The Gift of Christ

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20
Fairfield Community Church and Palouse Country Assisted Living
December 24, 2021 - Christmas Eve

The Gift of Christ

 

I must confess that I love the Christmas story narrated by Luke.  I’ve loved it since I was an angel in the Christmas pageant when I was four years old.  My church was an old church like this, but the choir loft was in a balcony in the front of the sanctuary.  They had me up in the choir loft looking down over the manger scene.  That Christmas Eve, it was magical and I felt like an angel guarding over the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph.  It has stayed with me all these years and was a big part of my faith formation. 

 There’s something romantic about the story.   All the pictures we see show a dimly lit manger scene with the animals nicely gathered around the manger.   Mary looks clean and fresh – no signs of just giving birth in a barn, looking more like a woman than a teenager.  The manger scene always looks so calm; so perfect; so peaceful.

But there’s nothing romantic about it. It’s a raw, human story of amazing proportions.

Mary gives birth in the filth of a barn, probably lying on top of stiff, dirty, itchy straw.  It was a human birth which we know is messy.  Birth is painful and I wonder, with Mary being so young and all alone if she was afraid. I wonder how long she labored.  How long she pushed and struggled to birth the Christ child. Did she cry out in pain in that dark barn?  Perhaps Mary had helped at other births and knew what to expect but still, there was no other woman to help her.  Joseph would have had to clumsily help – there was no one else there to cut the cord.  To help with the afterbirth.  I was exhausted after I gave birth and Mary would have been exhausted too.  

 After somehow cleaning herself up in the barn, I imagine that Mary looked her baby over.  Checked his toes and fingers, stroked his face, gazed at the perfection of her baby, fell in love with her child.  God’s child.  I imagine she was amazed at the miracle of birth.

The Christ child is laid in a feeding trough for barn animals, not the nice cradle that we find in our nativity scenes.  God allows his Son…. the Christ Child, to be born into humble beginnings without any splendor. Jesus birth was so humble, so seemingly routine; grace took on human flesh and scarcely broke the hush of midnight. You see, this Messiah; this Savior was not unapproachable royalty.  He is “good news of great joy for ALL the people.”  Everyone, no matter their lot in life, is able – and invited  to approach the Christ. 

Of course the night was not over!  Christ’s birth was a gift, and it was one God intended to share since the beginning of time.  There was nothing under-the-radar about angels shouting the news of Christ to startled shepherds, singing at the top of their angelic lungs.  Celebration!  Adoration!  Good news for all people!

The shepherds – the first ones the angels tell of the birth of Christ – the first ones to see the infant Jesus - were  not the most upstanding part of society; certainly not the most important people.  They were outcasts in their society. Yet these rough, dirty, unrefined shepherds were chosen by God to get the first look at the Savior.  The most significant event of the universe witnessed by the nobodies of society. 

I don’t suppose the shepherds were expecting divine revelation when they gathered their flocks that night, but after seeing Jesus for themselves, they too – these unrefined, outcasts, “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child.”

And tonight, we proclaim the same news.  We’ve waited; we’ve hoped;
we’ve anticipated… God is coming, we said.  And tonight… well tonight we proclaim  “He has come!”  As the prophet Isaiah proclaimed so many years ago; “A child has been born for us and He is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father; Prince of Peace.” 

Into what kind of world was God born late that night in Bethlehem?  A world that is full of hurting people who hurt each other, hurt themselves, and some-times will do terrible things to themselves just to make the hurt stop.  For them; for you, God was born.  For you – – for precisely YOU, God was born.  He gladly left a bright and shiny heaven to plunge headfirst into the mud and muck of our world that is full of darkness and unbelief and tragedy.  He didn't stand in the light and beckon you out of the darkness.  He invaded the night. He entered the darkness. He came in search of you.

 Into this mad world, oozing with pain, racked with guilt, pockmarked with graves, God gladly and willingly was born to make you his own flesh and blood.  The deeper you have fallen, the farther he will dig to find you.  The darker your despair, he will bring to seek you out.  The farther away from God you are, the better he sees you.  No life has sunk so unfathomably deep that he cannot dig down to grasp you by the hand and climb out of the pit with you in his loving arms.  That's the kind of God who was born on Christmas  That's the kind of God Jesus is.  He never gives up on us.  Never.[1] 

Why was the Savior of the world born in a dirty barn and laid in a feeding trough?   Because God wanted us to understand that He came for us – for you and for me. 

