Twentieth-century man needs to be reminded at times that work is not the result of the Fall. Man was made to work, because the God who made him was a “working God.” Man was made to be creative, with his mind and his hands. Work is part of the dignity of his existence.
Sinclair Ferguson

Preparing The Way

Preparing The Way

Preparing the way

by Rev. Kurt H. Asplund

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness; `Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God….'” (Isa. 40: 3).

Today, we will speak of preparation. As a general rule it may be said, the more significant the event, the greater is the need for preparation. A bride prepares for her wedding; a woman for the birth of a child; we all must prepare ourselves by education for a career in life; and, indeed, our entire life is nothing but a preparation for our life after death.

The most significant event in human history was the advent of the Lord. The Lord’s preparation for His coming was remarkable, affecting not only the world but the heavens as well. The Lord “bowed the heavens” and came down. He took the sceptre of Judah as His own. Preparation was necessary for the end to be accomplished.

One reason the Advent did not take place immediately with the fall of man in most ancient times but was delayed untold centuries was to provide that both men and angels might be made ready for the Lord’s coming, especially by means of the written Word.

It is in the Word that prophecies of the Lord’s birth are given. Unless Balaam’s prophecy of the star had been given in the days of Moses, how would Wise Men from the East have known to come to worship Him? Without Isaiah’s words, who would have sought for a king who was a descendant of David, born of a virgin?

Our particular interest now is another prophecy found in the book of Isaiah which concerns a special preparation for the Lord’s coming: the promised birth of John the Baptist. Isaiah did not name John but referred instead to one crying in the wilderness who would “prepare the way of the Lord.”

It is clear that this prophecy refers to John. Among the remarkable circumstances surrounding John’s birth is the inspired statement of Zacharias, his father, in which he says, “You…will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways” (Lu. 2: 76). Later, John himself, when questioned if he was the Messiah confessed, “I am not the Christ.” He said, “I am `The voice of one crying in the wilderness; make straight the way of the Lord.'” (Jn. 1: 23).

The last of the prophets of Israel, Malachi, also spoke of the sending of a “messenger” to prepare for the Lord’s coming. “Behold, ” he said, “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4: 5). John was not Elijah reincarnated or reborn, but was like Elijah in nature, a man of the wilderness, bold and outspoken, a reformer attacking the open sins of his day. He acted in the “spirit and power of Elijah.” This linking of the two men also has a spiritual basis in that John, like Elijah, represented the Lord as to the Word and its power in its direct literal sense.

Such a prophet was sent to prepare the people of Israel for the Lord’s coming. The need and reason for this is indicated in the rest of the words of Malachi: “The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple….” he said, “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiners’ fire and like fuller’s soap…” (Mal. 3: 1-2). The prophet was being sent to reform the people, the Lord taught, “Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4: 6).

“Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse!” These are the final words of prophecy, the final words of the Old Testament. How different from our usual concept of the Advent, of our Savior’s birth among the gentle animals of the stall. How different from His own teaching on earth when He said He had not come “to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (Jn. 3: 17).

In what sense, then, may it be said that the Lord’s coming would be like a consuming fire and a dreadful curse? Such is the effect of the approach of the Divine near to those who are in evil. Not that the Lord wills to bring them hurt, but thus do their evils react to the exposure to the Lord.

Here, then, is the mercy of the Lord’s preparation for His coming. Without an orderly preparation, a Divinely ordained preparation, no man could have stood the approach of the Divine as He came to earth. We are told that His coming would have brought disease and destruction upon the Jewish church because of evils of the people (AE 724: 7). So, too, are we vulnerable to the approach of the heat and light of the Divine good and truth.

What is involved here is a doctrine now revealed for the New Church that explains the appearances of the literal sense of the Word and shows that God is, always was and always will be a God of love and mercy. It is the doctrine of accommodation.

Who is the “jealous God” who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children? Who is angry with those who disobey His laws and brings death and destruction to thousands of Israel’s enemies? Who is the God who is wrathful and burns against the wicked like a consuming fire? Who is He that would strike His own creation with a curse?

The Lord does none of these things. He is never angry, vengeful, punishing, or condemning. These qualities are the qualities of evil and of hell itself and when they are loosed upon mankind it is never of the Lord’s will. Why then are these things said of the Lord? It is said because that is how they appear to us in our natural states. The Word of the Lord is accommodated to those states of mind. Otherwise, we would reject it.

The truth is that the presence of the Lord disturbs the hells, stirs them up, removes and destroys the false ideas they cling to and the evil loves that form their apparent life. At the approach of the Lord, those in evils and falsities become distressed. “The Divine, when it comes down out of heaven into the lower sphere where the evil are, presents an effect which is the opposite of its effect in heaven…” we are told. “That is, in heaven it vivifies and conjoins, but… where the evil are it produces death and disjunction. This is because the Divine influx out of heaven opens, in the good, the spiritual mind, and fits it to receive; but in the evil, who have no spiritual mind, it opens the interiors of their natural mind, where evils and falsities reside, and from this they then have an aversion to every good of heaven, and hatred for truths, and a lust for every crime…. This influx with the good…appears in the heavens as a fire vivifying, recreating, and conjoining; but below with the evil, it appears as a devouring and wasting fire” (AE 504: 18).

We all share this experience for there is an evil hereditary nature in us all. When our shortcomings and loves are exposed by the truths of heaven, we feel uncomfortable. The appearance is that we are being attacked and condemned by the heavens. In fact, the attack is from the hells and the spirits there who love nothing more than to find fault and punish.

The Lord foresaw that His coming would have this effect if there was not some way to prepare and protect those on earth from the hells.

