In today’s first reading, we hear of a plan to improve journey times – though here the prophet Isaiah is encouraging the people to construct a speedy route along which God’s very self can travel. And this “building project” is intended not to take the frustration out of life or improve the economic situation, but to set God’s people free after years of living in the misery of exile. Isaiah announces that the time of suffering and captivity is over: the Lord is coming and the people need to prepare a straight highway for God across the desert, a way for the Lord through the wilderness of their exile. So obstacles need to be removed, valleys filled in and hills flattened, to hasten the Lord’s coming. Then God will lead the people home – like a shepherd leading the flock and tenderly carrying the lambs in His arms.
It is with this vivid image that St. Mark chooses to begin his Gospel and to describe the coming of Jesus, God’s Son and anointed one. Isaiah’s ancient prophecy is being fulfilled in a new way: one more powerful than John the Baptist is coming to lead God’s people home, to set them free from tyranny of sin to live in the homeland of God’s kingdom, which, Jesus proclaims, is breaking into the world. Symbolically, St. John goes out into the wilderness to call the people to prepare for this momentous arrival.