“And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.”
(Luke 1:80 ESV)
Luke tells us that John lived in the wilderness before he began his public ministry, getting people ready for Jesus Himself. I wonder why?
By birth John was a priest, like his father Zechariah. Even if his parents died when John was fairly young, I would have expected another relative to raise him and see to it that he found his place in the temple, serving just as his father did.
But that doesn’t seem to have happened. Instead, he became “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord'” (Matthew 3:3b).
Sometimes it takes a voice from the wilderness to shake us out of our usual ways of looking at the world. And clearly, God didn’t send John to follow in the same paths everyone else had trod for years and years. No, it was his job to shake up his hearers, getting them ready for the coming of God Himself—Jesus, our Savior. John prepared His way—and Jesus came to us, to forgive us and to save us and to make us His own. Through His birth, life, death, and resurrection, Jesus brought us up out from the wilderness into the promised land of God’s own kingdom.
We Pray: Lord, thank You for bringing me to Yourself. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
* Do you prefer wilderness or cities? Why?
* What other events in the Bible do you know about that happened in the wilderness?
* Why do you think God chose for Jesus Himself to grow up in a small village, neither wilderness nor city?
Advent Devotions were written by Dr. Kari Vo.
Originally published in The Lutheran Hour on December 19, 2024
Used by permission from International Lutheran Laymen’s League, all rights