Isaiah 40:1-3

William F. Schnell

December 7, 2008

   I would guess that 99% of the sermons I have ever preached were prepared at an old library table my mother gave me when I first set out on my own as a brand new preacher.  My mother had kept it for years after receiving it from her great aunt Cora Geiger.  Where my great-great aunt Cora got it is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it would have pleased her to know that God’s Word was studied at it these many years.  Who gets it after me is also anyone’s guess, but I will attest to its functionality in equally accommodating paper and pen, typewriter and computer. 

   Once I prepare my sermon at that library table, I prepare myself to preach it at the senior pastor’s desk here at church.  After unlocking the doors, turning on the lights and checking the sound system I close myself in my office, pour a cup of green tea from a thermos, say a prayer and begin acquainting myself with what is on the page.  More often than not I like what is on the page.  The question is whether or not I can do it justice when I set the page aside and preach it.

   So there are two places where I prepare my sermons: at the old oak library table in my home office and at the desk in the senior pastor’s office.  But there is a third place where I prepare my sermons, and that is in my head and heart.  Inside each of us is a vast wilderness of memories, dreams and reflections (to borrow the title of a book by Carl Gustav Jung)—a vast wilderness of conscious and subconscious content that biblical texts have great potential to stimulate in creative ways. 

   It has taken me awhile to get used to living in this creative wilderness.  When I first began preaching my mother was in the congregation worrying.  She would say, “I keep wondering when you are going to run out of ideas.”  That is what I wondered to, in the beginning.  I would approach every sermon with the unsettling thought, “Is this the one where I run out of ideas?  Is this the time that nothing will come to me?  Is this where I stand up and have nothing to say?”  Invariably something would come to me at the old oak library table, and I would love being a part of this spiritually creative process.  But oh how I hated sitting at that table when the time approached to write the next Sunday’s sermon.  I had a real love/hate relationship with preaching for a long time.

   I guess through the repetitive experience of creating sermons these many years I have come to trust that the inner wilderness will provide what is needed.  It is still a great mystery each time I begin composing a sermon from a text of scripture, but these days I relate to it more out of a sense of anticipation than anxiety.  There is much less fret about whether anything will come, and much more curiosity about what will come from the Holy Spirit of God.  So I am finding myself much fonder, and much less fearful, of the wilderness within when the time rolls around to prepare another sermon from God’s Holy Word.

   The title of our message for this morning is “Where We Prepare.”  Advent being the season of preparation for the Lord’s coming, it is worth considering where spiritual preparation takes place.  We may love the idea of being a people prepared for the Lord’s coming, but we may hate the place where that preparation takes place in our lives.  According to the Prophet Isaiah in our text, spiritual preparation takes place in the desert wilderness.  Our challenge for today is becoming comfortable in the desert wilderness.

   If you were here last Sunday you heard Rev. Horak preaching from our text for today, the text the Revised Common Lectionary assigned for today, the text I had long ago planned to preach from today.  When I pointed this out to him he explained everything saying, and I quote, “Oops.”  What’s worse, his sermon very thoroughly explained just about every metaphor Isaiah made about preparing the way of the Lord: from raising up valleys and making mountains low to leveling rough ground and planning rugged places.  But he did charitably leave untouched one teensy little point Isaiah made about where we prepare the way for the Lord, and to that point we shall now give our attention. 

   A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God” (Verse 3).  According to the prophet Isaiah we prepare the way for the Lord in the desert wilderness.  Isaiah was prophesying to Jewish Exiles in Babylon.  They were slaves in what is now modern day Iraq, surrounded by a desert wilderness without any means of escape.  They were helpless and hopeless, which sounds bad but was actually good because in their distress they cried out to God. 

   God responded through the prophetic voice of Isaiah.  God was still with them, even in their exile.  God was thought to reside in the Temple in Jerusalem, now destroyed.  But in exile the worshiping community continued to gather in assemblies that came to be called synagogues (literally: “assembly”).  God was not confined to a structure made by human hands.  God was found wherever two or more gathered in his name.  God was making it known that a new Exodus back to the Land of Promise was about to take place.

   But there was a great stretch of desert wilderness between the land of exile and the Land of Promise.  As in the days of the Exodus, the people had to traverse a wilderness to get to the Promised Land.  As the quote at the top of our bulletin reminds us: “The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”  But also as in the days of the Exodus, the people do not have to go it alone.  God is going with them.  Their job is to prepare the way for the Lord. 

   In our text Isaiah is A voice of one calling.  What is he calling the people to do?  In the desert prepare the way for the Lord.  In those days whenever a king made a journey from one place to another, his entourage went ahead to prepare the road for his conveyance, whether by animal drawn coach or a human borne litter.  If there were potholes you filled them in.  If there were rocks, you tossed them aside.  You didn’t want the king to spill his coffee while being carried from one place to another.

