The sights and sounds of Advent prompt us to look and listen for what is most important; to straighten out our priorities. We are inclined as Christmas draws near to allow relationships to take precedence.
There was a poor woman, who lived well below the poverty line, and yet, she took neglected kids into her home. When asked why in the world she would make a place for these children, she responded: “I saw another world coming.”
She saw the world, which is not yet, the world where the heart reigns guiding our feet into the way of peace (1:79).
Luke brings us John the Baptist in the wilderness. John is right down at the bottom of life. It is there the kingdom of God is planted into his heart. The forsaken wilderness provides a backdrop for that which is of greatest value. In the wilderness John saw another world coming!
Mary sang of this new-found clarity, “God has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. God has brought down rulers from their thrones” (1:51-55).
John’s story begins in the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberius. The children born when he began his reign were now teenagers. These rulers represent the world as they know it; the only way it has ever been.
John comes preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (3:3). This new voice cries out for Israel to return to faithfulness. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight’”
John preached “repentance” meaning to “turn around” or “to change direction.” The primary Old Testament term for “sin” means “to walk on the wrong path” or “to walk in the wrong direction.” The implication is that the people are headed the wrong way. They are not walking on the correct path. When the crowds asked, “What, O what then shall we do?” John the Baptizer makes it concrete and practical: share coats and food, deal fairly and honestly, respect others (3:10-14). These are the things that make for peace.
Let us be thankful for this thunderous call to prepare for God’s arrival! Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch will be filled in, every bump smoothed out, the detours straightened, all the ruts paved over, everyone will be there to see, the parade of God’s peace and salvation.
This is a season for straightening things out; a season for staying close to God and staying close to people and helping bring the two closer together. However, be sure of this: getting close to God will bring both judgment and grace. The fire that warms also burns. Judgment and grace go together, like night and day. Those who know nothing of judgment need nothing of grace. Malachi 3:2 raises the hard question: “Who can live when God appears? Who can endure God’s coming? For God is like a blazing fire refining precious metal.”
The Australian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, cautioned: “There can be no getting accustomed to finding God” (In Rilke’s diary we learn that early in his life he withdrew from faith because he could find so very few who took seriously the radical claims of those like John the Baptist. He was so deeply disappointed that so few lives had been indelibly marked by this surprise and this fear).
There can be no getting accustomed to finding God. There can be no getting accustomed to being found by God!
John prepares the way for this One to come who will not overlook sin but forgive it and make reconciliation possible and give direction to our every desire. John gives voice to the passionate prayer in Psalm 25, “Show me the path that I should walk!”
Prepare for a new world of peace to come.
I like the way Frederick Buechner lays pavers of repentance. He writes,
“Biblically speaking, to repent doesn’t mean to feel sorry about, to regret. It means to turn, to turn around 180 degrees. It means to undergo a complete change of mind, heart, direction. Turn away form madness, cruelty, shallowness, blindness. Turn toward the tolerance, compassion, sanity, hope justice, and peace we all have in us at our best.
True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ than to the future and saying, ‘Wow!’”
Repentance is an invitation to relate our lives to the future by allowing God’s road open before us.
While gathering medical supplies for the afflicted citizens of Biafra, a box was delivered to the Red Cross with this letter: “We have recently been converted, and because of our conversion we want to try to help. Can you do something with these?”
The workers opened the box to find several sheets worn by members of the KKK that were now cut down to strips and to be used as bandages for those wounded.
To repent is to change and prepare for another world to come!
Zechariah, John’s father, prophesied,
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercies of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:76-79).
I suspect it is time for us to turn! For it is only by our turning that we can begin to do peace!
Prayer: O God, break our fixation with ourselves and with all else until your world coming matters most. Let us turn until we turn ‘round right! Through Jesus Christ our peace, we pray. Amen.