Preparing for God’s Work in Us

Scripture — Mark 1:2-4 (NRSV)

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Devotion

I cannot read Mark 1:3 without hearing echoes of the stirring song from the 1970 musical Godspell (an old spelling of the word “gospel”). In this Broadway hit, John the Baptist sang in the language of the King James Version, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”

(Okay, fun trivia time. If you want to reminisce with me, you can check out this scene from the movie version of Godspell. Stephen Schwartz wrote Godspell, which came out in 1971. Thirty-two years later, his greatest hit musical, Wicked, began to play on Broadway, where it still is playing after 21 years. I saw it live last month, with the wife of a friend of mine playing Glinda. Quite a show!)

The Gospel of Mark begins rather like Godspell, with a voice crying out, “Prepare the way for the Lord” (1:3). This voice is identified in verse 4 as John the Baptist. He was raised up by God in fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3-5, which includes this line: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” John was the one who cried out to Israel to get ready for the coming of the Lord. By calling the Jews to repent and by baptizing them as a sign of their repentance, John set the stage for the coming of Jesus and his announcement of God’s kingdom. Moreover, John pointed directly to the advent of one who would baptize, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit (1:8).

As I reflect on the call of Isaiah, repeated by John, to prepare the way for the Lord, I wonder what this might mean for us. How might we prepare for God’s work in our lives? What can we do to be ready when God chooses to move in and through us? Perhaps we should take direction from John the Baptist, who called the Jewish people to be baptized as a sign of their repentance (1:4). Though we understand baptism differently today, repentance continues to be at the core of readiness for God, even as it was once central to the ministry of John the Baptist. Repentance is more than simply feeling sorrow about the things we’ve done wrong. It is also an active choice to turn away from the wrong and go in a whole new direction. The commitment to turn our lives around and follow God’s way of life helps to prepare us for God’s work in us and through us.

Yet, repentance doesn’t just magically happen. It implies a prior awareness of our need. We won’t repent until we look at our lives and recognize that we need God more than anything or anyone else. Or, if we have begun a relationship with God, we acknowledge that we need more of God in our lives. Seeing and admitting how much we need the Lord opens our hearts to repentance, which, in turn, makes us ready to prepare for God’s work in our lives.

God wants to do amazing things in us and through us, more than we can ever imagine (see Eph 3:20-21). The question is: Are we prepared?

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project’s online commentary. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Meditations on Mark 1:1-8.