Advent Daily Reflection 2020-12-19
Luke 3.1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
As I read this passage from Luke, the last piece, where John is proclaiming repentance caught my attention. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” It reminded me of this past week's lessons from our Sacred Ground Group on healing and trauma. The crying out in the wilderness or trauma that we all go through at times can be so debilitating and damaging to us and for many generations to come, and yet in order to heal we have to forgive our oppressor. How do we do that? How difficult is it to make the rough ways smooth or the crooked paths straight? It is never easy because in repenting and forgiving we have to behold the other person's grievance and accept the transgression and forgive them. Then and only then can the healing begin.
During this time when we are restricted in many ways of doing the things we love because of the pandemic, I am sure many times we have been angry, sad or depressed because maybe those in power made things worse by putting politics before lives, or when issues of race become imbedded in hate. Can we forgive those who continue to hurt us? In this passage, God is calling upon us to make our paths straight, perhaps by making every mountain and hill low, straightening what is crooked in us by forgiving others. When you forgive those that hurt you, a time of healing begins. Coming into the new year I am hopeful that we can all work on forgiveness and start 2021 by preparing the way of the Lord and healing ourselves, “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”