Preparing the Way

The Road to Seguin, Haiti, photographed by Erica Lloyd

 

“Prepare the way for the Lord.”* Like so much of the Bible these days, it’s one of those biblical phrases that I long took for granted. Of course John prepared the way for Jesus! But suddenly I couldn’t quite wrap my head around those words. Why would anyone need to prepare the way for Jesus? Shouldn’t the guy who can bring the dead back to life and calm the stormy seas just be able to show up and trust that things will be all right? Jesus doesn’t seem like the type who needs the red carpet rolled out for him.

Every time I tried to sit down to write this reflection, I was stuck. I couldn’t shake the phrase. “Preparing the way” was clearly what I needed to write about,  but nor could I shake the ludicrous image of Red Carpet Jesus. It sounded like the weirdest new character in Barbieland. I read and re-read the passage, but came up with nothing.

Then, finally, I saw it. The other repeated words in this passage: Wild and Wilderness. I was too distracted by those nicely straightened paths to notice just where they were going, that they were leading directly to the wilderness. That desert place where everything familiar disappears and the fear creeps in, where you can get truly lost. It is full of dangers. Quite the opposite of rolling out the red carpet.

In a sermon on Exodus, Greg Thompson called the wilderness the place where we are emptied of control and emptied of clarity — an emptying that is necessary to make room for the fullness of God. How else could John prepare Jesus for what lay ahead? What else was there to do but to nudge Jesus into the desert for that kind of unburdening? What can we do for anyone else until we know ourselves in the naked vulnerability of the wilderness?

The lessons of the wilderness are often deeply personal, but this is not a journey we do alone. Just as John prepared the way for Jesus, Jesus prepared the way for his followers, who all ended up in their own wildernesses at some point. There have been many other guides along the way, and we, too, must find the wilderness with the help of those who have gone before, and point the way to the others who come along after. We give each other the courage to heed the call of the Spirit.