To "prepare the way of the Lord" is to take up a new life, the divine life. For way in Hebrew denotes a plan of life. Our writers, however, teach that this preparation consists in confession, fasting and other works. These are the ways of humanity. To prepare the way of the Lord means to prepare ourselves for the Lord's activity in us, so that God may help us and our life may be the life of Christ. It is the way because people ought to have a heavenly way.
But how is this way prepared? To prepare is to clear out of the way whatever will be an obstruction. This preparation is nothing else than our humbling ourselves from our arrogance and glory. Those are the chief obstacles for the hypocrites, who walk in human ways and in their own presumption and do not accept the grace of Christ. To prepare this way, however, means to walk on it naked, without merits of any kind, in the grace of God alone and with the reception of gifts by faith.
Lectures on Isaiah, Luther's Works, 17:8
What hinders the Lord's activity in us is our own arrogance and glory. It is our unwarranted pride and our sense of self importance that blocks the grace of Christ and makes us unfit to walk on the way of the Lord. We refuse to walk on the way naked and insist on clothing ourselves in the garments of our works and our merit. But to live in the grace of God alone means I refuse to wear anything of my own making, anything that brings glory to me, anything that I can take credit for and live by faith alone in the one who loves me and gave Himself for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment