LUKE 3:1-6

Laterally Luke…Advent 2…Revised 2018 

Verses 1-2a may sound boring old history, but they ground John the Baptiser, &, by association, Jesus, in recorded history. It’s important, too, to ground our own stories firmly in history; not least religious history. Including our personal ‘track record’. Who are, or have been, mentors, key players, reference points, on our journeying in faith? Including our personal dilemmas in our wildernesses?

Good preaching includes challenging people (ourselves included!) to straighten out our lives. JB follows in Isaiah’s steps in doing this; Isaiah builds on Moses & others before him. Jesus builds on them all. To preach God’s Good News is to join that succession because we’re called to do so. 

When we navigate today’s physical roads, many of us rely on our GPSs. But, we often hear someone complain their GPS doesn’t know that ‘right turn’ into such & such a street is closed off because of an ‘incident’, or road-works. JB urges us to do the hard-yards of life’s journeying ourselves; personally. Not hand over responsibility to any of the short-cuts we have a-plenty in the electronic aids on offer today. (Even someone else’s sermon notes!) JB is on about personal reformation from the ground up. As is Jesus Himself, too, in due course.

Which paths I’m currently treading need to be made straight? Which of my valleys needs filling in? Which of my mountains & hills need to be brought low? What is there about me that’s crooked & needs straightening out? Which of my ‘rough edges’ need to be smoothed? We’re not talking about someone else here. Isaiah, JB, & Jesus are all speaking to me & you! How are we to approach this responsibility? What homework do we need to do on ourself before we mount our pulpit? 

Jesus is mentioned only in JB quoting IS’s ‘Make ready the way of the Lord’. But it’s important not to turn JB into a stand-alone character. None of the saints is that! Not JB back then; not you or me today. Jesus goes out to JB to discern if & where he - JB - fits in to God’s scheme of things. Which immediately raises the question of where does He Himself fit in? With flow-on effect to where we fit in. The answer to that in Jesus’ case is to be found in His being baptised by JB. MT (3:13-15) tells us JB’s ‘horrified’ at the thought, but discerning whom Jesus is, bows to His will. As we must bow to the will of The One into whom we’ve been baptised by water & Spirit by growing in Faith in God & Faith in ourselves & our calling. 

Brian

Afterthought: Yesterday I have a ‘deep & meaningful’ with a chap of a Pentecostal persuasion from our street. He tells me he’s leaving his long-time church as the new Pastor ‘keeps talking in words I don’t understand’. Now there’s a warning to us all! Might have come straight from JB in today’s passage, mightn’t it? ‘If the cap fits….!’