From the artist:

While the opening of this passage, saturated with rulers and regions that are foreign to us, may feel like detail overload to our ears, I like to imagine the writer is using a bit of comical irony. Luke catches us up on all the fancy rulers of the day, listing off their network of connections and territories. He paints a landscape of power and social control.

Yet, despite all of these mighty rulers—those who were most equipped to dictate messages to the masses—the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Who? Where? Of all the people God could’ve chosen as a vessel for God’s message, God chooses an offbeat, repentance preacher in the middle of nowhere. The irony surely was not lost on the early listeners of this story.

But we know who John son of Zechariah is.We know he is a miracle child, born strong in spirit from a situation of barrenness. We know his story parallels that of Christ. We know that he foretells good news of a world where the crooked will be made straight and the hills made smooth.

Perhaps this is where God’s truth emerges: from the mouths of those we least expect, from the so-called “powerless,” from those who lurk on the margins of society or power or the edges of our own lives. In this season of truth-seeking, where will you draw near? What voices will fill your ears? What voices will shape your consciousness, your choices, your perception of the world? In your own life, where is the voice of one crying out?

—Lisle Gwynn Garrity