For ordinary, everyday people.  Jesus was born to save the shepherds of the world, the poor and oppressed, the sinners. 

 The Christmas story is a beautiful story.   But it’s more than just a story.  It's life changing and life-saving.  God changed the world that night so many years ago in Bethlehem.  This precious baby boy grows up and turns the world upside down.  This precious baby boy grows up and makes the ultimate sacrifice so that every one of us will be forgiven for our sinful ways.  This precious baby boy is our way to eternal life.  This baby boy is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is for us that the angels proclaim, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for ALL the people!  To you is born this day in the city of David A Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  

 This night, long ago in Bethlehem, God took on human flesh and came and lived 
among us so that we may not perish, but have eternal life.    “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”    Amen.

---

[1] https://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/a-tree-decorated-with-tears-the-dark-side-of-christmas-is-why-christmas-exists/

Two Pregnant Women

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Micah 5:2-5a and Luke 1:5-45
Fairfield Presbyterian Church
December 19, 2021 Fourth Sunday of Advent

Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way. As we make our final preparations before Christmas, clear our minds of holiday distractions and our long list of to-dos. Help us approach your Word with awe and wonder so that we may hear the message you intend for us today. Amen.

 

Two Pregnant Women

 

In this week’s Gospel reading, we have 2 different birth announcements.  We read how the angel Gabriel comes to an old priest named Zechariah as he is working in the temple.  Understandably, Zechariah is fearful.  Unless you are used to angels popping up and speaking to you; you would probably be a little shook up, too!  That’s not the kind of work interruption I expect! 

The angel Gabriel says to Zechariah, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.”  Your prayer has been heard.  “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you are to give him the name John.  He will be a joy and delight to you and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.  He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.” 

Imagine!  God has intervened and not only will this old couple have a child; he will be used to turn the people back to God.  Wow!  That’s some news. 

 Six months goes by; six months after the angel’s visit to Zechariah; six months after Elizabeth finally conceives a child; six months into Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and this same angel Gabriel pays a visit to Mary.  We don’t know what Mary is doing when Gabriel visits.  Unlike Zechariah, we don’t know where she is when the angel suddenly comes to her and says, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.”   Luke tells us that “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”  But like he did with Zechariah, Gabriel reassures Mary and tells her “Not be afraid.”  And then Gabriel goes on and gives her the news…. “You will be with child and give birth to a son and you will give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I would find this startling!  Put yourself in Mary’s shoes.  Mary is a teenager; probably about 14 years old, engaged to be married to Joseph, an older man; a local carpenter.  Mary is a virgin, having never been with a man.  And this angel says that she will have a baby…. Not just any baby…. She will give birth to God’s Son.  (pause). 

How do you begin to process this?  What goes through your head?  What do you understand this to mean if you are Mary?  (Pause).  

Mary asks only one question - the logical question of how?  How will this happen?  How is this possible?   How?  Oh, says Gabriel – that’s easy!  The Holy Spirit will come upon you.  You will give birth to the Son of God. 

O.K. then.  That explains it!  I mean… imagine!

But, as if this isn’t enough news for the day, Mary also learns from Gabriel that her cousin Elizabeth is six months pregnant.  Mary knows that Elizabeth is barren.  She knows that Elizabeth is beyond childbearing age.

“Nothing is impossible with God,” says Gabriel.  Nothing is impossible with God.

And after getting all this news what does Mary do?  Mary doesn’t waste a minute.  She gets up and travels to a town in the hills of Judah where Elizabeth lives, about 80 miles away.  When Mary arrives and greets Elizabeth, we are told that the baby in her womb leaps for joy and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. The unborn John responds the unborn Jesus.  Elizabeth’s unborn child recognizes the Messiah.  Mary’s visit to Elizabeth isn’t just a meeting between two pregnant women.  It’s the introduction of a Messiah named Jesus to a prophet named John – John the Baptist. 

