John the Forerunner, a/k/a John the Baptist, is often portrayed as a dour, grim, sin-obsessed scold, almost as depressing as our pictures of Christmas-abolishing Puritans. Now, to be fair, John was trying to get his fellow Jews with the program, but it wasn't all fire, brimstone, "wrath that is to come" dialogue. John also mentioned that God was going to come to His people and bring them salvation. To that effect, "Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth." (Luke 3.5)
Uh, okay. What in the actual...?
The image is a bit remote for us, but it is one that is scattered through the Prophets. John the Baptist, purported by Christians and Mandaeans (never heard of them? Look them up here...) to be the greatest prophet of the Lord, was not the only prophet to use the image. We see it in Baruch (a deuterocanonical prophet, cf. Bar. 5.7), and especially in Isaiah (Is. 40.4) to whom John attributes the image (kudos to John for not plagiarizing and for naming his sources).
The context is everything, of course. God is coming to His people, He is offering humanity salvation, He has taken pity on us. As part of that offer, God raises up the valleys and levels the mountains. Anyone who has ever done a long trek realizes that hills and valleys add substantially to the time and effort to get anywhere. If you were ever on an exercise bike or a treadmill, the "hill" feature is dreaded as it significantly increases expenditure of energy. Some mountains and valleys are difficult, and even impassable. So it is in our journey to God. Our lives are full of barriers to God and God's love, but here Isaiah, Baruch, and John are telling us God is onto that little game and is going to make the road level.
That is not to say that life will be a bed of roses, but what it means is that a path that once was impossible has now by God been made possible. The prophecy calls for God to bridge the gulf, topple the mountains, and level the playing field. That is done by Jesus Christ Our Lord.
