Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
Isaiah 40:1-5 NIVUK
Finally they said, ‘Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Make straight the way for the Lord.” ’
John 1:22-23 NIVUK
A number of years ago, we were in Jordan as part of a cruise. We were wary of travelling in the country by ourselves, so we booked a couple of tours.
On one of those tours, our guide can only be described as a little crazy.
Jordan is a country that has some security issues, so every so often you come across military checkpoints. They are intimidating to cross the first time. Seeing soldiers in desert fatigues, armed with assault rifles, coming up to your tour bus can be a little intimidating. Even more so if your tour guide insists on dangling themselves out of the bus doorway and shouting at the soldiers, ‘Hello! We are all Al Qaeda!’
None of us fell asleep on that bus.
He took us on a drive into the Wadi Rum Protected Area – a spectacular desert, and a proper Laurence of Arabia place. It was hot. It was arid. But it was stunning.
And there, in the middle of the rock and the sand, he led is to a Bedouin camp, where we experienced the joy of Arab hospitality.
It was quite an unforgettable day.
Isaiah is told by God to speak a word to a people who were in a spiritual desert. For thirty-nine chapters, Isaiah had spoke some words of comfort and consolation, but mostly of judgement and conviction. He had foretold the Exile – the single worst event in ancient Jewish history and a heartbreak that came perilously close to ending them as a nation and a people.
But here, in chapter 40, his tone changes. Now we see a different approach.
Like a desert traveller suddenly stumbling across an oasis, he is offering them relief and refreshment in the middle of a harsh and unrelenting desert. He is offering life in the middle of their Death Valley.
But that offer is not cheap. It is not free. It is not unconditional.
And the offer is reiterated through Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, to herald the arrival of the Saviour of the World.
So what does this all mean?
These words are used by John the Baptist to explain his ministry. And what his ministry?
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
Matthew 3:8 NIVUK
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Mark 1:4 NIVUK
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar – when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch 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 country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Luke 3:1-3 NIVUK
Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’
Acts 19:4 NIVUK
John’s ministry was one of repentance from sins that would enable people to receive Jesus as Lord. Since these verses are directly linked with John’s ministry, then they must speak about different aspects of repentance that allow us to receive Jesus.
But what are they?
The first of these is the reason for repentance.
You see, repentance us painful. It is a scorching challenge to both our pride and our dignity. It requires us to admit that we have been wrong and that someone else (namely God) is right. It is not easy. And it’s important that it is not easy.
But yet there is one hugely important reason why we repent: we repent because we can. We repent because we need another chance, and by the grace of God and the awesome sacrifice of Christ on the cross, we have it.
You see, Isaiah’s prophecy is about the end of the Exile: about the end of open military hostilities with the Babylonians – in which they were roundly and soundly defeated – and about God dealing with the root cause of that dreadful event, which was generation after generation of heinous sin.
Look at what the verses say. God is offering Israel comfort because their ‘hard service’ is completed. ‘Hard service’ doesn’t really cover the emphasis in the original Hebrew. The original Hebrew word carries the emphasis of military service. In other words, these verses talk not about the end of work but the end of war. The end of struggle. The end of conflict.
It goes on to talk about payment for sin, and how Israel’s sin has been paid for double by God. Some might interpret this by saying that Israel’s sufferings have paid double for their sin debt. However, I do not think this is the correct interpretation of this at all. That interpretation requires that God is unjust, that He would charge Israel usury to pay their debt. That can never be.
No, what it means is that God Himself has paid their sin debt and God has over-paid it. As Isaiah goes on to say in those famous verses in Isaiah 53:
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5-6 NIVUK
In other words, these beautiful words in Isaiah 40 prefigure the beautiful words in Isaiah 53 that describe Jesus paying more than enough for our sin debt.
And that is why we repent: because Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to repent by dying on the cross and paying our debt.
But after seeing the reason for repentance, we see the place of repentance: the wilderness.