 And, filled with the Holy Spirit herself, Elizabeth recognizes the blessedness of Mary carrying the messianic child.  And recognizing this, Elizabeth immediately begins to bless Mary – not merely because she’s carrying the LORD but also because of her faith.  Elizabeth expresses wonder and joy.

Elizabeth praises Mary for being favored by God, but Mary praises God for her state as a favored one.  Mary gives all the glory, all the honor, all the blessing to God.  She knows this is about God; not about her.

 These two pregnant women see beyond the obvious.  They see things not for what they are, but for what they might be.  The conventional wisdom of the first century would trap these women in the box of second-class citizenship, with the extra constraint of shame placed on Mary, a very young, unwed mother.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth sees that God is breaking tradition and doing things differently, by sending the LORD Jesus into the world through a young girl named Mary.  Elizabeth is a picture of wisdom.

And Mary, well she’s a picture of faith.  Mary believes the angel Gabriel.  She doesn’t try to make sense of it logically.  She doesn’t wait to understand the details.  She believes God.  She believes that she will have a baby without a human father.  Now that takes faith!  That takes thinking outside the box. 

 Rather than question, rather than doubt, rather than protest for that matter, Mary praises God for looking with favor on her, although she has done nothing to earn or deserve God’s attention.  The gift of Jesus is a pure gift – all she has to do is accept it in faith and trust God to continue to work for good in her life.

 Mary – this teenager soon to be unwed mother of the Savior of the World is his first disciple.  She is the first to hear the Gospel message – the Good News that the Messiah will be born.  She accepts this good news as truth and then she interprets the news. 

You see, Mary goes beyond believing.  Mary predicts how God will turn the world upside down – scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly and feeding the hungry.  She knows that God isn’t trapped by traditional ideas or institutions and that he will show favor to those who respect him – not to those who have the most earthly power or possessions.   And he will do this through the son she will give birth to – the very Son of God. 

 Luke presents God’s work through these two women – one an old barren woman and the other an unwed teenage girl – and the sons they bear as one singular act.  Both sons have been miraculously conceived, both were told by super-natural revelations.  Both have great purposes.  

 But, despite the similarities, the uniqueness of Jesus is clear.  Even in his conception and birth, Jesus is greater than John.  When these two stories are brought together, the singular purpose is made clear through the priority of the one Son.  Jesus, and therefore Mary, takes precedence over John and Elizabeth.

 Zechariah and Elizabeth in their piety have been yearning for a child, so that the conception of the Baptist is in part God’s answer to Zechariah’s prayers.  But Mary is a virgin who has not yet been intimate with her husband, so what happens is not a response to her yearning but a surprise initiative by God that neither Mary nor Joseph could have anticipated.  The Baptist’s conception, while a gift of God, involves an act of human intercourse.  Mary’s conception involves a divine creative action without human intervention; it is the work of the overshadowing Spirit, the same Spirit that hovered at the creation of the world when all was void. 

 John is miraculously conceived by his elderly parents with the promise that he will be used by God to prepare the way for the Messiah.  John the Baptist calls people to repentance; calling people back from alienation and rebellion against God.  Prepare the way!  Get ready, repent!  God is coming, John preaches.  

God is coming in Jesus.  Jesus who is miraculously conceived by Mary through the Holy Spirit is the long-awaited promised Messiah.  The one promised to the Israelites more than 400 years before.  John will prepare the way, but Jesus will save the world.

Christmas invites us to see things differently than the rest of the world.  Like Mary, we are invited to find true joy in a new place – in the gift of God’s favor.  God really loves you, and his affection has nothing to do with your education, your achievements, your job security, your bank account or your marital status.  Mary announces that God favors us in our lowliness, in our humility, in our simple willingness to lean on him. 

That’s good news for all of us.  When the world around us doesn’t seem to care, God favors us.  When the future seems uncertain, God promises to do great things for us.  Mary announces that God’s “mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation” and that he will never let his people down.

 Mary’s words are a declaration from a voice at the bottom of society.  It is a voice crying from the depths that God’s Messiah will bring justice for the poor.  It is a voice proclaiming a new order – an order centered on Mary’s son, the One who came to save his people from their sins.

