 |
| "What could possibly go wrong?" by Steven Brandist, on Flickr |
Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’ ”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
---
Maybe you remember, a number of years back, a quirky series of books that showed up, all under the heading, “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.” These were pocket-sized, with laminated covers, containing simple instructions and sketch diagrams about how to survive many and various risk situations in life. One part information, one part humor, these books capitalized on the idea that, armed with the right information, we could survive anything. The original volume, for example, included instructions for how to light a fire, how to land a plane, or how to survive a shark attack. Then there were spinoff volumes: Parenting, Travel, College, the Holidays, even!
I got to thinking about these books as I was reading through today’s account of John the Baptist in the wilderness. Surely John would have been well-equipped to write a volume called “The Wilderness” or even, “The Wrath to Come,” and he could have composed entries on how to eat locusts without choking on the wings, or how to step into a muddy river without slipping on the rocks, or a step-by-step diagram of how, exactly, you do the work of repenting, or a guide for how to survive the coming of the Messiah. In the wilderness, John appears to be something of a survival expert.
Have you ever stopped to think about how saturated our culture is with the idea of survival and being a survivor?
On one end of the spectrum, we talk about survival as a triumph of human nature. How many of you, at one point or another, have shamelessly sung along to Gloria Gayner’s “I Will Survive,” or perhaps to the Destiny’s Child hit, “Survivor?” How many of you rooted not only for Tom Hanks’s survival but also the survival of his volleyball friend Wilson when you watched the movie “Castaway?” How many of you have entertained yourself watching television shows like “Gilligan’s Island” or the reality hit, “Survivor,” or any other survival-based reality shows like “Man vs. Wild?” These are all ways that we glorify survival as a mark of resilience and self-reliance.
Of course, we have the other end of the spectrum, too, where the word “survivor” is a somber label given to people who have endured some of the darkest moments of human life. I think about a dear one in my life who, each December, marks the passing of another year since the sexual assault that labeled her a survivor. I think about a friend of a friend who suffered a terrifying car accident this past week, which should have killed him, but by some miracle let him walk away with an injured leg and his life. He is a survivor. We commemorate World AIDS Day at the beginning of each December, and remember all those in our nation and around the world who suffer this disease. Those still living with it are survivors. Among us, we have cancer survivors and abuse survivors and survivors of war. In all of this, “survival” is not so much a triumph of the human spirit, but rather a wound or a scar on the soul.
When we meet John the Baptist each Advent, we meet him in the wilderness, a place of survival. This is not an accident. The wilderness is a place of uncertainty and a place of vulnerability. It is an untamed place where there is both beauty and risk. It is a landscape to be endured and a vast unknown to be survived. We watch and wait for the coming of Christ in this wilderness, because the wilderness is a place of living between realities. Behind us is the reality of our broken world, and ahead of us is the reality of the coming kingdom of heaven.
John's message here in the wild is bold and it is clear: "Repent," he says, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is an urgent message. Repent, John says, because when God breaks into the world, everything is going to change. Repent, he says, because when God breaks into the world, God is really going to break into the world. It might look like an apocalypse. Things are going to crumble. Empires are going to fall. The earth is going to tremble and quake.
We know this to be true. The last hospital in Aleppo has been evacuated and the city remains under siege; political tensions in our nation continue to run high; tornadoes and wildfires rage across our land: now as in all ages, the world is a wilderness and we turn and return to God as the one who promises us refuge and endurance. We need John’s message about the coming kingdom because we need to know that we will survive. We need John’s message of repentance to call us back to our senses and to look honestly at the world we have, that zeal might burn in our hearts for the world that is yet to come.
But we need more than that, too. Our world and our hearts need more than a promise of survival. We need the hope of salvation. After the wilderness turns us around, after our thickets have been untangled, after the scorching heat of the wild sun has refined us, after the untamed waters of the river have purified us, after we have endured, what is the hope for us?
John the Baptist points to our hope by pointing to Jesus. John might be a good guide through the wilderness, but John knows that survival and salvation our very different things, and that Jesus, the coming Messiah, is the one who brings us the salvation for which our hearts long.
By pointing forward to Jesus, John assures us that after all the dust has settled and after all the trials are done; after God’s kingdom has broken into our midst and broken down all our walls, all our fortresses, all our false securities; after war, after the tempest, after the darkest night of tears; after the wilderness: We will have a baby. And a cross and an empty tomb. And a flowering and flourishing tree of life.
John tells us that Jesus is the one who baptizes with fire and the Holy Spirit.
The image of fire reveals for us a savior who will be our righteous judge, the one who will burn away evil like chaff, the one who will win the decisive victory over darkness and death. He will bring holy judgement to earth, not for the sake of wrath, but for the sake of mercy and righteousness for all people. As Isaiah proclaims, “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” In Jesus, salvation looks like a world put back together, where justice and goodness flourish, where all darkness has been refined away into light, and where Jesus himself is our living, breathing sign that God has not abandoned or forgotten us.
The image of the Holy Spirit reveals for us a savior who holds the fullness of God and is pleased to pour out the fullness of God upon all people and all creation. Jesus does not just bring us life endured, but life restored. In Jesus, the wilderness of this world will become a peace-filled and radically peaceable kingdom, where “The wolf shall live with the lamb,” Isaiah says, and “the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Salvation looks like hope and newness and new creation. It looks like light and life and peace and flourishing. It looks like water flowing in the desert and flowers blooming in the dust.
John in the wilderness assures us that beyond survival, we will find our wilderness transformed into the gift of a free and peaceful space where we can once again be exactly who God created us to be, living in harmony with a world that is exactly what God created it to be. John tells us that when our faces are turned to God, we can catch glimpses of this world-yet-to-be, the world for which we long, for which all creation has been longing since the beginning.
I am reminded of one of my favorite poems, Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” where we get this vision of wilderness and peace kissing each other, and all creation becoming a sign of the hope and salvation of God’s promised kingdom. He writes:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Brothers and sisters, God has promised us more than survival. God has promised us salvation. God has promised us stars in the sky and birds in respite and water at rest. God has promised us patience and light, grace and freedom, peace that passes all understanding, life that really is life.
Right now we stand in Advent wilderness, between the old and the new, between our fears and our joys, between the dark and the light, between a fallen world and a world renewed.
But hear the good news today.
Whatever you have endured, whatever you have left to endure: God is with you. Christ has come as a baby in a manger to walk with you through all your wilderness, and to sustain your heart through all your deserts.
And more than that, Christ will come again, the one who will light the world on fire to make room for the new growth of his kingdom. Your hope is not just in your survival, but in your salvation. For the Christ who is coming soon is the Christ who will make all things new. In him, your despair will give way to the holy peace of wild things. You will be restored. You will find your joy. You will recover the light. You will find rest in the grace of the world. You will be free.
This is the salvation for which we wait. This is the salvation that is promised for us.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Tags:
sermon