Sermon December 8, 2024
There were a lot of things that the Romans were really good at. One of these things was building roads. There are Roman roads that were built hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth that are still in use. Try to imagine what the Garden State Parkway would look like after 2400 years without maintenance! Roman engineers started by digging a trench about three feet deep and then building retaining walls on the sides. They then built the road in layers with a base layer of compacted sand or gravel and a 12-inch layer of concrete that was made from volcanic ash and quicklime. Then there was another layer of concrete mixed with gravel, and then that was topped with two layers of stones. The roads were cambered or arched to provide drainage. In wet areas the roads were elevated to prevent flooding and they used a drainage system to disperse the water runoff. Roman roads were made to be straight or only gently curved in order to prevent the possibility of people hiding around curves to set an ambush, and except in special circumstances, roads were limited to grade increases or decreases of no more than 8%. To accomplish this, hills needed to be flattened, valleys needed to be filled in, and the route had to be carefully planned so the road would be as straight as possible.
When a Roman emperor was planning a visit to one of the provinces, the first thing that would happen, far in advance of the visit, would be Roman engineers traveling to the area to make sure that the roads and accommodations were perfect, and building new roads was a part of that job. The engineers would literally make straight the way, cutting through hills and building up the valleys; all to see to it that the emperor had a pleasant and uneventful journey.
And so, the language of today’s passage would have been well understood by Luke’s first century audience but is not something that we would understand in the same way without having learned a little bit of that cultural background. Luke is using this imagery that would have been familiar to his audience to make a point about John the Baptist’s ministry, but there is more that we yet need to understand.
In Jewish antiquity, events of significant importance would almost always be accompanied by the voice of a prophet. From Moses to Malachi, God spoke to His people to guide them, to encourage the, to warn them, and to chastise them. Prophets arose every time Israel faced an important or catastrophic event from Moses leading the people out of Egypt, to Deborah prophesying during the conquest of Canaan. From Samuel and Nathan during the reigns of Saul and David, to Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah before and during the fall of Israel and Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah before and during the fall of Judah. Obadiah and Ezekiel prophesied during the captivity of the Israelites and the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi accompanied the Israelites back to the Promised Land at the end of the exile. The appearance of prophets at these critical times shows just how active God was among His people. And as we look at the stories of these prophets, we find that time and time again they are introduced to us with the same phrase, “The word of the Lord came to…” fill in the blank. But after Malachi, there was a period of over 400 years with Israel not hearing the voice of a prophet. And so here, Luke has gone out of his way to identify John the Baptist as a prophet. Something new and important was about to happen and so God was once again speaking to His people. The word of the Lord came to John.
Now, Luke has been universally recognized as a thorough and meticulous historian. Over the years, things that Luke wrote, names, places, titles, and such, were thought to be either inaccurate or fabrications, but archaeology has consistently found proof of the accuracy of Luke’s reporting. The famed archaeologist Sir William Ramsey was a harsh critic of Luke until he studied him. And as his archeological work began revealing the truth about Luke’s writings, Ramsey became convinced of Luke’s accuracy, wrote several books about archaeology’s ties to Luke, and was knighted for his work on the Bible.
And so, today’s reading, in typical Luke fashion, meticulously identifies the exact time frame of the beginning of John’s ministry. The 15th year of Tiberius Caeser’s reign, while Pilate was governor of Judea. Luke also mentions the Tetrarchs Herod, Philip, and Lysanias, and identifies Annas and Caiaphas as High Priest. But I think that Luke has more in mind here than just establishing a timeline. Because when Luke places the beginning of John’s ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Ceaser’s reign, he unquestionably identifies that ministry as beginning sometime between October of the year 27 and September of the year 28. But here, Luke has named seven men, seven men representing the height of political and religious power. And yet as powerful as these people were, God was about to do something here that was earth shaking far beyond anything any of these men could have hoped to achieve. Dr. David E. Garland said, “These rulers appear to have far more influence than John, but they have no inkling that the foundations that supported their thrones and murderous ideologies would be shaken to the core because of what would happen in an obscure corner of the empire beginning with an obscure prophet. This list reveals that Roman political dominance over the world does not control the story but a transcendent power does – God’s eternal will. God was moving in ways that would dethrone them.” [1] And so, into their world comes a man, a man with no money, no political power, no influence, and yet this is the man to whom came the word of God. This is the man about whom the angel Gabril spoke, when he said that John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. This is the one about whom Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist”. The great reversal has begun!