 Christmas is all about seeing what might be, instead of what is.  That’s what Elizabeth did when she welcomed an unwed teenage mother with joy.  That’s what Mary did when she rejoiced in God’s favor.  That’s what Jesus did when he entered the world to save us from our sins and bring justice to the poor. 

We need to do something with this good news.  After hearing the word of God and accepting it, we must share it with others, not by simply repeating it but by interpreting it so that others can truly see the good news - Interpreting it through our actions as well as through our words.  As we look forward to the coming of Christ, let us ask ourselves how this year we are going to interpret for others what we believe happens at Christmas, so that they will be able to appreciate what the angel announced at the first Christmas 2,000 years ago  - “I announce to you good news of great joy which will be for the whole people.  To you this day, there is born in the city of David a Savior who is Messiah and Lord.”

Let us pray:

We praise you, God of promise, and give you thanks for Mary, a daughter of Israel, who sang the songs of David and held in her heart the burning words of Isaiah. We pray as Mary did; may your name be holy, may the hungry be filled, may the proud be scattered and the oppressed raised, may your love be ever with your people.  We pray this prayer through Mary's child, Jesus, who is Christ, forever and ever. Amen.

-- Thomas Harding, ed., Worship for All Seasons: Selections From Gathering for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (The United Church Publishing House, 1993), 42.

ReJoice, Always!

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7
Fairfield Community Church
December 12, 2009
Third Sunday of Advent

Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of holiday distractions and busy tasks. Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you intend for us today. Amen.

Rejoice Always

 

As we linger on this journey of anticipation that is Advent, the prophets continue to yield important insights into the meaning of the season, and the character and fulfillment of God’s promises. 

 So far this Advent we have heard from Jeremiah and Malachi, and now Zephaniah.  The prophet is as much the voice of Advent as is the evangelist – John the Baptist.  Prophets say what no one wants to hear, what no one wants to believe.  Prophets point in directions no one wants to look.  They hear God when everybody else has decided God is silent.  They see God where nobody else would guess that God is present.  They feel God.  Prophets feel God’s compassion for us, God’s anger with us, God’s joy in us.  They dream God’s dreams and utter wake-up calls; they hope God’s hopes and announce a new future; they will God’s will and live it against all odds.[1]

 Zephaniah’s song calls people to lament and repent. Jerusalem is idolatrous and complacent; the nations are corrupt.  God is indignant.  But there is an abrupt shift – “Sing Aloud!”  “Rejoice and exult!”  God’s promised salvation interrupts a tirade of judgment with a song of joy.

 Zephaniah knows the future and he wants us to get up and rejoice!  The future will be different from the present and even different from the future that had been foreseen.  There will be no disaster, no reproach, no shame, no fear.  Why do we listen to the prophets at Advent?  Because centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ they were messengers of essential good news:  “Do not fear… The LORD, your God is in your midst.”[2]  “He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.”

“He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.”  Beautiful words.  Don’t they give you peace and comfort to know that God rejoices over you?  That he renews you in his love?

Paul, in his letter to church in Philippi,  encourages them to “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  

The truth is, rejoicing isn’t easy, especially in these days and times. If Paul’s exhortation to rejoice no matter what strikes a sour note for some of us, given all that is happening right now, I understand.  I’m getting to know you and this community, and I know the heaviness that many of you carry on your hearts.  I know how bad the harvests were this year.  How the drought, how climate change, is impacting the farmers.  How many of you have loved ones facing serious illnesses.  How many of you have lost loved ones this year. 

The experience of joyful peace is not always easily found amid the great anxieties and expectations that the season can produce.  Even this time of  year can produce tremendous anxiety.  Pressure to be able to buy things when your budget may not allow.  Pressure to be with family when there are conflicts.  Pressure on how to spend your time.  Too much stuff to do.  For many, this is a time when you are facing a holiday for the first time without a beloved loved one.  Loneliness during this time of year is overwhelming.

