December 12, 2021 – Third Sunday of Advent

Can anyone tell by observing OUR lives that we bear the mark of Christ and are living as his faithful disciples?

There are undoubtedly many people in the pews this week who are beginning to wonder about the whole season of Advent. After all, the mood within our lectionary readings — one of expectancy and hope — is in bitter contrast with the world around us — harried and busy. The baby Jesus is already in many of the manger scenes that surround us. The greens are hung (indeed at many churches, too!). Christmas carols are in the air. And the shopping craze is now being followed by gift-wrapping, parties, and opportunities to “give back” to the less fortunate by working in food pantries, toy drives, and visiting shut-ins.

Why, then, is the church making us listen to stories of this crazy preacher who wore camel hair and ate locusts for not one, but two weeks? And not only that, he flat out yells at those who came to him to be baptized! It is certainly a stretch for me to connect this John the Baptist to the joy we are to be feeling on this Gaudete (rejoice) Sunday.

For those of you who have been paying attention, you know that each of the liturgical years (on a three year cycle) focuses on one of the three Gospel texts of Mark, Matthew, or Luke, filled in here and there with readings from John. Last year, Mark began his telling of the Gospel right here, with John the Baptist preparing the way for the adult Jesus (Mk 1:9). John’s Gospel introduces John the Baptist as the one who “came to testify to the light” (Jn 1:8) after setting the scene from the time when “the Word was with God” (Jn 1:1). Matthew and Luke take more time to get to the point, as they tell beautiful and familiar stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. We want to get right to the point — to get to those stories, enjoy the retelling of them, share the joy and hope with which they reassure and comfort us — but the church makes us listen first to this weird prophet who wouldn’t last five minutes in most of our churches.

And that’s the spirit of Advent. Right alongside the merry of the season that calls us to shop and decorate, cook and celebrate, to go all out, is this other kind of preparation for the coming of the One promised to us. But this season of preparation in the church isn’t burdensome or depressing to our spirits. Instead, we’re led slowly and thoughtfully towards this great celebration of the Incarnation, the mystery of God taking on flesh and being among us, with us in the most ordinary of our days, the most overwhelming of our griefs, our most profound joys, our deepest hopes.

This life, our lives and communities and the world as we experience it, right here, is where that church-y word — “Incarnation” — happens. We might not use the word every day in our lives, but we experience the Incarnation every moment of our lives in our relationship with Jesus, the Word made flesh that dwells among us. Right here, in our midst, day in and day out, not just at Christmastime. We are encouraged to immerse ourselves in this season of preparation and to find meaning in the journey itself, and its anticipation of what is to come.

Today we are bombarded with all sorts of news — much of it bad — from more sources than we could have even imagined ten years ago: TV, radio, print, and now smartphones and social media keep us online so that we can stay in touch every minute of every day, no matter where we are, with what’s happening around the world; add to that the diverse commentary of experts who tell us what it all means. There are countless sources of information about the suffering and injustice, oppression, terrorism, and disasters of the world. We hear about them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And if those stories aren’t worrisome enough, we just need to log in to our retirement balances and see how they reflect what we read about in the world around us. It could make you want to run out into the wilderness and search for better news, a word of hope, something to come that’s worth preparing for.

Did John the Baptist know that the people had come out to him longing to hear good news? Did he sense their deepest hunger, their profound unspoken hope? John was not ignored, but rather one who announced the opening of the way to freedom and salvation, which ironically was often found in the wilderness for the people of Israel.

John knew his audience and he read the signs of the times well. It seems that he had to help them remember the promises that had sustained their ancestors for so long in the wilderness and in exile. His instruction to them combines grand anticipation and dramatic warning with a simple instruction that is so down-to-earth, so doable. He doesn’t tell the people to get back to church. He doesn’t tell the people to overthrow the Romans. He doesn’t tell the people to transform the world in some sudden revolution. Instead, he tells the people the same things that my parents told me and I’ve told my son: “Share with one another. Keep no more than what you need. Be fair. Be kind to one another. Don’t fight. Be honest.”

I don’t mean to simplify John’s message, but at the heart of it all, it seems to me, are the ideals that would knock out every misaligned, upside-down, oppressive structure we’ve ever built. Justice and goodness that would take the power out of every habit that we humans have practiced with which we have hurt one another. The people in church this week, as well as those who aren’t here, may very well be thinking, “What should we DO?” If we’re as overwhelmed by the world events which seem to be as powerful and important to us as the Roman Empire must have seemed to the Jewish people in the first century, do we need to hear a message that overwhelms us with guilt or fear or impossible demands?

It seems to me that the One who chose to come into the world as a little baby in a humble manger, mothered by a girl perplexed by the Spirit at work in her life, calls us to the same basic goodnesses and justices that John exhorts the people to exercise in THEIR daily lives: do not use your power to injure, but to help. Using our excesses, however minimalistic they may be, and being content with what we have, says Mariam Kamell is a “crucial fruit of repentance, for it reveals a steadfast trust in God and God’s work and will.” Through contentedness, we learn to depend on God rather than ourselves.

So, we return over and over to “What SHOULD we do?” John jars us with his message into looking anew at our lives, our priorities and preoccupations, and our style of living. Now we don’t seem to mind doing that so much in just a little over two weeks as we make New Year’s resolutions. But what if we looked closely right now, here in Advent — in the church’s new year — as we prepare for the One who is to come, the One to whom John turns our attention?

Friends, there is no getting to Bethlehem and the sweet baby in the manger — there is no Incarnation — without first hearing the rough prophet in the wilderness call us to repentance. We can arrive at the manger only after we carefully examine ourselves and recommit ourselves to the Christian ideals. John instructed the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers to make unselfish choices, to live within their means, and to do what is just. 

In preparing for the birth of Jesus, we may not want to hear a message of judgment. But the Messiah for whom we wait is about bringing God’s justice to the world. So our question to ponder this week is to ask ourselves what needs to be turned “right-side-up” in our lives and our relationships. What would John the Baptist tell each of us? Would he tell us, “Well done, good and faithful servant”? Or would he instruct us to repent? 

We must live the faith we claim to possess, and authentic Christian living always has that challenge. In Eugene Peterson’s The Message version of today’s Gospel text (vv. 8-9), he writes, “It’s your life that must change, not your skin…. What counts is your life.” Can anyone tell by observing OUR lives that we bear the mark of Christ and are living as his faithful disciples?