A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, December 13, 2020, Year B, 3 Advent

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Perhaps a number of you, like me, are feeling a sense of déjà vu this Sunday.  The day’s reading from the Gospel of John sounds awfully familiar to what we heard from Mark’s Gospel last week.  That’s because the two gospels begin the story of Jesus at the same place, with John, the man who is baptizing with water to prepare for the one who comes after him who baptizes with the Spirit.  So this week, once again, we ask ourselves how we prepare a way for the Lord in the wilderness. 

John’s gospel tells us that the priests and Levites came to John the Baptist in Bethany, across the Jordan.  Scholars aren’t sure of the exact spot where this conversation took place, but if you ever go to that part of the world today, you can see a number of places along the river where this conversation might have happened.  Of course, it is a very different place now from what it must have looked like then.  The Jordan, once a full, swift river is now a much smaller, slower-moving stream.  In fact, the place where some believe John baptized Jesus is completely dried up, or at least was when I visited there more than a decade ago.  But, the fault for such dryness does not lie with global warming or natural disaster but rather with human beings who have long fought over the Jordan’s waters.  The Syrians, further up the river, dam it, in order to keep its resources from reaching their neighboring enemies, the Israelis.  The Israelis divert what they can get, away from the occupied territories of the Palestinians.  And who knows what the ravages of war and conflict in the area have done to the Jordan today.  The reality is that, thanks to human hatred, much of that river has become a dusty, rocky wilderness.

But a voice cries out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord… Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me.”  John the Baptist’s words are a promise that someone is coming who can heal even such brokenness, and make green even ground as dry as the banks of the Jordan.  His words must have seemed as suspicious and unbelievable when he spoke them as they are now, for the land in which he preached and baptized was, then as now, an occupied land and the people to whom he preached were an occupied people.  The people of Israel had been living for some time under the subjugating powers of the Roman Empire, and others before that.  And they would have been looking for a savior, an individual who would fight to make them a strong, independent nation serving their one Holy God.  And so, the priests come to John asking him, “Are you the one we have been waiting for?  The one God has promised to us?  Are you the Messiah?”

John says he is not.  But then tells them, “Among you stands one whom you do not know.”  The people who come to John are looking for a particular kind of Messiah.  They have a certain expectation, an image set in their mind of what the coming savior will look like, how he will act, what he will do.  John the Baptist tries to clue them in that there is one already among them whom they have not recognized, but they miss the point.  They leave him there on the banks of the Jordan unaware of what they are missing because they have been too distracted by their own expectations. 

You and I, however, have another chance.  For the second Sunday in a row, we have heard John’s voice crying out to us, pleading with us to “make straight the way of the Lord,” to prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of the promised savior. 

In our time and place, we are not subject to foreign powers as those in John’s day were.  But, in many ways, we are still occupied.  We are caught up in powers that threaten our true freedom.  Our days are filled with distractions, fears and petty hatreds that would make our hearts and souls as dry and dusty as the banks of the Jordan today.  We are overcome with anxiety about our physical health and our financial futures; we harbor resentments against those with whom we disagree; we are slow to forgive and eager to judge one another unjustly; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. 

Of course, we are only human and our worries are real and well-founded, and our feelings are sensitive and forgiveness is hard to do.  But, this Advent season, John’s voice calls out to us in the wilderness of all our fear and anger and busy-ness, reminding us that God is faithful to the promises God has made to us, that there is one coming, one who is already among us, the Messiah who is sent to save us.

Like the priests and Levites, though, we might miss this Messiah.  We might have a certain expectation of what our salvation should look like and so we might miss it entirely when it finally arrives.  Perhaps we are so sure that our salvation looks like a doctor in a white coat, or a senator with a certain legislative agenda, or a president whose politics matches our own.  Or, perhaps we get caught up buying Christmas presents, or worrying about how we’re going to pay for them, or wishing we could travel – or that others wouldn’t.  Or perhaps we have just gotten so used to the way things are right now, perhaps after months of the pandemic and years of dealing with all the things, both within ourselves and out in the world, that cause us pain and anxiety, we have fallen into the trap of hopelessness.  And so we place our hope in human things or lose hope all together, believing that nothing short of a miracle will make anything ever change. 

And yet, a miracle is exactly what’s coming.  A joyous breaking-in of God’s love into our world, with all its darkness and distractions, is already happening and is still at work in our lives.  And so it is that John asks us to “make straight the way of the Lord,” to prepare our hearts and minds for God in such a way that we trust in God’s faithfulness to us, expecting nothing more and nothing less than what God has promised: the Light of Christ in our world and in our lives. 

And if you are wondering how to do that, how to wait patiently for the coming of Christ, listen to the words of St. Paul in his first letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances…”  This reading from 1 Thessalonians gives us the Latin name for this third Sunday of Advent: “Gaudete Sunday.”  It means, “rejoice” and it’s the reason why we light the pink candle (or the candle on pink felt!) in our Advent wreaths this week.  Because the truth of Christ, the promise of God is that even in the midst of fears and sadness, when we see poverty and violence, injustice, illness and even death in the world around us, when our own lives are filled with anxiety and exhaustion, even then God is with us.  Especially then, there is one among us whom we do not recognize, one who is coming to us with joy and life, the Son of God who is our hope and salvation, the light which darkness cannot overcome.  He is the Messiah who brings good news to the oppressed, who binds up the brokenhearted, who comforts all who mourn.  So, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.   Again, I will say, rejoice.  Here comes Jesus the Christ, God’s love made known to us in the flesh.  Amen.