I wonder if our spiritual ancestors — Zephaniah and Paul —  might have something to teach us in this regard.  These writers don’t approach joy from a place of denial or superficiality.  Zephaniah writes in the context of terrible spiritual and political corruption, perpetrated by the very leaders who are supposed to care for the poor and the oppressed of Judah.  His exhortation to joy sits right alongside his call to repentance and lament, and his confidence that God will sit in righteous judgment against those who exploit and oppress the weak.[3]

 And Paul?  What helps me as I consider Paul's advice to "rejoice always" is remembering that he writes his letter from prison, while awaiting trial and anticipating death. It also helps to remember that he’s a man who is threatened, rejected, beaten, and shipwrecked. A man with a "thorn in his flesh" that God apparently does not heal in his lifetime. A man whose haunted past includes violence and murder.  A man who knows firsthand the irony of living in 1st century Palestine cringing under state-sponsored oppression.[4]

 

For a lot of years, life for my girls and I was pretty rough.  A couple of years were particularly tough and at times I honestly didn’t know if we would get through it.  It was really hard to see any good when I was surrounded by so much that was bad.  During this time, a friend gave me a book written by Rev. Dr. Dale Turner, who pastored a large congregational church in Seattle.  He also did a lot of public speaking and wrote a lot of books.  The book she gave me was called, “Grateful Living.”  Grateful Living.  This book changed my attitude forever. 

 

Rev. Turner quoted Martin Luther who said that gratitude is the basic Christian attitude.  Rev. Turner admits that life is hard and sometimes it seems impossible to find something to be thankful about.  But his contention is that you are surrounded by blessings every single day.  Some are big and obvious.  And some are small and harder to notice.  We have to be intentional about recognizing them.  He teaches that if you make a practice of recognizing the blessings in your life, it changes how you live.  And… here’s the key – a feeling of gratitude grows in you and you begin living out of gratitude, rather than living out of worry or resentment.   It’s sort of like being optimistic instead of pessimistic.

 

In his book, Rev. Turner recommends keeping a “blessing journal.”  A notebook in which each night before you go to bed, you think of 3 blessings from that day, and you write them down.  The blessings can be as small as – I’m thankful this day is over.   I’m thankful for the hot cup of coffee I had this morning. 

 

Well, I decided to try it.  So, I kept a journal on my nightstand and every night I would list 3 things that I was thankful for that day.  Honestly, some days I had to dig pretty deep to find something to write.  Other days, the list was easy. 

 

You know Rev. Turner was right.  The longer I kept up this habit, the more I started to look at life differently.  I began to realize that no matter how bad my day was, no matter how overwhelming the negative was, there was always something good.  I started to see and appreciate the good things – the small things - that reminded me of God’s presence in my life, rather than just the negative stuff that was causing so much angst.  A genuine feeling of gratitude grew in me, and I realized all the things I truly had to be thankful for.  It helped me to live gratefully.  It helped me to feel joy in the midst of some really tough times.

 

Paul says that this is how we are to live as God’s people.  He says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”   Rejoice in the Lord always. (pause)  

 

Now the kind of joy that Paul refers to is not some superficial cheerfulness but a deep joy in what God has done in Christ and is continuing to do through the saints.  The fact that this joy is “in the Lord” reminds us not only that it comes from the God, but also that it is shared by those who live in him.  Paul is not thinking of something that is merely an emotional experience but rather he is speaking of a deep and lasting joy that comes through a deepening relationship with Christ.

 

Paul is not talking about feeling good.  Feeling happy.  He is talking about cultivating the inner life of the soul. In Paul's view, peace and joy are not emotions we can conjure up within ourselves. They come from God, and the only way we can receive them is through consistent spiritual practice: prayer, supplication, gentleness, and contemplation.

 

In other words, joy requires us to sidestep sentimentality and cynicism. It requires that we hold onto two realities at once: the reality of the world's brokenness in one hand, and the reality of God's love in the other. Joy is what happens when we live every day in the belief that God can and will bridge the gap between the world we long for and the world we see before our eyes. It is a posture, an orientation, a practice. A willingness to sit gently but persistently in the tension of the "not yet," trusting that God's peace will guard our hearts and minds in that in-between place for as long as it takes.[5]

 

We can rejoice because we trust in a God who sees rightly, honestly, and deeply.  We can rejoice because God our judge sees us as we truly are, in our beauty, our brokenness, our earnestness and our evil.  God our judge loves us enough to deliver us from ourselves, and loves the world enough to redeem it so that all can thrive.  This is cause for celebration![6]

 

Because our judge is pure love, we don’t have to fear the day of judgment that’s coming — we can rejoice in the promise of creation made new and whole.  We can "risk delight."  We can be honest in our longings.  We can admit, even in the worst of times, that “there will be music despite everything.”

