Hair Shirts and High Promises: Luke 3:1-6
Second Sunday of Advent
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being
tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea
and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the
high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came
to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And
he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As
it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
(ESV)
Every year, my
mother has the tradition of buying me one of those chocolate-a-day Advent
calendars. It’s been interesting to
watch them become increasingly secular over the years with Scripture verses
tossed underneath rosy-cheeked Santas and the windows numbering the days of
December rather than the full season of Advent.
I don’t actually like chocolates all that much, but I love opening each
new door and seeing what is underneath, watching the peeled-apart cardboard
flags multiply as we get closer and closer to Christmas.
This year, my
mother upped her game and found a fancy, nutcracker-covered calendar filled
with various kinds of truffles. There’s
even a guide on the back to tell you what you’re about to eat like the Whitman’s
Samplers with the little maps. But the
travel through the mail system was not kind to this Advent calendar; by the
time it got to me, about a third of the chocolates had gotten shaken to the
bottom of the box to be fished out when I open a cardboard window onto an empty
space. The chocolates still taste fine,
of course, but they aren’t where they’re supposed to be.
“In the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar”. Professor Audrey West notes that, “Luke 3:1-6
sets the stage for John the Baptist’s prophetic call by introducing an A-list
of Earthly Powers: an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and two high
priests. Together they represent rulers of the known world, the regional lands,
and the religious, political, and economic complex that stands at the heart of
Jerusalem. Collectively they hold all the authority and might that wealth,
military prowess, or ancestry can command.”[1]
Luke, who has
already told the story of both John’s and Jesus’ unlikely births, doubles down
on the awareness that this is not what is supposed to happen. At this point in history, these were the people
in secular and religious power; it was they who set the tone of day-to-day
life, they who interpreted God and the gods, they who would guide any kind of
forgiveness or salvation.
But God, as we
re-learn every Advent, was not interested in what was supposed to
happen.
“The word of
God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” Far from the powerful men who ruled over their
little fiefdoms, God pulled a priest’s son into the narrative of change and
restoration. Larry Broding points out, “Luke
presented a contrary sign as proof of God's activity: a cryer [sic] of news in
the desert. A news cryer [sic] was an urban activity. People gathered in the
marketplace to hear the news from the traveling cryer [sic]. But, the desert
(literally, deserted areas) was no place to announce news of import. Such a
place hid many dangers and traps. Only the hermit endured such environs. Yet,
the combination of the two images (cryer [sic] in the desert) recalled the
Exodus experience and the prophetic tradition. If there was a place to hear
news from God, it was the desert.”[2]
God is always
taking the narrative of who is supposed to be where and what is supposed to be
happening and flipping it upside-down, making incredible promises out of
bizarre odds and ends. We see it in the
very text Luke uses to describe John’s message, an excerpt from the prophet Isaiah:
“‘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
become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh
shall see the salvation of God.’” Before
this became a Baroque earworm, Isaiah’s prophecy was a reassurance to the
nation of Israel losing against the Assyrians and trying to understand how God
could pull them back from devastation. The
improbable becomes reality, what happens is never what “should” happen; valleys
are filled, mountains are leveled, paths are redrawn, and salvation is for everyone.
This is God
shaking the box of chocolates. This is God refusing to be limited to the
cardboard windows and religious expectations and human-made laws; this is God
coming to live as a human, heralded by a human, changing the world of
humanity. John of the wilderness and the
unimportant desert hermits is given the message that nothing will be like we
think it should and this is not only okay but filled with grace and hope and
peace.
This second
Sunday of Advent is wrapped around the concept of peace, and if that isn’t a
push against what we humans think “should” happen I do not know what is. We have been in existence as a species for
hundreds of thousands of years and we have never once managed to keep peace. Peace—not the absence of fighting but the
true presence of bone-deep awareness that conflict is not the desired mode of
living—is a radically countercultural concept.
For God to invite us to peace; for God to offer peace over and over in
this Advent narrative; for God to claim the importance of peace infused with
justice and love is every bit as upended as a man crying in the wilderness
about raised valleys.
