John the Baptist makes a dramatic entrance, declaring the loneliness of the voice calling for organizing a whole mass of people for dramatic change. It is how we get things like weekends and holidays, civil rights and national parks. And yet it is far too easy today to pretend that roads straighten themselves. That the mountains just level off and valleys fill themselves in. Or else the higher power we call God does the work for us and to us, like a gift.

John offers a rallying cry to the people that expresses their dissatisfaction with the status quo. That there are too many obstacles to God’s grace and too few working to change that. If this sounds like revolutionary talk, then you’re on the right track. But John describes the need to prepare the way for the revolution; a kind of pre-revolution. One that we might say opens doors for God to pass through. That our work is to set God up for success here and everywhere.