Isaiah points a powerful poetic vision: “Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid down, winding ways will be straightened and rough roads made smooth.†The writer of the book of Baruch, which we heard as our first reading, would have been familiar with this passage and echoes it in his own words; and the Gospel St. Luke links it with the work of John the Baptist.
John was the last of the prophets, sent to prepare for the Lord’s coming. His job was to prepare as smooth a passage as possible for Jesus. We in turn are being invited to use this image as a way of thinking about how we might prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord. The first coming of Jesus did radically change the course of human history. Nothing can ever be the same again, whether we have taken this fact on board yet or not. The faith of the Church is that everything is moving towards the fulfillment of God’s plan and that in due time the Lord will return again in glory. This is part of the Advent message: we look back and celebrate the coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem and at the same time we look forward to His coming again in glory. And now look for ways to smooth out what still needs before the Lord comes again.