 

“Rejoice in the Lord, always; again, I will say, Rejoice!  Amen.

---

[1] Feasting in the Word.  Year C, Volume 1.  Third Sunday of Advent.  Pastoral Perspective.  Page 52.  Deborah Block.
[2] Ibid
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net   Rejoice Always? By Debie Thomas. Posted 05 December 2021.
[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net   Rejoice Always? By Debie Thomas. Posted 05 December 2021.
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid

A Cry in the Wilderness

Rev. Debbie Cato
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6
Fairfield Community Church
December 5, 2009
Second Sunday of Advent (Communion Sunday) 

Holy, holy, holy God, just as your word came to John in the wilderness, send it once again to us now in this place. Speak to us your gospel message so that we may cry out with the good news once more. We love you, Lord. Amen.

A Cry in the Wilderness

 

Malachi speaks to a people returned from exile, ensconced in a rebuilt temple and involved in renewed worship.  But genuine renewal is lacking.  It’s all surface stuff; lacking in heart and commitment.  In today’s passage, God comes to an unexpecting and largely unbelieving Israel.  Pretty sad.  Sure, there were some that truly sought the Lord; some who still worshipped God but by and large Israel was once again a godless nation. 

God is coming, Malachi says.  God is coming! Is this good news or bad news?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a great German theologian who was one of the few church leaders who stood in courageous opposition to Hitler during World War II preached an Advent sermon in 1928 on this passage.  Bonhoeffer said that:

“It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming,

so calmly, whereas previously people trembled at the day of God…

We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.  We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

 

Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness.  God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world.  And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love.

 

It is an apt word to us in this Advent season.  God is coming.  God is coming as a baby in Bethlehem, but God is also coming again “in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  And our response?  Any reasonable person should feel at least some fear.”

 God is a God of covenant. God has ALWAYS been faithful to the covenant.   It is the people who are unfaithful.  But God will never give up on his people.  Unwilling to give up on Israel, but unable to condone their impurity and injustice, God himself will cleanse them.  He will send a messenger. 

 Amid the disappointments and cynicism of his present reality, Malachi sees, longs for, hopes for, and proclaims a world of goodness and purity, where justice finally matters, and integrity finally prevails.  God is faithful, says Malachi, and He will usher in such a world.

This is how the Old Testament ends.  Malachi is the last book in what we call the Old Testament.  Malachi is the last Old Testament prophet we hear from.  Or is he?

There is a 400 year gap between the time that God spoke to the people through Malachi and the New Testament.  400 years since God promised a messenger to prepare the way.  400 years is a long time to wait for God to fulfill a promise.  I didn’t like waiting a couple of weeks to hear if you were going to call me to be your pastor!  But 400 years – that’s a really long time. 

And then, some 400 years later, while working in the temple one day, the angel Gabriel comes to the old priest Zechariah and proclaims that he and his wife Elizabeth will have a son who will “turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.”  Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth had prayed for a child for many years.  But Elizabeth had remained barren.  And now… in their old age, their prayers were being answered.

Let me introduce you to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son - John the Baptist.  John was conceived with the promise that he would be used by God.  John was kept in readiness to serve God since infancy and NOW is the time to announce the impending fulfillment of God’s long-anticipated purposes.  The process of fulfillment of God’s promise to Malachi is in motion – 400 years later.

John is a nobody.  He’s the son of a small town priest.  Furthermore, he’s a little out there!  He lives in the wilderness. We read in other gospel accounts that he dresses a little strangely and eats weird things.  But this is the setting and this is the person God chose for prophecy.  John’s call from the wilderness is a movement of renewal.  God is speaking to the people again. John is considered the last of the Old Testament prophets. 

