We embark on a exciting journey. Its not a physical journey but a spiritual one which might incorporate physical journeys we might have to take in our natural course in this life.
In the last 9 years I have taken the habit of a cyclical separation because home can be a mixture of communication and duties that take us away from the prayer focus. Why are we separating? Are we escaping? Are we running? Are we denying ourselves responsibility?
John the Baptist faces the same questions. He separated away from his parents, the priestly expectation. When John was born his parents were advanced in years. Did John share the call when Isaiah did? Isaiah 6:1 says “In the year Uzziah died I saw the Lord” . Was it the loss of human relations propel him to his call? We surmise.
John must have been confronted with something prophetic. There is a interaction with Isaiah because he prophesies John’s call; ” a voice crying in the wilderness.” A positional word, it’s in the wilderness it begins.
What started with Anna in the Temple, our former series, it becomes not birthing but now dwelling . The time of birthing happened and Anna entered her eternal abode. There comes a time we must move past birthing to abiding. John knew his position: the wilderness, what of his Purpose?
We return to Isaiah;
Prepare you the way of the Lord.
What if this call had a physical and specific call to John has somehow a spiritual and prophetic application to us.
So to prepare the WAY of the Lord requires a radical separation. What if it requires a physical departure. For John born into thr priestly line of Ahijah , he knew that in the Temple he could not fulfil his call. The Lord has not spoken through Isaiah concerning the Messianic mission coming and starting from the Temple. For all its sacrifices and incense, God says specifically where He starts the preparation for the Messiah being revealed.
It was away in the silence of the wilderness. No worshippers, no sacrifices there. Its imperative that John departs from where God is not beginning His Salvation work.
Are you in the wrong place? What we see is that what is normal to associate with spiritual changes, is not in specific ways in the Panorama of eternity. Its from the rugged place where wild beasts dwell, where the winds blow. Where sands fly in the circular breezes. Its here away from human interaction that God begins with the human heart of John. In that place John builds his spiritual tabernacle.
In this spiritual tent John learns what the Messiah is coming to do, opening the door for intimacy with God. Where John sacrificed so freely would man access God’s presence freely. But at the start sacrifice marks the foundations of God’s work to bring the Messiah.
What John needed to understand was what consisted of;
Prepare you the way of the Lord.
What John had to learn that the way of the Lord was a highway for Him to come. We again go back to Isaiah chapter 35, the Highway of Holiness. How could he carve it out without first carving it out first in his own life. This requires first separation and obedience.
Are we willing to hear the call to separation? Are we willing to sacrifice so that we open the way for others to access?
The way of the Lord is precisely needing to be prepared for, in that we also know that the way of the Lord in a different context is needed a preparation. Jesus is coming not as Saviour as in John’s preparation, for us He is coming as King.
The question therefore becomes, what will therefore our preparation be?
Maranatha!!!
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