'In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God. Is 40 :3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRmvoM_Eqo
Tis the season for The Messiah. Handel that is, as well as Jesus 😉 and one of my favourite parts is ' Every valley' which is a rendition of this scripture from Isaiah . John recognises himself as the ' voice calling in the wilderness' and therefore a herald to the coming of the Lord. For quite a while now, on an off, God has been speaking to me about the word ' voice' . And it just so happens that today I lost my voice almost completely!
On Wednesday I sneezed a couple of times, on Thursday I had a bit of a cough and yesterday my voice just disappeared and all I could manage was a very croaky whisper. And it is really odd because I haven't got a cold and I don't feel ill. I just have no voice. Which is a bit of a pain because this evening I'm supposed to be leading the carol singing and being compere at the Christmas Lights Switch on event in town.
We all have a voice. And it is something we very rarely think about. Unless something happens to it - or unless we are called upon to use it in a specific way. But John the Baptist didn't just have a voice ; he WAS a voice. And I think that is something a bit different. I don't think John's mission in life was solely to talk and preach about the coming of the Messiah, his mission was to demonstrate that message by the way he lived, what he wore , what he ate, where he lived, in fact his whole life was the message.
He heralded a Messiah who was The Word of God. Everything about Jesus spoke the message God wanted His people to understand. Jesus was a voice.
So perhaps we too are to be a voice.
Yes, undoubtably we are to speak wisely and kindly and tell people the Good News but I suspect that more than this Jesus asks us to be the message as well as to speak it. 
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