And we who
gather on this Sunday of peace know that this is a breaking of
expectation. We are called to live like
it’s possible when it literally never has been before—human history is wars and
stories of wars but we say peace, peace like there actually could be peace,
like God could remake our hearts enough for peace to be not only an option but
a reality. We claim peace on earth and
goodwill to all like we answer to someone who is not Tiberius, or Herod, or
Caiaphas—because we do. We resurrection
people who prepare the way of the Lord to remember a birth that was not
supposed to happen take the step of faith that embraces our shattered
expectations, knowing that God does not fit into our radio holiday hour or the
cartoon marathon on CBS or the neatly packaged Advent calendars with bite-size
Scriptures. God comes crashing through
with high promises and hair shirts and absolutely no care for who’s in power or
what “should” be.
Vicar Judith
Jones writes, “Preparing the Lord’s path toward peace requires overturning the
world as we know it. John quotes the prophet Isaiah to describe the
earthshaking transformation that must take place. Though his words can
certainly be taken as mere pictures of road construction, in the context of
Luke’s writings they evoke richer associations: valleys filled full, mountains
and hills humbled (tapeinoo), everything crooked made straight and true.
Mary sings of the God who has looked on her humble state (tapeinosis).
She praises the One who saves by dethroning the powerful and exalting the
humble (tapeinous), sending the rich away empty-handed and filling up
the hungry (Luke 1:52–53). Jesus blesses the poor and the hungry and the
weeping but announces woe for the rich and well-fed (Luke 6:20–26). On the Day
of Pentecost Peter warns the people, ‘Be saved from this crooked generation’
(Acts 2:40). ‘Crooked,’ skolia, is the same word that Isaiah uses
for the things that must be straightened out. Preparing for God’s arrival means
rethinking systems and structures that we see as normal but that God condemns
as oppressive and crooked.”[3]
Any systems
and structures come to mind, Church? In
this second year of Joe Biden’s presidency, Gretchen Whitmer being governor
over Michigan and Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, when Thomas Bickerton is the president of the United Methodist
Council of Bishops and Keith Boyette is the chairman of the breakaway Wesleyan
Covenant Association, there are systems and structures that are oppressive and
crooked and have been for decades.
Whether you want all of those people in charge of anything or not, we
who live and move and have our being in the God Who does not answer to earthly
powers must listen for the voice in the wilderness that says all flesh, all flesh
shall see the salvation of God, literally the “deliverance from harm”[4] that has so very much to
do with how we create peace here, right now, breaking down the systems that
create mountains where God desires level plains. It has so very much to do with how we look
around the world and get involved in it, we communal creations, whether it’s
participating in the blanket drive of this month or helping out at a food
pantry or calling a sick friend or writing the governor or bishop or chairman
to say we must break the systems of oppression that bind us, that expect silent
agreement from the wilderness.
Today, in
addition to being the second Sunday of Advent, is a Sunday on which we
celebrate communion. This, too, is the
upending of expectation; this, too, is not what “should” have happened. Communion takes the ordinary and makes it
wondrous; bread that is holy, wine that is blessed. So often we then take the wondrous and make
it routine, settling into the reign of Tiberius yet again because it is the
first Sunday of the month, let us do this rote repetition, Annas and Caiaphas
would be proud.
But this, Church, this is us
preparing the way of the Lord, remembering over and over that God is not done
with the terrifying glory of change. God
became human, the world was flipped, the box was shaken, all the candy is at
the bottom and love is the ruling factor of how we are to live, love that
prepares space for peace to walk unashamed, peace that refuses intolerance and oppression,
peace empowered by a God Who says I do not bend to your structures of what “should”
be.
This sacrament is not a voice crying
in the wilderness but a King giving a proclamation that there is an entirely
different paradigm of the world. We
gather around the table where all are welcome, all are welcome in God’s
deliverance from harm, and we say yet again that we remember that Christ lived,
and died, and rose, and beckons us to bring healing, hope, and peace.
Come, then. Again, and again, and again, let us prepare
the way of the Lord, one promise, one upended expectation at a time. Amen.
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