Straight Paths

This is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him to ask him, “Who are you?” He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, “I am not the Christ.” So they asked him, “What are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?”

He said: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” 

Some Pharisees were also sent. They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  (John 1:19-28)

Many of us feel like we are in deserts of loneliness and despair.  We try to cry out: “Make straight the way of the Lord.” However, it is hard for us to make straight and then walk those ways when these desert winds keep blowing sands to bury those ways.  Watching sand drifts blow across Cape Cod beaches makes clear to us the inevitability of shifting paths and covering of footsteps.   Such it is with our lives when our troubles make it difficult for us to know which way to turn, and we become lost in darkening, stinging sandstorms especially not of our own making.

What do we have to say for ourselves? What answers can we provide to stop the hard-blowing winds?  Simple, really.  We must stop crying in our personal wildernesses.  We are baptized Catholics with Jesus in our corners.  He makes our ways straight.  We just have to walk forward and follow the signs he has placed along those ways, signs such as: “Do not be anxious: I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10) and “I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10)

Throughout 2021 let us ask, seek, and knock thereby helping us throw off the yokes of loneliness and despair and to don the one Jesus’ has offered to us – a yoke of love and hope.

Deacon David Pierce