Prepare the Way!

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, 

               make straight in the desert a highway for our God.     Isaiah 40:3

This is one of the Daily Office readings appointed for today in this second week in Advent. 

On a trip to the Holy Land last year, I was aghast at the vastness of the Judean Wilderness.  Yet it was from near this very place that Isaiah wrote, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  

It is hard work to make straight paths in the desert. The land is inhospitable. The day I took this photograph, it was 114 degrees outside – and very dry. Construction crews are not willing to work out here. The single road is ancient, the same one Isaiah would have used. It curves and winds through paths of least resistance.

Advent invites us to this work. If we look at the parched desert as a metaphor for our lives, we are called to prepare a way for the Lord, to prepare a place for God to reside in the midst of our lives, as parched and cluttered and messy as they may be. Advent begs us to make a hospitable place in our lives for God.

How can we create an oasis for God in our lives? Prepare a way!