Prepare the Way for the Lord!

2nd Sunday in Advent, 12/6/09
Luke 3:1-6


Prepare the Way for the Lord!
I. That’s God’s message to you.
II. That’s God’s working in you.


I know what it’s like to be unprepared. I’m sure you do as well. And we don’t like it. And yet it happens all the time. We weren’t prepared for the bad news our friend gave us the other day. We weren’t prepared for the financial impact of that last misfortune. We thought we were prepared for that latest challenge at work, but we were wrong. Our coach said we were prepared for the next opponent. We thought we were prepared. But we were wrong and we were thoroughly beaten. We thought we were prepared for retirement, for life after graduation from college, for being a spouse or a parent, but we were wrong. We’ve been unprepared enough and it’s not pleasant, so we resolve to be prepared no matter what.

Do you share that desire with me? I’m glad to hear that because our focus on this Second Sunday in Advent is on our preparation and the stakes could not be higher. We’re not simply talking here about being prepared for the next financial challenge, employment challenge, relationship challenge, health challenge or phase of life challenge. We’re talking about the challenge of being prepared for our Lord Jesus Christ.

He wants to enter your heart more fully as you celebrate his birth in just a little less than three weeks. More importantly, he wants you to be ready for his physical, visible entrance into your life and into our world when her returns on the Last Day.
So let’s get ready for him. Prepare the way for the Lord. That’s exactly what John the Baptist encourages us to do here in Luke 3. He shouts for us to prepare the way for the Lord. To make sure we’re ready, let’s see what that involves.

Part I.

“You better get ready!” We’ve all heard those words shouted our way countless times in our lives. As a child, it mattered a great deal who was speaking those words to us. If it was a sibling, especially a younger sibling, we may not have paid any attention at all. We’ll get ready when we want to, not when they tell us to. But if those words came from an authority figure such as a parent or a teacher, then we were more likely to get ready because non-compliance with that command carried a pretty heavy price.

Our text records the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry. It was a ministry of preparing the people for the coming of the Savior. To carry that ministry out, John often said some harsh things even to some powerful people. Some might have wondered, “Just who does John think he is, thinking he can tell me what to do?” But this message and this entire ministry were not John’s idea. John didn’t wake up one morning and say to himself, “I think I’ll see if I can get my fellow Jews to listen to me and prepare for the coming of the Savior.”

No, that was entirely God’s doing and the message John spoke was God’s message, not his own. Luke makes sure we understand that when he tells us, “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.” You may have heard someone tell you that God laid something on their heart. In other words, they felt compelled by God to do something. Usually it’s to start preaching his word someplace. I’m always a little skeptical about such statements. But there’s no doubt and no skepticism here. God called John directly to preach his word to prepare the people. That’s what this phrase means.

Luke pinpoints the time when that happened. He records that it occurred in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. That would be right around 25 or 26 AD. Just to make his readers more certain of the time, Luke lists the governors serving at that time—Pontius Pilate being one of them—and even the men who were serving as high priests. Luke wants us to understand that this was the time God chose for John to do his important work of preparing the people for the coming of the Savior. This ministry was happening according to God’s plan at just the right time.

In fact, that plan was not something that God was making up as he went along. That plan had been announced already in the Old Testament 700 years earlier. Isaiah the prophet had foretold, “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord.’” God used Isaiah to foretell where this prophet would do his work—out in the desert—and what his message would be. Through another Old Testament prophet God foretold that the Savior would come after another Elijah had done his work. John was that other Elijah. He not only wore clothing similar to Elijah, his message was much the same. “Repent and turn to the Lord.”

So why all this planning and preparing? Why all this advanced notice of the work of John the Baptist? Because he was preparing the people for the greatest event in all of history. The Savior whom God had promised 1,000s of years ago was about to begin his work of saving all people from their sins. That Savior would complete his work by dying on a cross. He would declare before all the world that he was the Savior and the Son of God by raising himself from the dead. God didn’t want anyone to miss it. And so he sent John to prepare the people for it. He didn’t want anyone to think, “God’s not talking to me. He must mean someone else.”

God still doesn’t want anyone to miss the coming of our Savior. He wants everyone to be prepared. He wants you to be prepared.

Prepare the way for the Lord. That’s God’s message to you.

So, are you ready or not? And please don’t equate being ready for Christmas with being ready for Christ. If Christmas comes and all your decorations are not displayed, if Dec. 25 rolls around and you still don’t have all your cards sent out, if Christmas arrives and your shopping isn’t finished, it’s OK. It’s not the end of the world. You can still celebrate Christmas. But if your heart is unprepared—now that’s tragic. A heart that’s unprepared for Christ doesn’t mind celebrating Christmas but fails to see how much that sinful heart needs a Savior. A heart that’s unprepared for Christ hasn’t come to grips with the hell that awaits us without that Child in the manger who would later be nailed to the cross. Worse yet, a heart without trust in Christ as the Savior is not prepared for his second coming to this earth. So get ready! Prepare the way for the Lord. That’s God’s message to you.

Part II.

But getting ready can be a real chore. If you’re getting ready for guests to arrive at your home, you soon realize you can’t get the work done all by yourself. It’s such a relief when others help you.

John tells us to prepare for the coming of Christ. That’s no small task. In fact, it’s monumental. Luke’s quote from Isaiah views it as major roadway construction. “Make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.” It was common in ancient times for such road construction and repair to occur in preparation for a visit from a king. His travel on their roads called for the people to make that way as easy and enjoyable as possible. That was hard work.

Preparing for the coming of our Savior is more than hard work for us. It’s impossible for us to do on our own. But that’s where our God comes in. Our text says that John came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” In other places of the Bible, we have a fuller description of John’s message for the people. First, he used God’s law to cut them to the heart. He left no one off the hook. He exposed the sinful pride, greed, lies, and manipulation that lurk in every heart. And that law did its work. His listeners admitted their guilt.

And then John pointed them to their Savior. He announced the coming of the promised Messiah. He baptized them in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of sins. That’s what Luke meant when he wrote that John “went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John proclaimed the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to these people in order to heal the hearts that had been cut by God’s law. Hearts that were sorry for sin, recognized their need for a Savior and trusted that Jesus was that Savior are hearts that are ready for the coming of Jesus. The Lord prepared those hearts with the law and the gospel that John proclaimed and the baptism that John administered. The Lord is preparing your heart and mine for his return to this earth through the law and the gospel that John proclaims to us today.

Being spiritually ready for Jesus is critically important. To be unprepared when Jesus returns spells eternal damnation. So prepare the way for the Lord! Thankfully, that’s God’s working in you.

When someone helps you get ready for an important guest to arrive, what’s the proper response? You’re grateful. You couldn’t have gotten ready without their help. And you express your gratitude. You thank them. You show them how much you appreciate their help.

So, how thankful are you that your God has done the work of preparing your heart for the coming of Jesus? He’s preparing us through his word today. What’s your general attitude toward that word? Is it your precious treasure or is it dutiful toleration? Is that word the center of your Christmas celebration or merely a sidelight? And if you are truly thankful for God’s preparation of your heart, is it evident to others and in what ways? The truth is that we fail. We’re often ungrateful. We take God’s word for granted. But that’s what Jesus is all about. He came to win our forgiveness for our shallow appreciation of our God’s work in us. That’s what Advent is all about—recognizing our sins and trusting in Jesus for our forgiveness. And with that trust we are ready for our Lord’s coming. With that trust in Christ you are always ready. Let your thanks for that preparation show in words and deeds of thanks to your God and in words and deeds of love toward others. Amen.