Besides being difficult to pronounce, the names and places listed at the beginning of today's Gospel ("Who was tetrarch where?') are St Luke's way of saying: "This is how it happened. This is how we knew God was about to manifest His Anointed One to the world, because first He sent us a prophet. There was once again a prophet in Israel, as in the days of our ancestors, and his name was John, son of Zechariah, and he came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He is the one whom the Prophet Isaiah had spoken of, the one who was to prepare the way of the Lord. It really happened, just as God said it would."
          Such matter-of-fact-ness when it comes to talking about God's actions in our world and in our lives can seem strange to us, we who are so cautious about and wary of making any truth claims when it comes to God and the things of God. Most of us are much more comfortable with talking about God and His presence in our world, His activity in our lives, in terms of feelings, or opinion, of "what helps me personally make sense of what happened to me." Not St Luke. Not St John the Baptist, not any of the evangelists, apostles, or martyrs down through the ages. No, they were speaking of what they knew to be true: "It happened here, at this place, at this time, to this man, and this is what it means for you and for me." Truth claims, not personal interpretations. Facts, not matters of opinion.
          And what was it that happened at that time and place to the man named John who was the son of Zechariah? God spoke to him, and told him to go out into the desert, to preach a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, to announce that the Kingdom of God was very near at hand. And John did just that. And the people at first thought he was crazy. But the more they listened to him, the more they realized that he spoke the truth - the truth about themselves, about their world, and about their God. And so they flocked out into the desert, to be baptized in the Jordan River, and to await the One whom John said would come, the One who would baptize, not with mere water, but with Fire and the Holy Spirit.
          And God lived up to His side of the bargain. On a particular day, at a particular time, Jesus of Nazareth, too, came out into the desert to be baptized by John. And John saw the heaven's opening above Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him like a dove, and John heard the voice of the Father from heaven, saying: This in My Son, My beloved. Listen to Him. And John said for all to hear, Behold the Lamb of God! Behold him who takes away the sins of the world!
          He did come. God's own Son lived and walked among us as a man, at a particular time, in a particular place. And He died on a Cross and rose from the dead at a particular time and place. That was what John the Baptist was chosen by God to announce - God's actions, God's doing. It was God who would fill in the valleys and level the mountains, who would straighten the crooked paths and smooth out the rough ones, to make a highway for His Son, His Chosen One. As the Prophet Baruch said in our first reading: For God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground, that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God.
          Do you see the difference? John the Baptist wasn't sent by God to say, "All right, people! Time to get your act together! You better start filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains, or else God will not come to you." No, he was saying, "God is coming. Now prepare yourselves."
          So often, I think, in our lives of faith, we tend to focus on what we have to do, on what we need, on how we find it difficult to set aside time for prayer, how we struggle against the same old sins and failings time and again. But such an attitude tends to obscure the fact that there's another person involved in this thing we call a "life of faith," and that other Person is God who has acted in the past, is acting now, and will continue to act for all eternity. This is what John the Baptist realized - that he was called to announce what God was doing at a particular time and place, that God was about to act again, just as He had in the past in calling Israel to be His Chosen People and in leading them to freedom. That's why we sing in our Responsorial Psalm this Sunday: The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy! We didn't sing, "We have done great things for the Lord, and we are filled with joy." No, our joy is in what God has done, in what God is doing, in what God will continue to do.
          This does not mean that we are to remain completely passive in our relationship to God, as if we had no active role to play. No, John the Baptist told the people: "Make ready the way of the Lord. Clear Him a straight path." We do have to clear a straight path for the Lord, but not in order that the Lord will come, as if His coming depended on us. No, God does not need our permission to act in His world, His creation.
          But He waits for, and longs for, our invitation to walk the path that leads to our hearts. That is the path we must make clear, the way we must make ready. God has come to us once in the Person of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to us again each and every day by giving Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist and by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and He will come to us again, in glory and majesty, at the end of time. He will come; it does not depend on us. What does depend on us is whether He will find a clear path, a ready welcome on the road to our hearts.
          As St Paul wrote to his beloved Philippians, as we heard in our second reading: And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.