+What a way to begin Advent---these readings aren’t the stuff of Christmas carols are they?
Last week Jesus told us to be prepare—that we must stand ready, ready for him to come, in the Second Advent, with great power and glory. It was a tough way to begin Advent, no angel visits to Mary, no sweet prose about a babe in a manger. Today the message doesn’t get any quieter, the image isn’t any sweeter. Today we hear from two prophets—Baruch, speaking to a generation of Babylonian exiles some 1400 years before the time of Jesus and John the Baptist, a prophet of the first century, preparing the way for Christ. Baruch tells his generation to be ready, to stand up, dropping the dreary existence of captivity and prepare to be freed. John, in today’s gospel, promises release to all who follow him. Release from the despair of the wilderness, relief from the rigors of the Temple, and reprieve from the autocracy of the Empire. Repent, cries John, turn your life around, shed your old ways , for a new way is coming and it’s time to get ready. Mountains will be laid low, valleys will be filled in and the rough road will be smoothed. According to our two prophets today—Baruch and John-- this shift into the new isn’t easy, it’s not painless.
Obviously, prophets do not come onto the scene quietly. They shake things up; they shout from the rooftops and set us on edge. A prophet doesn’t fit in. A prophet doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, a prophet tells us what we must hear. A prophet is often a pain in our rear. But after a prophet is through with us? Well after an encounter with a prophet, we don’t look at anything the same way.
After a prophet is through with us, we are different.
John didn’t come on the scene quietly, nor did he tell people what they wanted to hear. To many, I’m sure; John was a pain in the patoot! And he wasn’t even the main attraction!
John the Baptist knew his place, John knew he was simply the opening act for the big show, he was the front man, the advance man for the Messiah. John’s job is to turn us around, to get us to leave the old behind so we can accept the completely new, the utterly different, the new life Christ will provide. So John, this straggly looking, wild sounding peasant in the wilderness tells us: repent, turn your lives around, open yourself to the new way which is about to arrive.
John was a different breed of prophet, preparing the landscape for a new legacy, a different way—John was on the edge of something big and he was bound and determined to bring as many people with him as possible.
John the Baptist stood between two distinct periods in our Christian history— bridging the prophetic voice of the Hebrew scripture with the new voice to come in the person of Jesus Christ. He was a transitional figure with one eye firmly on the past and one eye firmly on the future. Some may have thought he was a prophet ahead of his time, others may have thought he was just plain nuts, but he knew, he knew he was the new Elijah, paving the way for God’s in-breaking into the world through Jesus Christ.
And he was going to make darn sure that people would hear his message. A message of both promise and warning.
Promise that the Messiah was on his way and warning that we weren’t prepared!
John is telling us, John is begging us, John is challenging us, let go of the old ways. To drop all that weighs us down and with outstretched arms, lift our faces to the sky and accept the coming of the New World.
A new world full of God’s love.
Should be an easy message to sell, right? We’re all aware that life is more joyful when we allow God’s love to wash over us and guide us...so we should gladly and easily turn our lives around, shedding all that stands in our way, right?
But, of course that’s not what we do…we’re human and it’s human nature to resist change…even when it’s good for us!
Remarkably, even when we’re in a bad situation we have a tendency to stay put, to stick with the status quo. Not because we’re gluttons for punishment but because we’d rather stick with a scenario we know than change to one we don’t.
The familiar, even when it isn’t good seems less risky than the unfamiliar.
This is not new.
The people of the Exodus, the people of the Exile all wanted, at one time or another, to return to what they knew, even though it was bad for them, because what they knew was less risky than what they didn’t.
We’re no different.
But to fully receive the miracle in Bethlehem we must take this Advent time of preparation to lower our mountains, fill our valleys and straighten our own crooked roads.
We all have them—mountains of doubt, valleys of anxiety, roads crooked with worry. This is no way to welcome the Jesus, but those mountains, those valleys and those crooked roads can feel insurmountable making it impossible to shed it all and emerge ready to welcome the messiah.
But John the Baptist, in all his railing and ranting, in all his challenges and promises prepares us for this new way, he brings us across the divide from the old to the new. He invites us to emerge from the muddy waters of the Jordan changed, ready to receive God’s embrace of love.
A love born of Mary swaddled in rags, lying in a manger.
So our job this Advent season, amidst all the preparations of trees and gifts, amidst all our roads of worry, valleys of anxiety and mountains of doubt is to repent: to turn our lives from all that weighs us down, from all that distracts us and turn toward the east and with heads raised high and arms outstretched ready to accept the coming of the Lord.
The image isn’t quiet and the message isn’t sweet, but through Baruch and through John we’ll find ourselves in that barn on a silent night, awash in wonder and bowled over by awe.
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