We hear again today of St. John the Baptizer, and his calling to the people, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” He is telling them – and us – that the Lord is coming, and we need to be ready. For the people of his day, St. John is speaking about the day when the Lord would be revealed to all, although he did not know the date, place, or time. For us, this is a reminder that our Lord will come again, and there will be the great and terrible Day of Judgment. We need, then, to prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts, and labor to make the paths we travel straight, not crooked or distorted by our sins. As we have heard before, this task of making straight what has been bent begins with repentance for our sins.
St. John the Baptizer is calling to the people to repent in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom of heaven, in the person of the King. We are, in a way, also making a journey through the wilderness of this life, in a world that is not meant to be our home, but simply a place of preparation as we journey towards the Kingdom of heaven. The way to the Kingdom is the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who Himself prepared the way, and calls us to follow Him, so that He might lead us to our eternal home with Him. We who have been baptized have had our tickets stamped; we have our boarding passes in our hands; but we must now go to the departure gate; and pass through a security checkpoint along the way.
The security checkpoint is the great and terrible Day of Judgment, when we each will be called to account for every word, every deed, every thought, every feeling. We should not come carelessly; we need to prepare. On the way there, we should learn from what St. John the Baptizer was teaching the crowds who came to him. The first step is to turn away from evil. This is the direction he gives to the tax collectors and the soldiers: stop doing what is evil. The next step is to do good; and the concrete example he gives is that those who have in abundance should share with those who have nothing; if you have two coats, give one to someone who does not have a coat at all. Of course, none of this is possible without God’s help; but each of us who bears the life of Christ within us has the power that is needed, not in ourselves, but in Christ, to be transformed in the way that is needed to save our souls, and allow us to reach the Kingdom of heaven.
So we should follow the way of the Orthodox Church and faith, the way of life we have received from the saints, our fathers before us. Prayer and fasting bring us closer to God, and farther from evil; giving allows us to do good for others in the name of God; and struggling against the passions which lead us into sin also helps us to do good, and to turn away from evil. Diligently pursued, our lives are transformed; and so we can truly have hope that God is with us, and of the salvation of our souls.
Brothers and sisters: Our King and Savior is coming again. Let us hear the cry of St. John the Baptizer, and prepare ourselves, and the ways of our hearts, and the paths of our lives, that we may be ready to meet Him when He comes; to the glory of God, and the salvation of our souls.
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