I really don’t like to wait! I don’t like it when I call to make a reservation with a motel and
before you can ask for a room, the operator asks if I can wait—and before I can utter a response, my phone call is placed
on “HOLD” in some parallel universe of electrons—until she speaks to me once again. I don’t like to wait in line at Lowe’s’ or Wal-Mart or any other grocery store—especially
when the person at the cash register has to get a “price-check” on some article in the cart of the person in front
of me. In Huntington several years ago, they had a “drive-by shooting.” It
was for people like me that don’t like to wait—for we could drive by in our cars and get our annual flu shot without
having to wait. I liked that! For, the time spent in waiting in line seems like wasted time.
Then I hear that Advent is about waiting! We have to wait for the Christmas
celebration, and we have to wait to see what God is going to do at the end of time. Moreover,
twice in the Advent lectionary scripture readings we hear about John the Baptist telling us that we will just have to wait.
However, for John, such waiting is not wasted time. For John’s kind of waiting is like waiting for a baby to be born.
When Luke begins telling us his gospel story about Jesus, he begins telling us about two parents waiting for a baby
to be born. But this is not about Mary and Joseph. Rather, he tells us about
an elderly priest named Zechariah, and his likewise elderly wife Elizabeth. They
always had wanted children, but they just seemed destined to be childless. They
would be good parents. They were religious people, and they both traced their
ancestry back to Aaron, the brother of Moses. And
yet they had not been able to have a child. It seems that everyone had
given up of them having a child—everyone but God!
And, it came to pass that in time, to everyone’s surprise, Elizabeth became pregnant.
All nine months, Zechariah and she anxiously waited for their baby’s arrival. They waited, and they worked in preparing
their home for their new child--buying a crib, hanging new curtains, stocking up on pampers. And
when he was born, they were such proud parents! They named him John. Dr. Luke then takes us through John’s childhood and
youth in one sentence, saying, “And the
child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel.”
Then, Dr. Luke gives us a lesson in political science by introducing us to all
the movers and grinders of Middle Eastern politics in that day, “In the fifteenth
year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judea and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother
Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonius, and Lysanias the ruler of Abilene during the High Priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas...”
And before concluding his long introduction, Dr. Luke writes, “...the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” The Word of God did not come to the seemingly powerful people in the world. The Word of God did not come to Caesar Augustus who by military force had brought world peace. The Word of God did not come to Herod’s brother Philip who controlled the provinces
of Ituraea and Trachonitis. The Word of God
did not come to Lysanias who controlled the province of Abilene. The Word of God did not come
to Annas and Caiaphas who controlled the Temple in Jerusalem. The Word of God did not come to
any of these persons—men who with one stroke of a pen could change peoples’ lives, and send families scurrying
back to their ancestral home to get identification cards. Instead, “...the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”
John, son of Zechariah, lived in the wilderness. He wore animal skins
for clothing, smelled from the desert heat, ate wild honey and locust, and dressed as if he was the Prophet Elijah. (You may remember from the sermon last week that Malachi had said that the Prophet
Elijah was to be the forerunner of the coming Messiah. Well, John knew that promise
of Malachi, and therefore he dressed the part of Elijah.) And God came to this eccentric man who was living in the wilderness, dressing up like an ancient prophet,
and God called him to proclaim the coming of the Messiah.
But just why was John the Baptist living in the wilderness? To answer that question, we have to realize that the
wilderness was not just a place of scrub brush—the wilderness was the place where God had spoken in forming the people
into a nation. It was in the wilderness, near Mount Horeb, where God had spoken to Moses out of a burning bush. It was in
the wilderness, that Moses for 40 years had led escaping slaves. He led
them around the wilderness until they wore their slavery off of themselves—until they could see themselves not as escaped
slaves, but God holy people. Only then were they ready to enter the Promised
Land. And in the New Testament,
the wilderness would be the place where Jesus would go after being baptized, in order that he might he able to discern his
own life’s mission.
Knowing Israel’s history, perhaps John the Baptist lived in the wilderness because he needed
to be in a place where he could clear his head, and hear God’s voice for his life. The
wilderness also had become a place where other spiritually hungry people, like John the Baptist, had gone in order to hear
God speak to their lives. John the Baptist may even have lived for a time
with other seekers—the Essenes at the wilderness community of Qumran. They
were the ones who wrote the “Dead Sea Scrolls.” However, most of the time, John wandered from place to place in the wilderness, living off the land. In the stillness of the wilderness, John
had listened to God’s voice. God spoke to John, and John responded through action. “He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming
a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
When God spoke to John, God taught John something that other people needed to know. John then taught others
that our present is not defined by the past world events. Rather, our present is defined by the future—the endpoint
of all time. It is the future which defines who we are as God’s people, and what we are to be about as God’s
people. We are to act in the present, according to whom we will be in the future!
Knowing that the present is being drawn into God’s future, John the Baptist urgently preached to people to
“repent.” That is, to make an 1800 change in the direction of their lives. For, John knew that the
direction that they were living their lives was leading them to their destruction. John knew that the Messiah
was coming—therefore, they must live life differently, in expectation of that coming Messiah! Moreover,
once they had repented, John baptized them in the cold and muddy waters of the Jordan River. There in those cold
and muddy waters, the waters of baptism washed off their old life of sin and disobedience.
However, some of those religious leaders whom John called to repent—they told John that they did not need
to repent—they had been circumcised as Jews. However, John shouted back at them, that their parents’ faith
or grandparents’ faith would not save them from destruction. He shouted back at them, that each one of them
must make a personal decision as to whether to live a God-filled life or not—that each one of them must make a personal
decision to take seriously the demands of their faith.
At the same time, some in the crowd took seriously John’s call to repentance.
Three different groups had asked John, other than repentance and baptism, what
must they do to be saved from God’s wrath. Note that John did not tell them to imitate him by moving to the wilderness to live—he did not tell
them that they must to live an ascetic lifestyle— he did not tell them that they had to more fully participate in worship. Rather, he told the crowd that listened
to him that day, that they were to share of their abundance with those who were in need. To
the Tax Collectors—Jesus told them to be fair and honest in their work, and not to participate in the corrupt practices
that were common to their profession. To
the soldiers who served as a part of an oppressive Roman government—John told them to avoid being greedy and to live
within their financial means. To all three groups, John the Baptist told
them, that your life counts! Faith and ethics are inseparably intertwined.
They must wait for God’s kingdom, and they must work toward God’s
kingdom. Your life counts!
John the Baptist’s preaching did upset some people that were in power. In particular, John the Baptist had spoken out against King Herod’s divorcing
of his wife, and taking in marriage Herodias, his brother’s wife. For being
outspoken, Herodias hated John the Baptist, and she sought a way to kill him. In the end, John’s truthfulness would cost him his life. At the same time, Jesus spoke highly of John’s ministry when he told the crowd, “...among those born of women none is greater than John...” Your life counts!
Several years ago, I heard a fellow Presbyterian Minister speaking at a Salvation Army dinner for pastors. He spoke of how we are willing to give away our old toys and dolls to the poor. But he then asked us, how would that poor child feel knowing that his or her Christmas present was someone
else’s cast off and worn toy? He then told of a father that each
fall would take his own children to the store and buy them coats. And before
he left the store that day, he also would buy an extra coat for a needy child, and take that new coat to the community shelter
to be distributed to a needy child. Such is the spirit of hospitality and generosity
of which Jesus spoke. Yes, your
life counts!
Therefore,
in Advent we wait. However, our waiting is not useless waiting—but expectant
waiting. It is the kind of waiting we do, like when we are getting ready
for the birth of a baby.
Dr. William dePrater
