child being born in Bethlehem (excepting maybe by a few local peasants and some confused foreign mages).
But we can’t blame Handel for mixing this up. Our gospel writer Mark himself makes a link between the messenger proclaiming the return of God’s people to Jerusalem and John the Baptist preaching in the desert. But what is the link?
Even if we skip over the Nativity and any discussion of babies, stables, and suchlike, as Mark does, going straight to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” – what is he getting at? Jesus arrival on the scene as a preacher was not marked by any great acts of God, and certainly nothing for “all people to see together”. Sure, John the Baptist knew he was important – but no-one else did.
So maybe we should just skip over Mark’s stretched analogy and content ourselves with other passages from Isaiah that Handel also picked out – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” That one we can link to Jesus, no problem.
But there is a problem with just skipping over what Mark tells us – after all it’s not hidden in some corner of his gospel – this is right at the beginning – front and center. If he chose to start with this, let’s work a bit harder to figure out what might be here – “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths”
What is Jesus’ path? Where is he going? How would that path be prepared?
Jesus is not marching through the desert to reclaim lost territory, like Zerubbabel who led the Jews back to Jerusalem. Or is he?
If we switch perspectives from the view of the Israelites to the view of the Gospels then Jesus is traveling through the desert to reclaim the Holy City – he is traveling through the desert of our lives to reclaim our hearts. But you might say – oh that’s just fanciful, you’ve taken the clear words of the bible and turned them into something completely different. Really? Isaiah talks of a massive terraforming project, huge earth-moving, valleys filled in and mountains leveled. There must have been one heck of a lot of heavy equipment in the desert back then.
Of course that isn’t what Isaiah was saying. He expressed his wonder and relief that the people would be able to return to Jerusalem, “give comfort to my people”, with a vision of the difficult journey being made easy across flat plains. There wasn’t any earthmoving! And Mark is reusing his images for another great return, a return marked by John the Baptist’s prophecy and preaching, a return of all God’s people to be close to him. But miracle of miracles, in this case the people were not going anywhere, God was coming to us. But the way into us still had, and still has, to be prepared. That’s why we give ourselves the time of Advent. And then we will be “baptized with the Holy Spirit” – we will have God within us, or, more precisely, we will see, be aware of, the God within us. God will be born in our hearts. Make straight the way.