This first reading is one of the most beautiful and ecstatic passages in Scripture. Put on the splendor of glory from God forever… Stand upon the heights, look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and from the west, rejoicing that they are remembered by God. But we should remember that it’s a vision that is being offered by the author of this reading so many years ago to people who think that this will never be possible. They have been exiled, refugees, scattered around their world, held prisoner in countries that are not theirs, blocked on the road that leads to safety and to home. This vision tells them that God will come to them, that the road will be opened up, that they will see liberation. You have to wonder how many of them were able to live as if they believed it.
This is still an Advent picture for us to meditate on all these hundreds and hundreds of years later, because every year, Advent wants us to spend time on these dark winter nights remembering that the liberation God is bringing is still something we desire with all our hearts. It’s a vision that should resonate with us for a few reasons.
The first reason, of course, is that we all in our way live in a form of captivity, held back from what we want in our hearts by things that have taken us over: fear and discouragement and resentment and a self-centeredness about the things we care about. We fight these things, and yet they fight back, and have power over us that we wish they didn’t.
But this personal captivity, the way we tie ourselves up with anger and disappointment and fear that is not the only captivity that is on our minds this December. This has been a year when it is impossible for us to look at the world and not see real captives and real exiles and real refugees, people without a place to live or a country that will take them, people with a home that has fallen apart under their eyes, It’s a painful thing to see, but it is not a new phenomenon in this world, and there simply is no doubt that it is one that God has a special interest in; God wants exiles and refugees to be liberated and welcomed. The world is not ready for Christ until this road has been cleared.
This road to liberation that John the Baptist wants to open up is one that will let God move and create a path for people who need one. God wants to come toward his people and set them free, but the problem is, there are roadblocks. And the word John uses about what will take those roadblocks away is repentance. Take away whatever is standing in the way of God coming close, whether it’s our personal fears and sense of failure or our inner turmoil, our sense that we have been sinned against, or that we are sinners who can’t start over. Or perhaps it is our sense that the injustice of this world is so great it can’t be fixed. Whatever the reason, we are not expecting that vision that is offered to us of the world gathered from east to west, finally liberated. But John is telling us today that this world can be fixed, sin can be forgiven, not by us alone, but by us removing what stands in the way of God’s work. Our repentance, our willingness to clear this blocked road we live on, is what makes a beginning.
The world will not be ready for Christ if we are fearful of others, if we think others are out to get us, if we feel as if we can’t be redeemed, if we don’t want barriers broken down, if we can’t put aside fear and anger and prejudice, the road will remain difficult to pass, and we will stay where we are.
But if we can put all those sins aside, all of a sudden life is spacious, there is room for us, there is room for others, a rough road gets made straight, we can move, God can travel to us, the future can take shape. Slowly, we can see a world healed from what divides it.
It seems impossible that vision starts with us, and yet in the beginning of this gospel we heard today that the word of God bypassed all the great names in the world at that time, all the great cities and all the powerful, and instead it went to a man in the desert, whose words every year are directed to those of us who still want to follow him. His lesson is still a simple one: See what is standing in the way of freedom and welcome and joy and take it away.