Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12
Presented December 9, 2007, by J.D. Kline
The Second Sunday of Advent
This season of the year carries such contrasts, doesn’t it? On the one hand, we are likely to have more than our share of moments when it feels as if the pressure of tasks to be accomplished—presents to purchase, parties to plan and attend, cookies to bake and distribute, cards to send, even worship services to attend—the pressure of it all can begin to feel burdensome. On the other hand, the Advent message speaks of a very different kind of preparation for our Christmas celebrations. Not a matter of frantic activity, but rather a quieting of our hearts in anticipation of something markedly new unfolding before us. A matter of slowing down, listening and watching intently for signs of God’s kingdom at work, hoping beyond hope for the creation of the peaceable realm of God in our midst. Advent invites us to await expectantly the emergence of an upside-down way of living in which the poor receive blessing, the meek inherit the earth, the wolf lives harmoniously with the lamb, and all the earth is as full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the seas. The words of the carol writer speak to this understanding of Advent celebration: “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.”
So how is it that the celebration of the coming of the One who promises a reordering of all life has been transformed into such a frenzied host of activity? Shane Claiborne, one of the founding members of a new monastic community in Philadelphia, PA, questions, “Why do we celebrate the birthday of a refugee born in a manger by buying [more and more] stuff?” How might we more properly prepare for Christ’s birth and rebirth among us—this One who comes embodying God’s vision of the peaceable life?
This morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew portrays John the Baptist as forerunner of Jesus, as a voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” John’s is a voice out of sync with much of human life, a discontented voice prodding us never to become satisfied with business as usual. To the religious leaders of his own day, the Baptist shouts that it is not enough to give lip service to God’s gracious love. Much more, lives are to be transformed.
Friedrich Nietzsche, the 18th century philosopher and skeptic, chided the Christian establishment of his day, saying something to the effect, You’re going to have to look and act more redeemed, if you expect the world around you to take your message of redemption seriously. Are not the shoutings of John the Baptist urging something quite similar? “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:8). That is to say, show some evidence that your lives are changing. The Baptist takes it as his task to knock some sense into the lives of the religious community of that day, proclaiming that life with the coming Messiah demands a radical re-orientation, a revolutionary new way of thinking, a sharp renovation of life’s values and priorities.
Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and prolific writer about the spiritual life, developed a particular interest in establishing dialogue between monks of the Christian tradition and those of the Buddhist tradition. On one occasion the Dalai Lama asked Merton, “What do your monastic vows of faith oblige you to do?” After some reflection, Merton responded, “I believe they can be interpreted as a commitment to a total inner transformation of one sort or another, a commitment to become a totally new person. No matter where one attempts to do this, that remains the essential thing.”
John the Baptist would agree that repentance, complete and lasting transformation of the heart is critical; indeed, transformation stands at the core of preparation for the coming Messiah. The Messiah, asserts the Baptist, will bring to life the loftiest hopes and dreams of the ancient Israelites, the longing set forth in Isaiah 11 for that ruler in the line of David who will execute justice, who will embody righteousness while ruling with wisdom, understanding, and might, and whose reign will be good news for the poor and the lowly.
At one level, Jesus comes, embodying familiar themes that have long been a part of Israel’s hopes and dreams. But Jesus plays out those well-known themes in markedly fresh and new ways, and Jesus prods us, over and over again, to allow the vision of life in the peaceable kingdom to transform how we enter into daily living. Even the forerunner, John the Baptist, is soon surprised and even dismayed by the ways Jesus understands his mission of bringing light to the world, hope to the despairing, and peace in the midst of life’s chaos. John continues to picture a steely-eyed and angry God, a God of stringent demands, while Jesus instead portrays God as the host of a marvelous party and as a parent who cannot bring himself to throw out his wayward children even when they spit in his eyes. As Presbyterian author Frederick Buechner puts it in his book Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who,
Where John said people had better save their skins before it was too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins, and even if you blew your whole bankroll on liquor and sex like the Prodigal Son, it still wasn’t too late. Where John ate locusts and honey in the wilderness with the church crowd, Jesus ate what he felt like with as sleazy a bunch as you could expect to find. Where John crossed to the other side of the street if he saw any sinners heading his way, Jesus seems to have preferred their company to the WCTU, the Stewardship Committee, and the World Council of Churches rolled into one. Where John baptized, Jesus healed.
Jesus brought new life, moving in directions the Baptist could not fully foresee as he announces the coming of the Messiah. Jesus embodies the vision of Isaiah 11—God’s servant displaying a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of compassion and peace, a spirit of justice and righteousness—Jesus displays this in ways John the Baptist would find shocking. With John, we too sometimes find Jesus’ ways disturbing. Truth is, we are tempted to pigeonhole God into the narrow understandings of our own experience. Some years ago New Testament scholar J.B. Phillips wrote a book entitled Your God is Too Small in which he spoke of our holding on to inadequate images of God. On the one hand, we may image God as angry judge, ever waiting for us to trip up; on the other hand, we may view God as little moving beyond the meek and mild infant, the gentle baby Jesus.
When we are getting ready to travel, many of us make use of MapQuest on the internet. Plug in your home address and your hoped-for destination, and out comes a series of authoritative direction. Go l.5 miles, turn left, continue 3.7 miles, take the ramp on to the interstate. We assume that the directions we are given are the quickest and the most convenient, but MapQuest is little aware of unanticipated accidents and detours, of those times when we would do well to exit the interstate and make our way through the side streets. Asserts Diana Butler Bass in her book Christianity for the Rest of Us,
When Jesus said, “Follow me,” he did not say “Follow the map.” Rather, he invited people to follow him, to walk with him on a pilgrimage toward God . . . .
Christianity is not a map religion. Christianity is a religion of the streets, of signposts on the ground, of people walking along the way.
Being a Christian is not a one-moment miracle of salvation. It takes practice. It is a process of faith and a continuing conversion. And it can be a long walk.
A long walk of faith, a long walk in which we encounter more and more of God, a long walk in which we grapple with our calling to be Christ’s light to the world around us, a long walk toward peace. Faith is so much more than a once-and-done event. Faith involves continual movement, ongoing journey, a process of growth, an unfolding of one experience after another. And along the way we encounter God, again and again, as so much more than we had previously anticipated. With John the Baptist, we may well find ourselves surprised when Jesus ushers us into the presence of a God who does not easily fit our preconceptions.
A key element in this unfolding walk with God is the call to active peacemaking, heeding the invitation of Jesus to love our enemies and pray for those who would persecute us, to go the extra mile in relationships, to extend forgiveness, to seek justice, to live lightly on the earth, to walk in paths of non-violence, to pray and work for that day when swords are beaten into plowshares. But we shall little serve as peacemakers, until we have allowed the Spirit of Christ to transform our inner spirits, until we take it as our task to embrace the hard work of love and the long walk toward peace in our own souls. Henri Nouwen once wrote that prayer, which he defines as “living in the presence of God,” is “the most radical peace action we can imagine. Prayer is peacemaking and not simply the preparation before, the support during, and the thanksgiving after.” “In prayer,” says Nouwen, “we undo the fear of death and therefore the basis of all human destruction.”
Advent is a time for quieting our souls, undoing those suspicions and fears that lead to brokenness in human life. Advent is a time for opening ourselves to thoroughgoing transformation. Advent is a time for embarking anew upon the long walk toward peace—peace in our souls, peace in our church family, peace in the world around us, peace in all creation. Come, let us embrace the long walk toward peace.