Looking at the First Reading and the Gospel for today we can see how the different books of the Old Testament and the New Testament can interlink. The first reading is from the prophet Baruch and the Gospel is from Luke’s Gospel and in it, the prophet Isaiah is quoted. So, we have two prophecies mentioned and Luke is using one of them to highlight the role of St. John the Baptist in the history of salvation. Baruch and Isaiah are both speaking about God flattening mountains and filling in valleys so that the people of God ‘can walk in safety under the glory of God’ (Baruch), while Isaiah speaks of similar changes to the landscape so that ‘all mankind shall see the salvation of God’.
John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus by proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It is like a spiritual levelling — the forgiveness of sins is the act of levelling out the faith experience, where what we believe is in tandem with how we express that belief.