Prepare your Way!

With the start of Advent last Sunday, we’re officially in a new Church calendar year, and we are one step closer to saying goodbye to 2023. On the Korean calendar, 1 January 2024 means everyone will be a year older, which means one more wrinkle on our faces, maybe a slightly healthier or perhaps wearier body, or just hoping for a year as good as the last.

At the same time, we understand that simply flipping the calendar doesn’t erase the pain, loss or sorrow experienced in 2023. Individually and globally, we still grapple with many hardships. We are still living with Covid, ongoing wars in some parts of the world, injustices, self-serving politics, corruption, violence-driven governments, and family drama with unresolved and uncomfortable relationships that weigh heavy on our hearts.

Yet, here we are together in this Advent, focusing our hearts and prayers on the coming light of God. During Advent, we all long for new beginnings. It resonates within me, and I’m sure you feel too, don’t you?

The Bible passages we read today guide us through scenes of God’s people immersed in distressing situations. In Isaiah 40, God’s people from the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah are captured and placed into exile. The people of Judah were forcibly taken from their homes to the foreign land of Babylon, witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem.

In this turmoil, they thought and felt that God had completely abandoned them because of their sins. However, God instructed Isaiah to deliver a message of profound hope. The good news in the first verse is a comforting word for Israel: “Comfort, comfort my people.” Comfort is a phrase we commonly hear everywhere. To a friend who made a mistake, we might say, ‘Everyone makes mistakes; the important thing is to learn from it. You can make better choices next time.’ Or to a friend going through a tough time, ‘I’ve been there too. If it’s too hard, talk to me anytime. Talking together might make things a bit better.’

However, the comfort Isaiah offers is more profound. It is the announcement that your labour is finished, your sins are forgiven, and have received double for all your punishment. Isaiah goes on to say, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,’ and all flesh will see the glory of the Lord, so you prepare to have Him in your midst. This comfort is akin to receiving a release notice after an unjust 30-year prison sentence. There is no greater comfort than that.

How much hope would this powerful consolation have given them? Living in exile, facing cultural collapse, and enduring a collective disaster, there can be no true hope except in God. They were called to hope, to be those preparing for the fulfilment of a promise. For them and for you, God is the One with a mighty arm, able to do what no human being can- lift up the low places, bring down the high places, level the uneven places, and make smooth the rough places. Where does our hope lie?

Today’s good news from Mark begins with a call to heed the words of Isaiah: ‘The voice of a messenger, crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”’ In this prophecy, Isaiah foretells of John the Baptist, the herald tasked with paving the way for Christ and preparing His people.

John the Baptist devoted himself entirely to preparing for the coming of Jesus. Imagine John the Baptist preparing the way for something new. He didn’t wear fancy clothes; instead, he rocked an outfit of camel hair, fastened with a leather belt. Living out in the wilderness, he snacked on locusts and wild honey, embracing a simple and humble life. And he baptises the people in repentance, proclaiming that Jesus, who is to come, will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

This Advent, the one who will renew us with the Holy Spirit and fire, is coming. To make this happen, John the Baptist asks us to enter into a season of preparation. Preparation for Advent is not shopping, holiday parties, or sending cards. The busyness of everyday life doesn’t constitute preparation. True preparation involves questioning, thinking, meditating, and re-committing. We need to work for this newness, inviting John the Baptist’s voice to enter our hearts and transform us.