One weekend while I was in seminary, Lauren and I drove to Athens to visit her little sister and go to a football game. As we were walking towards the stadium, I did something that I should have known better than to attempt: I started talking with one of the street preachers who was trying to browbeat the Georgia fans with the old style of “turn-or-burn” and “the-end-is-near” prophecy. As a seminarian, I was sure that I knew more than this gentleman. In the back of my mind, I was convinced that I could sway him with compelling arguments to stop haranguing people who simply desired to go into a football stadium. I probably don’t need to say it, but I watched the Dawgs that day feeling much more sheepish than I had when I approached that street preacher.
I’ve always thought that if John the Baptist lived today, he would have been viewed the way many of us view street preachers. John knew the words of scripture and used them to point people toward the goal of conversion and repentance. Both John the Baptist and that street preacher in Athens felt called by God to this form of ministry. John, who knew he was the fulfillment of prophecy as the one who should prepare the way for the Lord, also knew throughout his ministry that he existed solely for an audience of one: God. The words of Isaiah that he spoke to the people who came to see and hear him are quite familiar to us, though usually only in the context of John’s usage.
When Isaiah proclaimed these words, he sought to comfort the exiles of Jerusalem while they were in Babylon, saying that a day would come when God would guide them out of captivity and return them to their homeland. Yet, as is always the case with prophecy, there is more than one level of meaning to the words. The same words that offered comfort to the exiles also called their descendants to know that God still is at work, seeking to lead them to a new and different understanding of salvation, one of the spirit and soul rather than one of national security.
The great beauty to me is that these very same words seek to point our hearts and minds to that day when “all people will see God’s salvation,” in the time of the full culmination of the Kingdom of God.