Prepare the Way of the Lord

by | Dec 7, 2015 | Church, Worship

151206-GraphicSermon preached at Whatcoat UMC on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015 as part of an Advent series: The Waiting Room (Doctor Luke Prepares Us for the Master Healer). Sermon text: Luke 3:1-6. The key verse is Luke 3:4:

A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.

Though John the Baptist might seem like a strange place to spend in the Advent season Waiting Room, as Dr. Luke prepares us to see the Master Healer, both Mark and John’s gospel accounts begin with John the Baptist, and include nothing we know from Matthew or Luke about Jesus’ birth. It’s as if John the Baptist’s preparation made possible Jesus’ entry into our world as Messiah, as much as his birth did.

This passage quotes the beginning of Isaiah 40, when the prophet speaks comfort to God’s people returning from exile. As we prepare for Sunday, I invite you to read and meditate on these passages from Luke and Isaiah, as you consider the following questions:

  1. What wilderness place has made it possible for you to speak or to hear a voice calling to prepare God’s Way? Why are wilderness places so necessary in the Way of God among us?
  2. What do you make of the list of rulers, sacred and secular, that Luke mentions at the start of this passage? To whom does the word of come in our own time, and who would make the list of rulers in our day?
  3. The Jordan River was the gateway to the promised land. John’s baptism of repentance was a kind of gateway as well. How do you remember and commemorate your own baptism of repentance during this waiting season? If you have not been baptized, in what ways has God been preparing a Way in your life for a kind of crossing into salvation and hope?
  4. What does any of this have to do with Jesus? In other words, what does it mean that God’s story of salvation includes us as preparers of the Way. How do you prepare God’s Way? What part does God play in that preparation? And how prepared do you feel in this season of waiting?

See the Worship Plan for 2015-16 at Whatcoat UMC.

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