John’s ministry was singular: to prepare the way for the Lord. Luke puts it all in context in 3:4-6 where he refers to the writings of the prophet Isaiah.
In my NIV translation, Luke’s rendition of Isaiah’s words are, “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘prepare …’” When I jump back to look at Isaiah, the break comes at a different place: “A voice of one calling, “In the desert prepare…’” Isaiah is saying, “In the desert prepare the way…make straight in the wilderness a highway….” Luke is connecting with John’s physical location in the desert, using John’s actual position as metaphor.
John goes to the desert to demonstrate that it is in the very wildernesses of our lives that God comes to make all things new. Of all the prophets of Old, Isaiah is the most stellar in speaking of this New Order, when God ushers in a whole new perspective. It is perhaps part of the beauty of Handel’s “Messiah”, for the composer draws heavily on Isaiah’s message of hope and newness.
I hear the lilting, soothing music of “The Messiah” in the opening verses of chapter 40 of Isaiah. “Comfort, comfort my people.” This and what follows after verse 6 are the context out of which Luke draws his refrain of a voice calling in the desert to prepare the way for the Lord (40:3-4). What follows in Isaiah, for a long stretch in fact, is a stark comparison between the ephemeral nature of man and the permanence and power of God. Even Isaiah’s choice of length for describing each – a few verses for man, long passages to speak of God’s greatness – draws a deep contrast between the two.
The passage that Luke uses to capture the ministry and message of John is nothing short of a message of hope. Isaiah has just concluded the tragic story of Hezekiah, the king who sells the future of his nation for security in his own time. Depressing, to say the least.
And now Isaiah dares to speak of the audacity of hope – truly bold, for how can one possibly speak of hope at such a time as this, when the nation’s future is doomed by the whims of a weak and selfish ruler? And yet hope has the inherent right to speak at just such a time.
Mankind in all his ways, good and bad, is as transient as, says Isaiah, grass. Years ago, a role I had took me on an annual reporting visit to a pastor named Wannenmacher. Every time I went to see him, he would conclude our appointment by drawing out of his desk a bit of prose. The text said that when we are tempted to boast of our own greatness, we should remind ourselves that we have as much lasting impact as the hole left when we’ve withdrawn our fist out of a bucket of water. Pastor Wannenmacher understood Isaiah’s meaning about man’s power and permanence.
What a contrast with God’s awesomeness! No matter what man does or doesn’t do, God’s strength and ability, His plan and His Word, His very will are all unthwarted.
When I hear people determining courses of social or personal action out of concern for affecting prophetic promises, I think of how little such people understand the God they serve. Sure our actions have consequences, grave ones even, just like Hezekiah’s did. But only to a point. For these are the kind of people who also like to say that they’ve “read the end of the Book and we win.” In this they are very correct, that is if they mean that they are on God’s side, for God, the God of Isaiah and Luke and John, is always victorious. Which is exactly how Isaiah concludes what we know as chapter 40.
You read Isaiah 40 for yourself. And then watch "Chariots of Fire" as Eric Liddell quotes from this very passage. Follow that up with listening to a full recording of "The Messiah." When you've done all that, see what you think of the wilderness you find yourself in. For, as Isaiah writes in verse 5: "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Your wilderness or God's good purpose in your life? No contest as to which will endure.
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