Bulldozers for Jesus

The ministry of John the Baptist, according to Luke, is explained by the prophet Isaiah.  We know the words from the soaring melodies of Handel’s Messiah and the resonance of a beautiful tenor voice.  “Every val-al-ley shall be ex-al-al-ted.”  The majesty of Handel’s music and the grandeur of the poetry of the King James Version obscure the reality that Isaiah is talking about road construction.  Only Handel could make road construction spiritually uplifting.  And Isaiah.

Isaiah foretells the coming of the Lord, the saving intervention of God in the world.  It is a grand idea to be sure.  Isaiah’s metaphor is about building a highway for a king’s journey.  The exalted valleys refer to filling in the low spots on a mountain road to make the passage level.  Likewise, the lowering of the mountains is about taking the tops off of hills to make the road less steep.  The twists and turns are to be straightened out.  The rough parts must be smoothed out.  The potholes must be filled.  The asphalt must be applied. 

More recent translations make this a little easier to see.  “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  Every valley shall be filled.”  (Lk. 3:4)  We’re talking about dump trucks and serious earthworks.  Whatever the text says, though, I suspect we tend to hear Handel.  What we should hear is bulldozers. 

Isaiah is calling to mind the effort made for a royal visit in a day when travel was not by airplane but by painstakingly constructed roads.  He’s talking about thousands of people, slaves perhaps, toiling in the hot Middle Eastern sun with ancient tools to move dirt, nothing more.  There isn’t very much grand about it, any more than road crews in orange vests putting down a layer of asphalt on a baking hot summer day.

This, though, is how the kingdom of God comes in.  This is how we prepare for the coming of the Lord.  This is how we get ready for Jesus.  With bulldozers. 

John the Baptist is God’s bulldozer. And God’s bulldozer is encouraging the people who heard him to be bulldozers, too.  We have a role to play in the coming of the Lord.  Hastening the coming of God, of God in Jesus, requires effort, effort like a mighty bulldozer. 

John described that work as repentance.  What he meant was taking a bulldozer to the human heart.  That’s a pretty big effort. 

Why would we want to do that?  What makes us want to hasten the coming of the Lord?  It is this promise Isaiah foretold:  “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” 

Rev up the bulldozers.  Jesus is coming!

Peace,

+Stacy