LUKE 3:1-6

Laterally Luke…Advent 2…Revised 2016 

We may choose to omit vv.1-2a, but they ground John (& therefore Jesus) in history. It’s important for us all to ground our stories firmly in history. That’s part of living in the real world. Who are or have been key players, ground-markers, reference points in our own journeying? Those LK names aren’t a pretty lot! Most, if not all, suspect in one way or another! Would any of them have bothered to go out to John to hear him underline Isaiah’s words from long before to ‘straighten their lives out ready for Messiah’? It’s not hard to imagine some of them, though, sending spies out there to see what John’s up to!

Who of us doesn’t need to be constantly discerning whether our lives are turned in God’s direction? Experience tells me keeping myself turned towards God is part of that ‘whole armour of God’ [EPH 6:11] I need to wear on my life-journey.

John is born into a priestly family, part of the religious establishment. But he rebels against ‘the system’. Any way we look at it, out in that wilderness he’s setting up in opposition to, offering an alternative to the religious powers-that-be in the ‘big smoke’. John is on about reformation from the ground up, as Jesus Himself is too, of course. From of old the Prophets have consistently pointed us towards reformation. Long before the Reformation that features so largely in Church history & still influences churches today.

In building as he does on Isaiah, John demonstrates (as Jesus will, later, too) how we need to move on from facts of history to what we do with history. How we live out our own little chapter of it. John, & the One He points to, Jesus Himself, stress by demonstrating the importance of having a living faith in the God of history. The One whose paths we still constantly need to make straight. Which paths I’m treading need to be made straight? Which of my ‘valleys’ needs filling in? Which of my mountains & hills need to be brought low? Is there anything at all about me that’s crooked & needs to be straightened out? What ‘rough’ aspects of my being still need to be smoothed? We’re not talking about someone else here. We’re talking about me, & you! The question is, ‘Who is to do this straightening, etc., of anything blocking God’s way?’

How concerned are we that ‘all shall see the salvation of God’? Given God’s pattern of ‘thinking laterally’ & working in unusual ways, often outside bounds we set, how can we reach out with this message to the ‘all’ who aren’t part of our church circles? Who don’t ‘come’, & don’t see why they should. Often people see what we’re on about excluding the likes of them. Genuine Wilderness experiences, though, can help us erase many of the lines we draw between us & others. Pray for courage to venture out there more often, & be more open to being changed by God & for God.