John is a prophet. And John is here to announce something entirely new. Something that we are going to talk about… next week. So stay tuned! But for today, I would like to focus on the image that is being drawn here about preparing the way for the Lord. Flatten the mountains, raise the valleys, and straighten the roads. Luke’s first century listeners understood that imagery, and now so do we. But what does it mean?
Well, what things are standing in the way of our relationship with Jesus? What are our valleys? When are the times when we feel inadequate or helpless? You know, there’s an old saying that God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called. When we feel like we are not up to the task of sharing the Gospel, or feeding the hungry, or loving our enemies, these things can be the valleys in our lives. But John tells us to lift up those valleys. We have to trust that we don’t need to be afraid of sharing our faith because when the time comes, the Spirit will give us the exact right words to say. We have to understand that God is not calling us to feed EVERYONE, He is just calling us to do our part; to care for those who God puts in our path. If we have trouble loving our enemies… well, we all have trouble loving our enemies. But we can start by praying for them and maybe eventually our prayers for them may end up healing us! Satan loves it when we feel inadequate because those feelings of inadequacy can paralyze us and keep us from being effective servants of the Gospel. So, lift up those valleys! We need to learn to recognize the areas in our lives where our feelings are preventing us from living to glorify God. And we need to pray on these things because God is faithful to equip us with everything that we need in our service to Him, if only we ask. Let us make our valleys exalted.
Next, what are our hills? What are the things in our lives where ego and status-seeking hinder our love for one another? When we see a poor person, when we see someone who is homeless, dirty, and disheveled, when we see migrants crossing the river in a desperate attempt to make a better life for themselves and their families, do we feel repulsed? Are we quick to blame the poor for being poor; quick to blame the homeless for not picking themselves up and bettering themselves; quick to blame the migrant for not following the rules? Or are we looking at these people and seeing the Imago Dei, the image of the Living God, OUR God, dwelling within them. A huge part of the love that we are called to have for others is built on empathy. Until such time as we knock down the hills of our ego, we will lack the ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, and until we are able to do that, it will be impossible for us to love in the way that we are called to love. Let us make our hills low.
Finally, where are our roads crooked? Where do we get distracted or thrown off course? What are the things in our lives that interfere with our focus on Jesus or our focus on living faithfully? The world is full of distractions, and sometimes we need to force ourselves to set those distractions aside in order to create time for prayer, for worship, for service. Being a child of God sometimes requires a re-prioritizing of our lives. In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul wrote, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” This re-prioritizing of our lives is exactly the sacrifice to which Paul was referring. The Christian Missionary Jim Elliot once said, ““He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”. Let us pray that we are able to set aside our distractions and take the time that we’ve saved to instead become fruitful bearers of the Good News of the kingdom. Let us make our roads straight.
John preached a message of repentance. His message is grounded in the idea that our encounter with the Living God who we meet in the person of Jesus will affect us in such a profound way that it alters how we think and what we do. Donald G. Miller says, “When the multitudes flocked to John to be baptized, he insisted that the rite was of no value save as it testified to a deep inner change of the heart. This change of heart, however, was not some dramatic act far removed from the common round of life. It was to be manifested by living in hope of the coming Kingdom in the ordinary tasks of every day.[2]
My dear friends, we are in the process of becoming new creations. As God continues to touch our lives, He is transforming our hearts into hearts that will someday look just like His heart. Hearts that have the capacity to love others, even those who are difficult to love. Hearts that are broken when we see that some of God’s children are hungry, or homeless, or exploited, or abandoned. Hearts that long for justice and fairness and equality.
And so, as God’s Holy Spirit works in us to bring about this transformed heart, let us participate in that process by bringing low our hills, exalting our valleys, and making straight the way for the Lord.
[1] Dr. David E. Garland, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 152
[2] Donald G. Miller, The Layman’s Bible Commentary: Luke, Pg. 44
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