A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Sometimes, or so it seems to me, God says, ‘Prepare’, and yet He doesn’t give detailed information about what exactly it is we are to prepare for. We just recognise that we are in a season of preparation for something that a.) God is going to do, and b.) we are to be in some way involved. So we wait – prayerfully- preparing ourselves as best we know how, until the Lord gives another piece of the puzzle.

One thing is for sure, if God decrees a matter, it will happen:

”For the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (5b). That sounds final! It is final!! One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. All people will see God’s glory. If God says it, that settles it. Our call is to believe it.

The reference to ”the wilderness” (3) reminds us that God can do remarkable work in unpromising contexts; He can do the most unexpected things amid difficult terrain. Of course, it provides an echo of the ‘exodus’ story’, and anticipates a second one: this time the Lord will lead His people home, through the desert, from Babylon.

Returning to reflect on this text earlier today, the word ”one” grabbed my attention. ‘One with God is a majority.’ John the Baptist was such a one. He was to appear many centuries after this prophecy was delivered. His own humble estimate of himself, when interrogated as to his identity, was: ”I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ” (John 1:23). Jesus ”was the Word” (John 1:1), but John the Baptist was ”the voice” to proclaim the Word. His ministry was costly. Jesus said of him: ”John was a lamp that burned and gave light…” (John 5:35), and the idea is that he ‘burned up’. But how God used him!

Does Jesus have your ”voice”?

Derek Kidner points out that Hosea 2:14 describes the desert as a place of repentance and renewal, then he adds:

‘John the Baptist, with prophetic symbolism, used the literal wilderness for this very work (cf. Mt.3:1-3). But God’s coming (cf. Mt.3:13-17) and the ‘exodus’ that he was to accomplish (cf. Lk.9:31) were to take a wholly unexpected form.’ (‘New Bible Commentary’, p.655).

This underlines the point that Old Testament prophecy can often be likened to a range of hills, which appear to be close together, one behind the other. But in reality they may be separated by huge valleys (i.e. long periods of time)