Advent 2C December
6, 2015
Prelude to the Sermon: From the beginning of my preparation
for this sermon, I could hear the music from Handel’s “Messiah” floating around
in my brain. But what most people don’t realize is that the libretto – the words
that go with the music were not written by Georg Frederick Handel, but instead compiled
by Charles Jennens to prove a theological point – that Jesus was the
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.[i]
Setting
the Stage
On May 25, 1977, I stood in line for
two hours with my friends to buy a ticket at our local movie theater. I was
graduating from high school in ten days, and preparing to leave on a European
tour with my high school band and orchestra the day after graduation. The buzz
on the street was that this movie was not to be missed, and so we did it. We
stood in the hot sun and waited. Our relief was noticeable as we were able to
get seats for the next show and not have to wait three hours more. We settled
in with our big drinks and our popcorn and our junior mints and waited for the
lights to dim.
Darkness surrounded us, and a starry
field emerged. And words started scrolling by… “A long time ago, in a galaxy
far, far away…Episode 4: A New Hope…” And so it began. I’m not sure how many of
you can relate to or even care about the Star Wars movie franchise, but much of
the world is anxiously awaiting the next part of the story, coming to a theater
near you on December 18, 2015. What would happen if we anticipated the coming
of Christ in the same way?
As I read through the lessons for
this week, I was struck at the similarity of how the Star Wars stories are
introduced with how we learn about Jesus. George Lucas sets the scene by
placing the story in a particular time and place. The biblical story does the
same. Today we have three readings which set the story of Jesus in a historical
and theological context.
In the first lesson, the prophet
Malachi foretells the coming of a messenger.
The Messiah doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone comes on the
scene and asks the world, “Are you ready?” The refiner’s fire he mentions is
used to purify gold and silver, making it more beautiful and more valuable. In this difficult and dangerous process, the
question goes from “Are you ready for him to come?” to “Are you ready for what
comes next?” The prophet tells us this message will change us. It will require
something from us… something that will be pleasing to God.
The reading from Luke 1 is a
prophecy from Zechariah, and clearly pairs with the reading from Luke 3. We
don’t hear a lot about this Zechariah – he is the father of John, a priest serving
in the Temple, old and childless with his wife Elizabeth. When told by the
angel Gabriel that his wife would bear a son who would be a great prophet, he
did not believe the promise. And so his voice was taken away until the angel’s
promise was fulfilled. In time, Elizabeth did indeed become pregnant. Still
Zechariah was silent.
A wonderful account follows in Luke
1 of the visit between Elizabeth and her cousin Mary, who is also with child.
We remember Elizabeth reassuring Mary that her angel’s promise would hold true
– even Elizabeth’s unborn child leapt in her womb when Mary arrived. We
remember the wonderful words of the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise as she
carried the unborn Messiah, but few of us know the hymn of Zechariah that
follows the birth of John.
When three months later Elizabeth
gives birth to a son, she is told to name him John, which was unusual as it was
not a family name. But in affirming this name by writing on a tablet,
Zechariah’s voice was immediately restored, and he proclaimed, “Bless the Lord
God of Israel because he has come to help and has delivered his people…”
Zechariah’s proclamation is
interesting because when we read it, we think he must have gotten his verb
tenses mixed up. He announces that God has delivered his people. This implies that the people are already
saved - even though John is just a baby and Jesus isn’t born yet. Through this
proclamation we are reminded that our salvation is not an isolated and new
thing, but connected to the relationship that God has had with his people in
the past – with Abraham and all of his descendants. The coming of John and Jesus is God following
through on the continuing work of salvation.
The Jews always believed that the
Messiah would come and change the political order, but instead God’s promise transcends
the current political state. Even after Jesus death and resurrection, Jerusalem
and Judah are still occupied by Rome. But they are delivered from Rome’s ultimate
power over them. This is part of the resurrection story. The power of Rome,
which is centered on the threat of the cross as a way to keep people
controlled, is not enough to keep Jesus from exerting his God-given power. In
the end, resurrection will always win. God’s promises will prevail.[ii]
What Zechariah proclaims about John
himself is simple. He will be a prophet, who prepares the way for someone even
greater, and in doing so, will tell people about the power of forgiveness, and
the great compassion of God. We often think of the message of the prophets
being words of gloom and doom…. “Clean up your act, or else.” But Zechariah’s
words remind us that ultimately, the prophetic word is a call home, back to the
loving arms of God.
The gospel lesson sets the ministry
of John, and also Jesus, in a specific historical context. John and Jesus are
real people, set into a real history that we can read about, immersing ourselves
in that story. Each of the rulers listed in the beginning of this chapter was a
historical figure who ruled in a particular time that can be verified by public
record. They were people with great power, each whom had influence over many.
Some were Romans – others were Jews, but God did not choose them to initiate
the big change that was coming.
The wild man John was the most
unlikely candidate to start the revolution, living out his mission in the most
unlikely place. Like the Old Testament prophets before him, he does his work,
not in a political vacuum, but stirring up trouble at the very center of the
political world around him. And insignificant – and maybe a little crazy – as
John seems, his prophecies about who Jesus is and what his will do will shake
the very foundation of the current world order. Nothing will ever be the same.
First, John’s message is one of
repentance. Now the word repent doesn’t just mean saying that we are sorry. It
means completely turning around, requiring a total change in the way we think
and the way we live… in the way we think about who God is and what God requires
of us.
Second, John proclaims a message of
hope. John the Baptist was announcing the coming of the Messiah, and he was
calling for repentance. The crisis he was speaking to was not an outward,
national crisis, but rather the inward, personal need for the people of his day
to prepare for the coming of the Lord.[iii] Just as Isaiah spoke a word of hope to those
who were in physical exile, John speaks hope to those who are longing for a
different way of life – for salvation, and tells us to prepare the way for him
coming. This is not just about preparing ourselves, but also preparing the
world around us, making it possible for the salvation of God to be made real
among us.[iv]
All of this makes me ask these
questions: Is forgiveness only the responsibility of God, or are we called to
offer the same? What does forgiveness require of us? Does it just show up in
the way we act, or does it require a total change of heart? And I think these
are the ultimate questions of faith as we seek to live in Jesus Christ.
I’m sure this has happened to you.
You plug in the name of the town where you want to travel and in the list, your
GPS tells you it’s 50 miles away. But when you choose the place, and the route
is calculated, the distance gets bigger, sometimes almost twice as far you
believed it to be. In the South, we call that first calculation “as the crow
flies.” And the second – well, that’s just “going by the road.”
When John talked about crooked
places being made straight and rough places being made smooth, he was not
talking about cutting down of the amount of distance we travel in the world, or
the quality of the roads. He wanted people to examine their lives and confess
the places where their rough places needed smoothing out, where their
crookedness needed straightening. Repentance was the first step and baptism was
the sign of their commitment to new life. But the change did not end there.
Throughout his
ministry, he called people with encouragement, to not run away from their
problems, or avoid God’s judgment, or to flee from the wrath to come. In the
midst of it all, he called for people to change their lives and, in doing so,
change their world. His call was for us to bear fruit worthy of the gift of
forgiveness.
So today, I ask this: What does it
mean in your life for the crooked to be made straight and the rough places made
smooth? 2015 has seemed like the year of the crisis. Fires and floods, hurricanes
and drought, snow and cold, wars and terrorism… every day we feel more helpless
and more hopeless. We look for people to blame – who sold the gun? Who broke
the rules? Will we ever be able to trust again?
When the crowds asked
John how they were to make the crooked straight and the rough smooth, he said,
“If you have two coats share one with a person who has none; do likewise with
your food.” He told the tax collectors not to collect any more than they were
authorized. He told the soldiers not to harass or cheat anyone, and to be
satisfied with their pay. In other words, he called upon people to straighten
out their lives by caring for the lost and the least among them. And this is a
word for us, too.[v]
I heard a story
on the news this morning about St Nicholas Day (December 6)…. It was in German,
but this is what I understood. In preparation for the feast day, men are
trained to interact with children, telling them “his” story and his ministry
from long ago. This fall, the question arose on whether or not presenting
themselves to Muslim refugee children would be offensive, and what if anything,
they should do to tailor their conversations in that context. Eventually, it was
decided that because St Nicholas is the patron saint of all children, that they
would go where they were welcomed. One St Nicholas portrayer related his
experience that spending time with a group of Muslim girls was one of the best experiences
he had ever had. [vi]
There is no
magic solution for the problems of the world. God is working in every one of
these crisis situations, but he’s working through us. We are his hands and
feet, carrying the burden of others and helping them pick up the pieces and
rebuild. We are his voice proclaiming not just a message of ethereal hope that
wafts like a ribbon of smoke through hurting people’s lives, but hope as acts
of love and courage that meets people where they are and brings them with us to
wholeness – the place where God wants all of us to live.
I don’t know
what that looks like for you. I don’t even know what it looks like for me right
now. But I do feel John’s message stirring me from my fear and doubt and
complacency and asking me to do something…. He has set the stage – now it’s
time for us to act! Prepare the way of
the Lord!
Amen.
Peace, Deb
[i] Robert
Harris, Handel’s Messiah: Six Surprising Facts, http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/handel-s-messiah-6-surprising-facts-1.3351122
[ii]
Robb McCoy and Eric Fislter, Pulpit Fiction, http://www.pulpitfiction.us/show-notes/144-advent-2c-dec-6-2015.
[iv]
McCoy and Fistler
[v]
Dawn Chesser
[vi] “Traditions
and the New Refugees,” https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/tradition-and-the-new-refugees
