Sometimes . . . to rightly hear the Word of God is to pay attention to Its punctuation marks.  Today I want to be sure you have heard the holy colon.

    A great many translations of Mark’s gospel have that worthy evangelist describing the vision of Isaiah the prophet as being one in which there was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”  But that is not what Isaiah said at all.  The prophet Isaiah has declared the Word of God to be as you have heard it today:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God [to the prophet].  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned … a voice [an angelic voice, perhaps?] A voice cries: [colon]  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord . . .”

That is the holy colon.  The voice (heard by the prophet Isaiah) does not cry in the wilderness.  The voice commands the Faithful, colon, forsake domestic comfort . . . and go out into the wilderness -- into the desert wastes -- and arduously labor, on spare rations, at the task of preparing a way for the Lord:

make straight in the desert [Isaiah says] a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

    In the days when the prophet spoke these words it was to declare that God would act to rescue the Israelite nation from their forced exile in Babylon.  And the immediate meaning of Isaiah’s prophesy was that God’s people must rouse themselves, mentally and spiritually, and be prepared to receive God’s help; . . . God’s people must rouse themselves, mentally and spiritually, and not be resigned to their captivity in Babylon . . . but aspire to God’s promise of release!

    And the Word of God which the prophet spoke came to pass.  It all happened as God had promised.  But simply because the Word of God has been fulfilled does not mean that it is expended and we can discard it.  The Word of God is eternal.  It is as relevant now as on the day it was first revealed.  And so, Saint Mark asserts, in these present days, that the Voice which cried out to Isaiah was a foreshadowing of the Voice of John the Baptizer, who declares, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!”  . . . You see, . . . the human soul, being eternal, is a vast and spacious thing.  And each of us inhabits only a tiny corner of our soul which we have made domestic and comfortable.  The rest of our soul is a vast wilderness that, if we are not careful, we can allow to become dusty and arid; . . . a wasteland instead of the Image of Paradise it was created by God to be.  And so, the Church begins this short season of Advent by remembering the Word of God spoken by Isaiah and by John.  . . . The Church remembers the spiritual necessity that Her people, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”  The Word of God spoken by the prophet Isaiah and by John, to this day, exhorts us to leave the comfort of our self-satisfied spiritual undulations . . . and to go into the dry places of our soul.  The Word of God exhorts us to labor to fill in the valleys of our concupiscence -- to fill in the valleys of our disordered affections, . . . all those little potholes of fearful self-absorption that prevent any sort of steady progress toward the enjoyment of God.  . . . The Word of God exhorts us to do the hard, sweaty work of pulling down the mountainous arrogance of our pride . . . so that it is easier to see God away off in the distance preparing our welcome.  . . . The Word of God exhorts us to rake from our path the sharp stones of wrath and envy which wound our feet and make it painfully impossible for us to approach our God.  . . . At the outset of this short season of Advent . . . the Church remembers that God wants us to stir ourselves up out of our spiritual complacency and make our souls less of a wilderness . . . and more of a garden path for Him.

    . . . When this Word of God first came to the prophet . . . he reacted against it.  For, we read in the Book of Isaiah,

A voice says, “Cry!”  And I said, “What shall I cry?”

The prophet says to God, “What can I possibly say to my people that will make any difference.  They all imagine that they will flourish very nicely without the inconvenience of obeying God.”  But,

All flesh is grass [the prophet says], all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it . . .

This is ever the danger that threatens the soul of humanity.  Distracted by the sights and noises of the world, the flesh, and the devil, human persons, and even the Church (it breaks my heart to say it); . . . even the Church is tempted to believe that a human being is the way that he or she is not because of sin, . . . but because it is the way God made them.  . . . Their affections are disordered and contrary to the Commandments not because of the aridity in their soul, they say, . . . but because of the aridity of Holy Scripture!  . . . And so, each Advent it is the discipline and obedience of the Church to remember, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!”  . . . It is our discipline because human life as the Lord God Almighty created it to be is much, much more than concupiscence, pride, and wrath and envy.  It is because the world considers these things normal that humanity is impermeable to God and in jeopardy of damnation.  It is sin; . . . it is concupiscence, pride, and wrath and envy which cause God’s grace to roll off of us like water off a duck’s back.  Only our submission to God makes us accessible to His ineffable Presence.  … Because, you see, if it is true that “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever,” . . . if it is true that the Lord God Almighty does, indeed, persist in allowing the flower to fade . . . but it is your desire to endure, then you must become that which endures:  you must become the Word of God!  … You must become so saturated with the Word of God that it soaks into your flesh and permeates your entire being . . . so that you become what the Word of God is.  You must be united to Jesus Who is the Incarnate Word of God.  You must be united to Jesus in heart and mind and strength and will!

    How is such a thing possible?  Well, you must rouse yourself spiritually and mentally to receive God’s help and not be resigned to remain a captive to the world, the flesh, or the devil.  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!”  . . . There is always time for secular things in a life, . . . but never time for the sacred.  And so, you must use Advent to capture sacred time.  . . . You might begin by claiming the time to read a spiritual classic such as The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, or Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, or Christian Proficiency by Martin Thornton.  You might stir yourself up to come out at an inconvenient hour into a winter cold church to say Morning Prayer; . . . to hear the Word of God read to you and to say the challenging Psalms and prayers of our Tradition.  . . . You might forsake some secular habit in order to acquaint or reacquaint yourself with the Forward Day by Day which is free for the taking in the Narthex and Parish House; in which are daily meditations and the same readings from Holy Scripture that are read at Morning Prayer.  . . . You might spend an hour or so each month talking about your soul with your Rector, who is a fairly able spiritual director.  However the Lord God Almighty might encourage you to come out into the wilderness and prepare a way for Him, . . . you must use this short season of Advent to do it . . . or at least to begin . . . or begin anew . . . so that you might become a person who endures; . . . a person united to Jesus.