If we want to get to a destination, we require directions to get there. Either we use a map to discern these directions, or ask someone who knows the way. We do not normally desire to get lost or to go wandering through the woods, but are purposefully directed towards our destination. Even if we discover that our route is blocked, we quickly determine a detour route, or at least our GPS or phone does it for us. We rarely dwell on the journey, but treasure the destination.
But what if we did not know the destination? Or, knowing the destination, we were missing the map or the directions to get there? How would we fare in getting to where we want to go in an alien land and with no guidance? We might stumble upon our destination like a blind pig stumbling on an acorn, or we might never reach our destination. We might, in fact, find ourselves in a place far different than where we wanted to go. It’s not only about the destination, but how we get to that destination.
Our Mass today is filled with the imagery of roads and travel. From Baruch to Luke, we hear about mountains made low and valleys filled on high so as to prepare the way for the Lord. All this should make us think of the first great journey described in the Scriptures: the Exodus. God calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and towards the freedom of the Promised Land. It is God alone who maintains the Israelites in their 40-year journey through the desert until they are ready to receive that which God had promised them.
Our Mass today reflects a theme of preparing for the New Exodus, as the prophet Baruch first demonstrates. This New Exodus will involve God once again leading His people, but this time it will be towards a greater promise. God will smooth the way out for them by making “every lofty mountain ... low, and ... the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground”. Just as highway builders today will flatten out the road as much as possible, so too in the old days did the ancient royal highway builders. And so too does God make a royal road for His people to tread upon.
While the prophets may have done the survey work, it is the man found in our Gospel today who begins the process of building this royal road for the New Exodus. John the Baptist, as we are told by Saint Luke, fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah which is echoed by Baruch: that one will prepare the way of the Lord. This beguiling figure is depicted by the church fathers as a super-prophet, for not only did John foretell the coming of the Lord, but he was able to point with his very finger at the Lord present among the people, crying out, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
John the Baptist is often called the Forerunner of the Lord, because his ministry seems to point directly to what Christ will do in His own earthly ministry. Saint Luke tells us that John was going about “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” in anticipation of what Jesus Himself will preach after His own baptism by John. In this phrase we see the beginnings of the manner in which God will bring about this New Exodus for the people that are peculiarly His own. If we are to enter onto this royal road, we must do so through baptism and repentance.
The New Exodus begins as did the original Exodus: by passing through water and being purified by water. The passage through the Red Sea is seen as a type or symbol of baptism, in which we pass from our bondage in sin and in Satan to freedom in God. Yet, just as the Israelites fell into sin through the worship of the golden calf at Sinai, so too are we still capable of falling into sin after baptism and losing God in the process. Thus do we need the second aspect of this New Exodus as preached by John: repentance.
The Gospel writers use the Greek word metanoia, which is normally translated as “repentance.” Metanoia signifies a change of one’s mind, a conversion as it were from one way of thinking to another. God does not want us merely to receive baptism, but that it should be the mark of a process of changing ourselves from our former sinful ways into the new way of living taught by Christ. Just as the passage through the Red Sea was not the end of the journey for the Israelites, so too is baptism not the end of our journey in the Christian faith. This New Exodus which is the Christian faith must be lived out each day in everything we do. It may be difficult at times, but it is possible to succeed, as our Psalm expresses so beautifully today:
Although they go forth weeping,
carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves.
Let us heed, then, the call of St. John to follow the Lamb of God who has come among us and is coming among us so very soon. Let us enter onto the royal road which the Lord has prepared for us: thankful that He has washed us clean in baptism, but mindful of our continual need for metanoia, for repentance. Let us not be distracted by the temptations which the world, the flesh, and the devil throw in front of us to pull us off the royal road, but let us remain firm in the New Exodus which we undertake, striving to complete the work which God has begun in us in our baptism, as Saint Paul exhorts us to do. Even if we have fallen off the royal road, let us not despair or lose hope nor let us settle in our sinful state, but let us run to confession as quickly as possible to be healed of our faults and further strengthened for the journey. Above all, let us journey down the royal road towards the one destination God has promised to those who are faithful: the destination of eternal life.
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