   Isaiah tells the people, “Our God and King will determine the time and way we are to go through the desert wilderness on our way to the Promised Land.  When he gives the Word, our job is to step out in faith and prepare the way in the desert wilderness.”  It takes faith to venture forth into the desert wilderness of uncertainty.  The desert is barren.  What will we eat?  What will we drink?  Where will we find shelter from the elements?  How will we find protection from those who would harm us?

   These are the concerns the Israelites had when they left Egypt during the Exodus.  In fact the Bible says they were so concerned that they became anxious, and then filled with anxiety, and then crabby.  The Bible says they grumbled about these issues and complained to God’s servants.  But God provided for his people by sending manna (bread) from heaven, bringing forth springs of water from the barren rocks and giving meat in the form of flocks of quail.  He raised up military leaders to protect his people from their enemies and ultimately led them to take possession of the Land of Promise.

   Isaiah reminds the people that as God protected them and provided for them when they wandered through the wilderness in the past, so he will protect and provide for them when they must wander through the wilderness in their own time and way.  Therefore Isaiah encourages the exiled slaves: Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come….” 

   What is more, Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.  …And a highway will be there; it will be called the way of Holiness.  The unclean will not journey on it… but only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return.  …Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (35:3-4, 6, 8-10).  Don’t be afraid of the wilderness.  The wilderness is the way back to the Promised Land. 

   The wilderness is where we prepare.  It is where the Israelites prepared, where the returning exiles prepared, and even where Jesus prepared for his ministry.  He went to be baptized by John the Baptist.  Where did he find him?  As our Call to Worship reports, In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea….  This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A Voice of one calling in the desert. ‘Prepare the way for the Lord….” (Matthew 3:1&3).  Immediately after Jesus’ baptism we read, At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan.  He was with the wild animals, and the angels attended him (Mark 1:12-13).

   The desert wilderness is where we prepare.  It is where Satan tempts us, but it is also where God’s angels attend us.  Let us see if we can apply Isaiah’s prophetic witness to our day as the Gospel writers applied it to their day in the story of Jesus and John the Baptist.  How has Satan tempted us in our day?  Satan has two primary tools of temptation.  He uses fear and he uses enticement.  Enticement is like seduction in that it lures us in directions contrary to God’s will for us.

   It appears as if the enticement to get rich at the expense of others became normative as a privileged few at the top of big banks and businesses cashed out while their companies went under because of greed and excess.  And to the extent that we are shareholders of these companies and banks, and to the extent that our elected officials, who are supposed to legislate prudent oversight, are a reflection of the electorate, the guilt for greed and excess is pretty much shared by one and all.  So Satan has done a pretty thorough job of tempting us with seductive enticements.

   Now we find ourselves in this desert wilderness of uncertainty where Satan plans to pull out the second tool in his bag of temptation: fear—a fear that forces us in directions contrary to God’s will for us.  With an economy in shambles, and unemployment going up, and housing prices going down and bailout plans adding up there is plenty of fear to be shared by one and all as well.  According to George Barna, who specializes in religious research and polling, Americans are understandably passing on their financial pain to churches.  The average church cannot expect an increase this year.  Indeed, the average church can expect a 5% decrease in total revenues this coming year, and I suspect this church will fit into that projection when the smoke clears.

   As one whose livelihood depends upon church giving, I suppose I should be more anxious than I usually am this time of year.  But I am strangely calmed and comforted this year by God’s Word to those of us facing the desert wilderness of uncertainty.  This is where we prepare the way for the Lord to purge us of things like greed and excess, this is where we prepare the way for the Lord to inspire us to the grace of shared sacrifice on behalf of the common good, this is where we prepare the way for the Lord to lead us through the wilderness and on to the Land of great promise and potential for new beginnings.  It is thrilling to imagine and exciting to anticipate the advent of those new beginnings even before they arrive.

   In the meanwhile, if we will care to notice, most of us will have food enough on our tables today.  Most of us will have a roof over our head when we retire tonight.  Most of us will continue to have more than we really need.  Others of us will experience an even more miraculous experience of the Lord’s protective and providential care even in the desert wilderness in which we now find ourselves.  Once we trust in God’s protective and providential care, even the desert can be a beautiful place to sojourn.  Even the wilderness can be an awe-inspiring place to wander, all the more when the path we are traveling leads home.

   Now is the time to find out what our faith is made of as one fallen angel tempts with the twin tools of enticement and fear, and as God’s better angels attend to meet our needs in his time and way.  Let us show ourselves to be a people of faith.  Let us show ourselves to be a people prepared for the advent of our God.  Let us prepare the way for the Lord who always leads us to the Promised Land.