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.”
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.
[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
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