Prepare the Way of the Lord in the Desert this Advent
By: Rev. Mr. Matthew Newsome
Tags: Homilies, Christianity, Christmas, Advent, Catholic

Every year on the Second Sunday of Advent, we encounter the strange figure of St. John the Baptist. Who is this man clothed in camel’s hair, feeding on locusts and honey? He is a cousin of Jesus Christ, the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, miraculously conceived in their old age. He is the one who leapt in his mother’s womb at the approach of his unborn Savior; the first person, after the Blessed Mother, to recognize Jesus as Lord.

He is the Forerunner of the Messiah, the friend of the Bridegroom. He is a prophet. That is, he is someone who speaks on behalf of God. He is the last and the greatest prophet to speak the word of God before God’s Word would be revealed to us in His Son. John is not the Word. He is the voice. He is a messenger. This is why he is sometimes portrayed in iconography with angel’s wings, because angel is the Hebrew word for messenger.

And today we encounter that messenger in the desert. He is a voice crying out, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mk 1:3). Advent is a season of preparation, and John meets us today to help us prepare. We prepare for the celebration of our Lord’s first coming in humility, born in a manger in Bethlehem. We prepare also for his second coming in glory at the end of time in the heavenly Jerusalem. And we prepare for his coming into our lives now, spiritually and sacramentally, into our homes and into our hearts. Yes, Christ comes to us even now in his Word, in his sacraments, and in the loving service we give to one another.

Just as John pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” Father will soon speak those same words to us: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Just as Isaiah prophesied to Jerusalem, “Here is your God!” I say to you now, Here is your God and here is his reward with him. Jesus comes to us now. Our God comes to us now; here on this altar; here in the Church. How do we prepare to welcome so great a guest? John tells us.

He is the voice that cries out, “prepare the way of the Lord.” Where does this voice cry out from? From the desert. “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord” (Is 40:3). What is the desert? It is a wilderness, a wild place, removed from towns and cities, away from the business of everyday life and all of our routine concerns. It is a place where we can be alone; where we can experience silence. It is a place where our needs are simple and immediate, where the facades we make for ourselves are stripped away and where we must learn to rely on God. It is a place for contemplation and for prayer. Before John climbed to the mountain top to be the herald of good news, he first retreated to the desert to prepare the way of the Lord in his heart.

We must also retreat into the desert this Advent. We should create for ourselves times of silence and space for contemplation. In the midst of our holiday preparations the most important thing we can do is to step away from the concerns of the world for a time to be alone with our God and prepare our hearts to welcome him.

What does this look like? What must we do to make ready? We are to “make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God” (Is 40:3). If we want our Lord to come to us we need to remove any obstacles to his coming. The wasteland of our lives is full of mountains and valleys that block his path. These mountains must be made low. The valleys must be filled in.

“Every mountain and hill shall be made low” (Is 40:4), the prophet proclaims. What are these mountains and hills? They are our sins. They are the things we do and that we desire that are contrary to the life of God. If we want the life of God to dwell in us, we must banish them from our hearts. Some sins are mountains. These are mortal sins; sins so contrary to love that they are incompatible with God’s nature and cut us off from the life of grace. The Church teaches that committing a mortal sin involves three things. The first is grave matter. That is the act we commit itself is a serious evil. The second is sufficient knowledge. Do we know that what we do is wrong? The third is freedom of will. Do we freely choose to do this thing? If we freely choose to do something that we know to be contrary to God’s will, we are essentially evicting God from our lives. We say to God, I prefer this lesser thing over You. I choose my own will over yours. This setting of our will against God’s erects a mountain between us. These mountains, John says, and Isaiah says, must be made low. Tear them down. Turn back to God. This is why John’s call for preparation is also a call to repentance. We must repent (that is, turn away) from anything that stands between us and God.

Not all sins are mountains. Some are only hills. These are our venial sins. These sins are failures in love that result not from our willful choosing but from our human weakness. They do not cut us off from the life of grace, as mortal sins do, but they can weaken it. We want to make the Lord’s path to us as smooth as possible, so these hills, too, must be made low. We do this the same way we do for mortal sins. We repent from them. We can make low the hills of our venial sins with a simple act of contrition, but mountains are another matter. To make low the mountains of our mortal sins requires the sacramental grace of baptism and confession. This is why John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We are restored to that baptismal grace by the sacrament of penance, or confession. Every time you enter that confessional and say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” you make low the mountains and hills and prepare the way for the Lord’s coming.

What else must we do to prepare? The wilderness of our lives contains not only mountains but valleys. These valleys must be filled in. Valleys are low places. They are empty spaces in our lives; places where something is missing that ought to be there. As we spend time in the desert of Advent, we should examine ourselves and ask, what is missing in my life? What is missing that I need to help smooth the way of the Lord into my heart? Is it prayer? Then I should make time for prayer every day. Is it knowledge of the Lord? Then I should read the scriptures and study the Catechism. Is it loving service to my neighbor? Then I should seek out ways to show my love and to care for those in need. Is it fidelity to my vocation? Then I should strive to live more faithfully the life that God has called me to in my state of life as a parent or child, a married or single person, a priest, deacon, or professed religious. Is it virtue? Am I lacking in prudence, or temperance, fortitude or chastity? Then I must foster those virtues in my life by finding ways to put them into practice. Whatever the valleys in our life may be, we must find them and fill them in to make straight the way of the Lord’s coming.

“The glory of the Lord [that] shall be revealed” (Is 40:5) at the end of time will be a final and universal revelation. We do not know when it will come, but when it does, no one will escape it. But if we heed the words of the prophet and enter into the desert this Advent to prepare the way of the Lord; if we make low the mountains and hills of our vices and fill in the valleys of our lacking virtues; if we make the rugged land of our hearts and minds into a broad and even path for God, then we do not need to wait until the end of time for the glory of the Lord to be revealed, because it will be revealed in our lives today, in the way that we love one another and in the peace that will reign in our hearts, right here and now, as we await with hope the final coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.