Zephaniah 3:14–20
Isaiah 12:2–6
Philippians 4:4–7
Luke 3:7–18
Year C
I.N.I.
Is it okay to be here and marking Advent? Can we combine rejoicing with repenting? Can we temper our joy with some diagnosis of the world’s and our own problems, at the same time allowing hope to infuse our troubles as we announce Christ’s coming to bring peace and salvation?
It seems we are of two minds, joining excitement with worry. Like post-partum depression, the dread and sadness that follows one of the most euphoric experiences. Or as you celebrate making the final payment off the car so that you truly own it, you begin to worry about unusual sounds coming from the engine, or the way the car pulls when you’re on the road.
Advent celebrates Christ’s coming with both a cry of joy and call to change.
In his handy little book Winter: Celebrating the Season in a Christian Home, Peter Mazar comments on Advent.
“Advent” is the name we’ve been given to the last and most intense stage in a process that’s been unfolding for several months, as nights lengthen and the cold intensifies.
This isn’t an exercise in browbeating. A season of silence attunes the ear to hear angel songs. A season of darkness adapts the eye to see once again that star of wonder:
At this time of year the church pays extra heed to Israel’s prophets. They spoke to a people at risk of being crippled by their fears, of lapsing into despair, of being overwhelmed by the work required to fix problems. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary, John the Baptist and Jesus together announce the coming of God’s reign of justice. (And coming is what “advent” means.) That reign, so they say, will be like a wedding, like a path through the wilderness, like the consolation of the grieving, like a homecoming, like the birth of a child. (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications © 1996)
We have been hearing from big and little prophets each of these three weeks of Advent, this year Jeremiah, Malachi, and today Isaiah and Zephaniah, and while we’re at it we might also acknowledge late arrival John son of Zechariah in the desert who looks and smells like Elijah.
Each of the prophets cries out for us to be attentive. From our distractions, missteps, and misplaced priorities, the messages screams to us, urge us to shout and rejoice, plead for all to stand up and take notice that God is in the building.
Vicar Bill Petersen gave me a book called Crazy Talk: A Not so Stuffy Dictionary of Biblical Terms, a useful reference book whose prose includes some tongue-in-cheek humor. In Crazy Talk there is an entry about John the Baptist. Each entry is formatted like the internet social networking site Facebook, beginning with a profile, terse descriptions of each biblical character. This is John the Baptist’s profile: Hometown: I live in a desert! You know what this is? Sand! You know what it’s going to be a hundred years from now! It’s gonna be sand! And Job: I would love to be the highway-construction guy that holds up the sign that show people when and where to go.
Then follows the description of this Johnny come lately prophet, the one calling out to us this Advent to get ready, pay attention, and change:
Sometimes the best role for a particular person is the supporting actor rather than the lead. After all, think of the great lines that some of the supporting actors have had over the years. Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money!!” Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I’m shocked, shocked to find out gambling is going on in here!” and “Round up the usual suspects.” Ted Knight in Caddyshack: “The world needs ditch diggers, too.”
And the best supporting actor of them all: John the Baptist. Think of his great lines.
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…He must increase, but I must decrease.”
“I’All take a camel-hair jacket in a 42-long, that black leather belt, and a small bag of locust bon-bon's soaked in honey.”
We then cut to the chase:
John’s role was pretty simple. He was to point away from himself and toward Jesus. In the last verses of the Old Testament, God promised that before the “great and terrible day of the Lord,” the prophet Elijah would be sent to prepare the way (see Mick 4:5-6). John played Elijah’s role (that is why he wore the same funny camel-and-leather clothes as Elijah and ate a prophet’s locust-based diet.
(by Rolf A. Jacobson, Karl N. Jacobson, and Hans H. Wipers, Minneapolis: Gauges Books © 2009, pp 149-150)
Besides being as Crazy Book says, “pretty simple,” John was effective. His sense of urgency caught the attention of those who came to the desert for baptism. John’s digging the groundwork for the Messiah yet-to-come prompted questions from all walks of life, with the call to repent, to stop going along with life unexamined. Those in the crowds, tax collectors, soldiers each asked, “What then should we do?”
And the answer is, “something.” John is direct with the crowd telling them to share their coats and food, and quick to respond to the tax collectors and soldiers by telling them to stop being corrupt and instead to be fair.
That means there is hope for the government, for power brokers, and for us.
My wife Kari heard from a Face book friend that just one fair trade purchase from each US church-goer for Christmas would lift one million families out of poverty for one year.
I noticed that in lieu of a gift exchange from CK’s Advent Tea, cleaning supplies and linens were gathered for New Americans who are being settled by Lutheran Social Services of New England in New Hampshire.
I’am seeing earnest faces in worship and prayer as we sing our Eyrie Elisions and hold Christ as close as bread and wine taken into our mouths.
I know that Palestinians who cannot afford cancer treatment who will be assisted by our donations to the Poor Fund while we take home a bottle of Olive Oil grown on the grounds of Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem, a ministry of the Lutheran World Federation.
I applaud the joy in an Adult Fellowship Yankee Swap that brings God’s people closer together, builds relationships, and announces that light breaks through in the darkness.
I am grateful for our ELCA World Hunger Appeal Good Gifts program, where $10 buys a fruit tree seedling, $12 buys six water jugs, and $200 covers one month of rent for a missionary.
With turmoil in the world swirling about, our own anxieties about who we are and what we lack or have lost while heading into the cold of winter, let us receive the good news that Christ has come. Christ is here, with us. And Christ will come again.
Are you ready? Can you find joy, deep, lasting joy? Will you do something to welcome Christ and others in the name of Christ?
Could you sing it? “Come, Holy Spirit….Come, Holy Spirit…..Mariana…..Come, Lord, Come.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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