These verses clearly prefigure the location of John the Baptist’s ministry:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: ‘A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” ’
Matthew 3:1-3 NIVUK
I believe there is a reason why John made all the people – the great and the good and the not-so great and the downright bad – come into the wilderness around the Jordan to repent.
The wilderness is a lonely place. It is a place where we are free of all the trappings and stresses and distractions of our lives.
The wilderness is also the place where all the great aesthetics – prophets and teachers and rabbis – went to meet with God. For example: Elijah (1 Kings 17:1-5), Paul (Galatians 1:17) and Jesus Himself (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-2). It was common practice for centuries.
Because the wilderness was not like one of these über-fashionable retreats, where we sleep in comfortable tents and sit around campfires for group therapy.
No, the wilderness was a dangerous place, often without food or water. The wilderness was a place where people reached the end of themselves and realised who they really were. No-one went there for a comfortable experience. Quite the opposite: it was supposed to be achingly lonely and a thoroughly uncomfortable experience. That was rather the point.
Repentance requires discomfort. It requires pain. It requires coming to the end for ourselves and our resources and our conniving and plotting and scheming. It requires us to realise that we are in a deep hole and nothing we can do will get us out of it.
Repentance requires taking responsibility. It requires us to admit that our problems are our own making, but that we are completely unable to fix them.
To put it bluntly, I rather like the lyrics written by Christian alt-rock band Switchfoot:
I made a mess of me
I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me
I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me
I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me
I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
Let me make a stark and challenging claim: if your repentance had been anything other than a reaching of the end of yourself, or anything else other than a wilderness experience, then I would suggest that it potentially hasn’t really been repentance at all.
Now, I have absolutely no doubt – and the inference behind the recording of John’s teaching makes it plain (see Matthew 3:1-12) - that there were those who headed out to the desert for a religious jolly, or for some new esoteric experience, or simply out of blind curiosity.
However, we know from the Gospels that many lives were completely and utterly changed by John’s ministry.
So let me ask this question: have you been to the wilderness?
As well as the reason and place of repentance, we see the effects of repentance:
A voice of one calling: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
Isaiah 40:3-5 NIVUK
A prime example of why this is needed can be seen in countries like Albania and Moldova. In western countries like Switzerland, Italy or France, if they have a mountain in the way if a road, they simply blast their way through it with dynamite and build a tunnel.
But not in Albania or Moldova. They don’t have resources for such things. Their roads go around or over hills and mountains, not through them. This, of course, makes journeys much less speedy and comfortable.
What Isaiah is talking about here is a straight, direct road: one on which exiles could return from Babylon.
But this also prefigures the roads the Romans built all over Europe and North Africa which, although they were built to smooth the flow of trade and military muscle, also became the means through which the Gospel spread.
Given this passage is used to describe the ministry of John the Baptist, what can this vision mean?
That repentance is the dynamite which brings the high mountain low.
That repentance is the infill that raises up the valley.
That repentance is the leveller for rough ground.
That repentance is the smoother of the rugged places.
We often sing this carol at Christmas:
O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in;
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels,
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!
But Isaiah, and the teaching of John the Baptist, teach us a startling truth: Christ cannot come into an unrepentant heart. Christ cannot be born into an unrepentant life.
If there is no conviction of sin, if there is no sorrow, if there is no desert experience, if we do not reach the end of ourselves and realise that we desperately need Jesus because we have nothing and no-one else, then we cannot follow Him.
Yes, I know this produces pain. Yes, I know this produces sorrow. Yes, I know this is not at all a pleasant experience. It ought not to be!
But look what Paul says:
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
2 Corinthians 7:10 NIVUK
My hope and prayer this Christmas is that you will meet with Jesus in a new and special way, that He will respond to the invitation you sing and will reside in your heart and change your life.
But for that to happen, you must repent.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, my sin and failings disgust me. They have brought me nothing but shame and pain. I am done with them. I want to follow You for the rest of my life. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and show me how. Amen.
Questions
1. Why should we repent? Why do we repent?
2. Why is it significant that the place of repentance is the desert?
3. What do you need to repent of? Are you willing to repent right now?
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