Debi Thomas writes that, “Advent is a good time to remember that the Bible is a wilderness text.  A text borne of trauma, displacement, and loss.  The ancient writers who wrote the sacred scripture — and the vast majority of characters who populate its pages — were not, by and large, history’s winners.  They were the persecuted.  The dislocated.  The enslaved. The desperate.  They lived through periods of famine, war, plague, and natural disaster. They suffered starvation, violence, barrenness, captivity, exile, colonization, and genocide. They were, in countless ways, the wretched of the earth.  Brave, lonely voices, crying in the desert.”[1]

 

Thomas goes on to ask “What did they cry?”  They cried their sorrow.  In the depths of the wilderness, they cried their rage, their fear, their pain.  But they also cried their hope.  Their fierce hope in a God who cares.  A God who vindicates.  A God who saves.  Something about the wilderness experience birthed in them a capacity for profoundly life-changing hope.[2] 

 

So here we are on this second Sunday of Advent, in the wilderness listening to just such a voice – a voice of hope, crying out God’s faithfulness. 

  

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius,” Luke writes, “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,” John hears God’s word in the wilderness.  That’s seven seats of wealth, power, and influence in just one sentence.  Seven centers of authority, both political and religious.  Seven very important people occupying seven very important positions.  But God’s word doesn’t come to any of them. [3]

 

The story of the Incarnation begins elsewhere.  It begins in obscurity, off the beaten path, appallingly far away from the halls of power and authority.

 

Our Gospel this week highlights a startling comparison between those who experience God’s speaking presence and those who don’t.  In Luke’s account, emperors, governors, rulers, and high priests — the folks who wield power — don’t hear God, but the outsider from the wilderness does.  The word of the Lord comes to John, the one who gives up his hereditary claim to the priesthood, trading its clout and comfort for the hardships of the desert.[4] 

 

Maybe Tiberius, Pilate, Philip, Caiaphas, and Herod can’t receive a fresh revelation from God because they presume to hear and speak for God already.  After all, they’re in power.  Doesn’t that mean that they embody God’s will automatically?  If not, well, who cares? They already have pomp, money, military might, and the weight of religious tradition at their disposal. They don’t need God.[5]

 

But in the wilderness, there’s no safety net.  No fallback option.  In the wilderness, life is raw and risky, and our illusions of self-sufficiency fall apart fast. In the wilderness, we have no choice but to wait and watch as if our lives depend on God showing up.  Because they do.  And it’s into such an environment — an environment so far removed from power as to make power laughable — that the word of God comes.[6]

 

Not only is the wilderness a place that exposes our need for God.  It’s a place that calls us to repentance.  “John went into all the region around the Jordan,” Luke tells us, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Elsewhere in the Gospels, we read that crowds streamed into the wilderness to follow John’s call.  In other words, they left the lives they knew best, and ventured into the unknown to save their hearts through repentance.  Something about the wilderness brought people to their knees.  Something about the possibility of confession and absolution stirred and compelled them to turn their lives, routines, and rituals upside down.[7]

 

In her reflection, Debi Thomas says, “Here’s the thing: Advent begins with an honest, wilderness-style reckoning with sin.  We can’t get to the manger unless we go through John, and John is all about repentance. Maybe, if we can get past our baggage and follow John out into the wilderness, we’ll find comfort in the fact that we don’t have to pretend to be perfect anymore.  We don’t have to deny the truth, which is that we struggle, and stumble, and make mistakes, and mess up.  We can face the reality that we are fallible human beings, prone to wander, and incapable of living up to our own ideals.  And — most importantly — we can fall with abandon and relief into the forgiving arms of a God who loves us as we are.  We can live into the tenacious hope of our Biblical ancestors — the hope of restoration.  The hope of abundant and overflowing grace.  The hope of salvation.”[8]

 

So. Where are you l during this Advent season?  How open are you to risking the wilderness to hear a word from God?  What might repentance look like for you, here and now?[9] 

 

The word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness.  May it come to us, too.  Like John, may we become hope-filled voices in desolate places, preparing the way of the Lord.[10]   Amen.

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[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.php   Debi Thomas.  A Voice Crying.  December 5, 2021.
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.php   Debi Thomas.  A Voice Crying.  December 5, 2021.
[4] Ibid
[5] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.php   Debi Thomas.  A Voice Crying.  December 5, 2021.
6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.php   Debi Thomas.  A Voice Crying.  December 5, 2021
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid