Hanging Out
Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph
(Year B, Advent II, Isaiah 49:1-11, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, Mark 1:1-8)
It is easy to rush through Advent. Indeed, our lives at this time of year seem especially geared to push us relentlessly forward at an ever more frantic pace.
In my life, this past week was especially tiring. Our Grace Episcopal Day School & Nursery celebrated with our annual Christmas Festival Thursday afternoon. The first few days of the week were all preparation: working out last minute logistics, sending out messages to teachers and parents, pulling festival games out of storage and setting them up, decorating. Then Friday was all clean up, put away, etc.
It seems that our approach to that other penitential season—Lent—is so different. Easter seems far away as we gather Ash Wednesday to begin weeks of abstaining from something important to us, and commitment to fasting, reflection and alms-giving.
In contrast, the beginning of Advent is a mad dash into planning, shopping, decorating, office receptions and parties with their special foods and beverages, and more. It is a time of year when our society does everything in its power to entice us to over-indulge in every way possible, beginning with Thanksgiving and going all the way to Christmas.
For the past few years, many Christians have been quick to complain of a so-called “attack on Christmas.” I am far more likely to bemoan the attack on Advent! The first Christmas tree I saw this year appeared in Sam’s Club… before Halloween! I was stunned and dismayed.
Today’s lessons—Isaiah’s cry on behalf of the Israelites, John the Baptist’s rough-hewn lifestyle and in-your-face preaching—seem truly misplaced amongst the cheery holiday music, fresh greenery and glittering ornaments that have already filled our lives. Who wants to go into the wilderness when we can hang out here in Christmasland?!
But the wilderness has things to offer that we cannot find in the hustle and bustle and beauty of Christmasland. Holy things. And these passages give us some clues. This morning I invite you to hang out for a time in the Holy Land of Advent.
Let’s begin with the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:1-11, NRSV):
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.
Of course, Western Christians can hardly hear these words without hearing the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah. But the prophet does not allow us to simply rush straight to the triumph of the Allelujah chorus!
First, even as we are comforted, we are reminded that we need comfort due to the magnitude of our sins and the penalty we have paid. We have suffered as a result of our estrangement from God.
Please do not hear that as a theology of retribution. The bad things that happen in our lives are not God’s punishment for our sins. Rather, things go wrong in our lives and we lose sight of God. We try to comfort ourselves with all the wrong things—mood-altering substances like alcohol, extreme busy-ness, spending money, whatever—and the more we do that, the farther away God seems to be. And we suffer.
Second, Isaiah draws attention to the one thing that most reliably causes humankind to suffer, and that is our mortality. We are flowers, beautiful but fragile, for flowers do not last. The wind blows. We wither and die. All of us in this space this morning are old enough to have dealt with loss.
Memento morí…?
This world often seems devoid of the comforting presence of God! We often feel forsaken by God! Isaiah reassures us that God is there in the wilderness of our lives. That God patiently waits to speak tenderly to us, to feed us and to gather us and to gently lead us home.
Turning to today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 1:1-8, NRSV), I’m again struck by these opening words:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
`Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'"
With this enigmatic opening, St. Mark connects his main character, Jesus the Christ, with the God of Hebrew Scripture, through his lead character, John the Baptizer.
John the Baptizer hung out in the wilderness, and people went in droves to hear him—in spite of the fact that he bore the bad news of sin and the need for repentance. Indeed, in Matthew’s account, John calls the religious elite of his day a brood of vipers!
So why did the people flock to him? As Mark says, he also bore the good news of another to come, one who would share with us the forgiving waters of baptism, but one who had more—much more—to offer.
The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me, John says. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
We go into the wilderness to repent, wait and prepare. In today’s epistle (1 Peter 3:8-15a, NRSV), St. Peter tells us how: Patiently, because God’s days are unlike ours and God has been more than patient with we. Keeping awake, for we do not know when God comes again. Living godly lives, doing the things God has called us to do to hasten the kingdom—which we know from Jesus’ teaching means loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
Dear friends, let us hang out for a while in the holy land of Advent. For here we find God’s comforting promise of mercy and grace bestowed in the coming of the one for whom we prepare—the one of power and glory who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
