December 11 - Make the rough road smooth!
Contributed by
Sylvia Shirk Charles, campus minister on Thursday December 11
Scripture
Luke 3:1-6
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar--when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene--
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.
He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.'"
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Devotion
Recently I traveled a rough road in the back of a small bus across the region of Putumayo in southern Colombia. I flopped up and down, my bones crunched and my teeth knocked as we sped down a gravel road through a land very much in need of God's salvation. In the churches we visited, sisters and brothers in Putumayo spoke about the devastating affects of illegal armed violence and aerial fumigations in their communities. Farming families abandon their fields and flee their homes to survive death threats, forced recruitment into armed groups and weed-killer that is sprayed on food crops. The Colombian army has been attacked so many times on these roads that they now travel from place to place only by plane or helicopter. Pastors have begun radio ministries because it is too dangerous for them to travel out to rural churches, or for the people to come into town for services. The road is truly rough.
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