One of the most arresting scenes on earth can be found in the desert west of Salt Lake City. The Bonneville Salt Flats are both salty and flat, to say the least. You almost seem to be able to see the curvature of the earth. The ground is so hard and full of natural alkali that no vegetation exists. It is famous as the place for setting the land speed record, beginning in 1914 at 141 mph, and going on from there to 622 mph set by Gary Gabolich in his rocket car, the Blue Flame in 1970. Here, drivers need have no fear of dips and curves, of stones or cracks in the road. They can just open it up as far as the eye can see. Although a natural phenomenon, Bonneville seems to fulfill the biblical image of a straight, flat, smooth way through the wilderness—as though a giant piece of Caterpillar machinery had scraped the earth itself.
If you think about it, it's a strange idea: prepare the way of the Lord. Isn't it God who prepares the way for us? Does God need us to build a highway through the desert so he can travel on it? An unusual image indeed. Picture an earth-moving crew, backfilling the valleys, bulldozing the mountains, taking the curves and ridges out of the landscape, and paving over the broken rocks so all is straight and smooth. Now the Creator of the universe can charge down the road on a mighty Arabian steed, or roar down the highway in a high-powered Maserati. Or not.
What does it really mean to prepare the way of the Lord? What are these valleys to be filled, these hills to be brought low; what rough ways need to be made plain? It must be talking about human lives, human hearts: the depths of discouragement, the heights of self-sufficient pride, the crooked ways of deceit, and the rough patches of adversity, and sin, and all darkness. The call to prepare the highway of God is aimed at the geography of the heart. It is a summons to change our lives, to turn, to repent, finally to believe, sweeping out every obstacle, and by this means to make it clear going for the Lord to accomplish his will through us.
What then gets in the way? Why can't the Lord just pass through unimpeded to accomplish all, to fulfill the holy will? I get in the way. We all do—or rather, that part of us that wants to have things our way, not God's way. Our particular preferences, our likes and dislikes, our desire for ease and comfort, our little irritabilities and our considered judgments, that so-and-so doesn't quite measure up to standards, or that contempt which in the nicest possible way can deal death to others by a sneer or a well-timed roll of the eyes. We are the obstacle to the kingdom, the unexpected pothole in the road of freedom, the impediment to the progress of the kingdom of God.
So the call to prepare is truly our salvation. John the baptizer convinced people of their need for the waters of baptism. They had to get rid of all malice and hatred, all injustice, everything unworthy of God. A new start—because of the One who was on the way.
James Kim is an everyday hero. He's the guy that took off on foot into the Oregon wilderness to get help for his stranded family.
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