'In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 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; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"'
--Luke 3: 1-6
I feel an incredible privilege whenever I get to stand among the people of God and say, “The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!” and to then proclaim the evangelion, the Good News. But there are times when doing so is, frankly, kinda funny. This week is one of those times because, as the folks in my congregation couldn't help but notice this past Sunday, despite it being the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself doesn’t make an appearance. And he won’t next week. Or the week after that. Seems a bit odd to proclaim the “The Gospel of the Lord!” when the Lord is nowhere to be found.
Or is he? Because, while Jesus himself isn’t mentioned, the same spirit with which Jesus preached, the same ethos that he embodied, the same message about God’s workings in the world is here, as we are first introduced to John the Baptizer.
If you know your biblical genealogy you know that John is Jesus’ cousin, the son of Elizabeth, who herself is the cousin of Jesus’ mother Mary. John’s birth, like Jesus’, was a bit of a fluke. Both Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah were well past the usual age for child-bearing. The angel Gabriel had visited them and told them that they would have a son who was to be filled with the Holy Spirit and called to turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, to borrow words from the first chapter of Luke. Zechariah, though, didn’t believe Gabriel, and so he was struck mute until the day of John’s birth, at which point he gave his own prophecy, which we read together this week, the Song of Zechariah, in which he not only praised God but foretold his son’s role as a prophet.
To be sure, Elizabeth and Zechariah were unlikely forebears, but isn’t that how God usually works? John himself would seem an unlikely prophet, but in him the folks were reminded and continue to be reminded that the places and situations and people considered to be of great importance in our world might not be the places and situations and people God considers when God’s next big work is about to occur. It seems God has a fondness for tapping on the shoulders of the anonymous, the unknown, and the ill-prepared.
Tiberius Caesar had been reigning for 15 years, Pontius Pilate was an experienced governor, Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee, and Annas and Caiphas were the all-important High Priests, yet to whom does God ‘s Word go when God speaks it? Not to those powerful, big deal folks, no, but to John, son of Elizbeth and Zechariah, found among the unsuspected.
God sends the message not via the Temple or the palace, not to the important somebodies of the world, but via the desert – or wilderness, as Scripture calls it. From the least habitable of places, the Word comes. To the most deserted and desolate of people, the Word blossoms with meaning and life.
John speaks it loud and strong for folks to repent, to “Prepare!” Make straight those crooked paths, like Isaiah said long before; smooth out the rough places of despair into plains, make those mountains of troubles low. And all flesh, whether powerful or powerless, will see God’s new thing…together. No longer nobodies and somebodies – a sign of the new realm among us, or as Jesus will call it: the Kingdom of heaven.
My first boss out of college was a fellow named Rick Bentley, who was the Sports Information Director at what is now the University of Pikeville. I was his assistant, along with being assistant baseball coach, and he and I couldn’t have been more different. But we both loved sports, and we both loved Jesus. Rick was a Freewill Baptist, so this Episcopalian often clashed with his thoughts on Scripture, the role religion should play in society, and the nature of sin. Yet one day, as we were making one of our long road trips to cover a basketball game, he said, “You know, partner” – that’s what we called each other – “I figure when I die there’s gonna be a whole lotta folks I’m surprised to see in heaven, and there’s a whole lotta folks who’re gonna be surprised to see me!” In a car on a road in eastern Kentucky was the unlikely wilderness where my friend Rick, I believe, was not too far from the Kingdom of heaven when he made that little anonymous prophecy of his.
What John called the people in the wilderness to was repentance. The Greek word is metanoia, which means to turn oneself around. This call was for everyone, for the somebodies and the nobodies alike. It’s a word, perhaps, modern church-goers aren’t fond of because it evokes notions of wretchedness, or that somehow we are inherently evil and must constantly repent before a priest or some other confessor and be saved. I mourn that a great many preachers over the years have treated the concept of repentance in this way, an abusive tactic used to get folks to over-commit their time and their treasure to the church because, after all, only the church could save them. I am sorry if you are someone who has experienced that kind of message from a clergy person or a congregation of other believers. Still, if we are to accept the somewhat radical notion that my Free Will Baptist brother proclaimed, that heaven is something we will all inherit, then can we not all also accept the invitation to repent, to turn ourselves around, back toward God, back toward forgiveness, back toward mercy, back toward justice, back toward whatever new call God has in store for us during this season in which the world itself is about to turn,
What in your life is not yet ready for God’s new call? What part of you is in need of repentance, of being turned around? John the Baptizer asked that question a little more boldly than me, but it is a question, nonetheless, that is offered to us all, the powerful and the powerless alike. I know there is much in me that needs to be turned around, not the least of which is my capacity to truly love those with whom I so strongly disagree - my friend Rick helped me with that. Who, I wonder, are those voices for you? Who are the anonymous, unknown prophets imparting wisdom, perhaps even a challenge or two, for you? And do you have ears to hear them?
Their voices join the voice of the Baptizer, who all Advent long is out there in the deserts, in the wildernesses of our everyday lives, crying out for us to not only repent, to be turned around, but to prepare. To till the soil of our souls, that something fresh and new may be born.