Even the heavens must be shielded from full exposure to the Divine majesty and glory. No man or angel is perfect and the Divine life is accommodated to reception. The Heavenly Doctrine describes this. “The Lord is present, indeed, with all in the universe, ” we are told, “but more nearly or remotely according to the reception of good by means of truths with them from Him. For good is that in which the Lord is present with angel, spirit, and man; therefore the extent and quality of good from the Lord with them are what determine the extent and quality of His presence; if the presence goes beyond this, there is anguish and tremor; but by accommodation to reception there is renewal of life….

“Renewal of life, that comes by accommodation to reception appears in the spiritual world…as a cloud, ” we are told. “All societies there are encompassed by such a cloud denser or rarer according to reception” (AE 80).

Again, we are told that “the presence of the Divine Itself is of such a nature that no angel can endure it unless he is protected by a cloud, which tempers and moderates the rays and heat from that sun…” (AC 6849: 5).

The general principle involved in this spiritual law is that “if the Lord’s presence is nearer than in proportion as the man is in the affection of good or of truth, the man comes into temptation.” The reason, we are told, is that “the evils and falsities which are in the man, tempered by the goods and truths that are in him, cannot endure nearer presence” (AC 4298).

Let us now turn again to what was involved in the sending of John before the coming of the Lord.

The Lord’s advent was to bring about a presence of the Lord on earth unlike anything ever before. Although He Himself would be clothed in the Mary human, His life would be a process of glorification in which the heredity from Mary would be put off and His Human made Divine. For while He was born to us as a Child, His name would be called, “Wonderful…Mighty God, and Everlasting Father” (Isa. 9: 6). Who, then, could endure His coming and sustain His Divine presence?

It was to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord” that John was born. So said the angel to Zacharias. This was reiterated by Zacharias at the time of John’s naming when all the people wanted to call him after his father and he had said, “His name is John.” “Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God…. `And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways…'” (Lu. 1: 64, 76).

John’s ministry of baptism for which we now know him was not begun at his birth. He grew up in that hill country of Judah where he was born and was in the deserts eating locusts and wild honey for thirty years before suddenly appearing at the Jordan river where he baptized and preached repentance. Here it was that many from Judah and Jerusalem came out to be baptized by him in the waters of Jordan. And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I…. I indeed baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk. 1: 7f).

There is a difference between the baptism of John and the Christian baptism which the Lord commanded His apostles to administer. The Heavenly Doctrine treats of John’s baptism showing that it was, like Christian baptism in the Lord’s name, a sign of introduction into the church and insertion among angels in the spiritual world. By means of John’s baptism, we are told, “they were enrolled and numbered with those who in heart were waiting for and longing for the Messiah, for which reason angels were then sent and made guardians over them” (TCR 691e). The effect of this was to close up the hells and guard the Jews against total destruction (TCR 689) which would have been their fate without it.

“As to the baptism of John;” we read, “it represented…cleans- ing of the external man; while the baptism of Christians at the present day represents the cleansing of the internal man, which is regeneration” This is why John said he baptized with water but that the Lord would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. “The waters” with which John baptized signified introductory truths, which are knowledges from the Word respecting the Lord.

John preached repentance along with his baptism. The water had no power to cleanse the life of the Jews. Acts of repentance based on plain teachings of the Word, however, could bring external order to their lives. Further, since the act of baptism represented and signified purification from evils and falsities, those baptized could be associated with heavenly societies in which there was protection from hell. “The baptism of John could produce such an effect, ” we are told, “because the Jewish Church was a representative church…. The washing and baptizing itself did not indeed purify them…but only represented and thence signified purification from them; nevertheless, this was received in heaven as if they were themselves purified. It was thus that heaven was conjoined to the people of that church by means of the baptism of John; and when heaven was thus conjoined to them, the Lord, who was the God of heaven, could manifest Himself to them there, teach them, and abide among them” (AE 724: 8).

So it was that in the days of Herod, the King of Judea, in the fullness of time, Mary brought forth her firstborn Son in Bethlehem of Judea, and the name He was given was Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins.

It is our prayer that the Lord may be born in our hearts and become our Savior. Yet, we too, must be prepared for this advent. We are told that the Lord’s presence is “unceasing with every man, both the evil and the good, for without His presence no man lives; but His coming is only to those who receive Him, who are such as believe in Him and keep His commandments” (TCR 774, 766).

The baptism of John is also our preparation for the advent of the Lord. John represents for us those introductory truths of faith from the Word which can be understood plainly and directly applied. By means of these we can be introduced into association with societies of heaven. “For heaven, we are told, “is conjoined to man when man is in ultimates, that is, in such things as are in the world in regard to his natural man, while he is in such things as are in heaven in regard to his spiritual man…. This is why baptism was instituted, also the holy supper; likewise why the Word was written by means of such things as are in the world, while there is in it a spiritual sense, containing such things as are in heaven…” (AE 475: 20).

The Lord’s coming is not into what is evil of life, or what is devoid of spiritual life. His coming is only into what is His own with us. Therefore, it is important to furnish our minds with the knowledge of Divine truths and to confirm those truths in ourselves by a life according to them. In this way are we prepared for the nearer presence of the Lord. Our lives are brought into the sphere of heavenly societies, and when heaven is thus conjoined to us, the Lord, who is the God of heaven, can manifest himself to us, teach us, and abide with us (See AE 724:8).

“`Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. The voice of one crying in the wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.’ John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins…. And he preached, saying, `There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'” (Mk. 1: 2-4, 7-8). Amen.

Lessons: Isa. 40: 1-11, 27-31; Lu. 1: 59-80; AE 724: 7-8