"Prepare the Royal Highway"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Harsh words from St. Paul to summarize the human condition in former times. You were separated from Jesus Christ, having no hope, without God, alone and isolated by your sins and trespasses.

Sin separates you from God. It always has, ever since the serpent first tempted Eve. It must be so, because God is holy and just and righteous, and you are not. Sin makes communion between God and man impossible. Whereas before Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the Garden and talked with Him openly, now they, and all their children, have been cast out of paradise, out of the presence of God. The way back to God is barred by the flaming sword of the eternal Law, brandishing the wrath of God unto death for any that dare approach.

Sin mars the image of God with which mankind was created. Instead of looking upon the face of God as upon the face of your own father, you were consigned to sit in darkness, obscured by the shadow of death. The fact that you bear in your body the image of the only true and immortal God is hardly obvious, made more invisible by your own sinful, selfish actions and inactions. Instead of enjoying the pleasures of creation, instead of basking in the pure love of your heavenly Father, you are consigned to a meagre existence eked out by the sweat of your brow.

Sin puts up a wall of hostility between you and God. Sin, death, and the devil work hand-in-hand to keep you from seeing the grace of God, and even harder to keep you from experiencing it. The Law works upon your heart, and it works death in your members because of the rebellious nature of your sinful flesh. Although the Law is written on your heart, you run from it and its accusations. You blame God for making you feel badly about yourself, and so you turn your face from Him, as if you could hurt Him by your rejection. You, by your rejection of God and His Law, put up a wall that seals you off from His gifts.

On account of all this, the glory of the Lord is lost to you, sinful man. Just as the glory departed from the Temple in the time of the prophets, so His glory has departed from the hollows of humanity. He has departed into the wilderness, beyond the reach of corrupted and weak human hearts and minds. Only His judgment and wrath are to be known in His absence.

However, do not despair! Out of the darkness comes “a voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'prepare the way of the Lord!'” Prepare the way! If mankind will not receive the Lord, creation will. The mountains and hills will bow down, and the low places will rise to greet Him. The royal highway will rise out of the desert, and the road will become wide and straight before the King of Glory. He will come into His own, that His glory might be revealed.

Indeed, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together!” All flesh shall indeed see the glory of the Lord, because He comes in the flesh of man. St. John proclaims the coming of the glory of the Lord: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). Not in an ark covered in gold, not in a temple of wood and stone, but in the flesh and blood of a baby born of a virgin, of a man riding on a donkey, of one condemned by men, abandoned by God, and hung upon the accursed tree.

Indeed the glory of the Lord is revealed, and all flesh has seen it. The glory of the Lord was revealed from Calvary, and the earth itself quaked and groaned. The rocks split, and the Temple was rent. The glory of the Lord was revealed as the blood of the Son of God was shed for you. That blessed flood, flowing from His pierced side has covered all your sins and trespasses in abundance. That flood of water and blood has broken down the wall of hostility and imprisonment that formerly separated you from the Lord and His gifts.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14-16) In the flesh of the Son of God, the division between God and man has been abolished. Communion has been restored. The glory of the Lord has returned to His temple. “And all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
May the LORD give strength to his people!
May the LORD bless his people with peace!(Psalm 29:10-11)

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.