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December 16, 2007 Advent 3 –A A Season of Expectation The Rev. Dr. Lawrence S. Hunter
Last week John – the one known as the baptizer – seemed to be the one with all the answers. He was wild eyed and long-haired and weirdly dressed with an even weirder diet – locust parts stuck in his teeth and honey dripping off his beard. Out in the wilderness, at the Jordan River, this forerunner of the Messiah was all business – God’s business. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” was his cry. When some of the religious leaders answered his call to repent and be baptized he called them a “brood of vipers.” He told them he was just the preparer of the way for the one who would follow. That one would be really something to behold.
John the Baptist was a prophet and he had serious expectations for the coming Messiah. His expectations were forged by Hebrew scripture and tradition. At this the height of his ministry, John had proclaimed a message that was both simple and inflammatory. We heard that message in our gospel reading last Sunday. Simply put, God was upset with the people of Israel, and was about to intervene in Israel’s history in a big way – as a “great forest fire” before which the vipers flee, and in which trees and chaff are chopped down and then burned. Everyone, all of Israel, must change – not simply the godless gentiles. It would be of no use in the coming judgment to claim spiritual ancestry by claiming “we have Abraham as our ancestor.” That would not cut it. Only a personal change of heart, signified through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, would do it. And the agent of this intervention was the Messiah, and, well, the Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire and it would probably not be pretty so… Watch out!
John was an upright and holy man, and he inspired awe. He also angered the authorities, and when he rebuked the sex life of Herod Antipas, he ended up in prison. In contrast to the fire and brimstone guy of last week, it is a very different John that we meet today. John is in chains in a jail cell on the desolate heights of Moab, near the east central shore of the Dead Sea, in Herod the Great’s prison buried deep in the mighty fortress-palace at Machaerus. And it is from that prison that he sends disciples to Jesus to find out if he really is the Messiah. Defeated and confused, John is one not with answers today, but with questions. It is safe to say that his expectations about what the Messiah would bring were not being wholly met.
John expected a righteous judge who would set all things right. That meant restoring the nation to its golden age; that meant driving the oppressing Romans from the land; that meant clearing out the unclean elements in the society. So I would imagine that it was with some confusion that John sent word to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”
John learned a lesson from the news his disciples brought back to him. He wanted a God of fire and brimstone and what he got was Jesus, who preached full and endless forgiveness offered to the very “chaff” John expected to see burned. This Messiah hangs out with the outcasts of that society. He even talks to women. He does unexpected things in unexpected ways. And Jesus does not waste a lot of words to answer John’s question. He simply tells the messengers to go and tell what they have seen. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” In this case, actions do speak louder than any words can possibly convey. Prophecy is fulfilled.
Advent calls us to prepare to receive the gift of God in the Incarnation, not by feverish preparation, but by what a spiritual director would call “expectant waiting.” Barbara Brown Taylor notes that “our waiting is not nothing. It is a something – a very big something, because people tend to be shaped by whatever it is they wait for.” And that is true. Whatever it is that we wait for – a call from the doctor’s office with test results, or a check in the mail, or a special touch from a friend or lover, a visit from children or parents, or even a cab to stop for us when we’re in the city – we are molded and changed by whatever it is that we anticipate.
In the ramp up to Christmas, the common culture shapes us mostly outwardly. Decorations, packages, lights, parties, are all good things, but they are all externals. If we concentrate only on them, that can keep us from the spiritual shaping of this season. But some moments spent on our relationship with God can help us.
In this season of expectation, it might be a good spiritual practice for us to ask ourselves what we expect of God. Each time we gather for Eucharist we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” What do we mean when we pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done?”
Are we willing to let God be God? Are we willing to risk being surprised when God does not act as we would expect, or like, or hope, or imagine?
Do we expect God to confirm us in our goodness and bless our status quo?
Do we expect God to extend mercy to us and to mete out justice to the other?
Do we expect God to embrace our cause and to take our side?
Do we expect God to set things right in the way we would have God do that?
If we do, we will undoubtedly not have our expectations met.
A few years ago I had a young man from Up With People staying with me. He was struggling with what to do with his life and in one late-night conversation he said, “I pray that I will have ears to hear the quiet creaking of the door that God is opening, instead of banging my head bloody against the place in the wall where I think there should be a door.” The door, my friends, is often not where we expect it to be.
We can let the example of John the Baptist feed our hope and inform our expectations. We may be hoping for something we think is a good thing from God, but God can exceed our plans and expectations.
For that is certainly what God did in the first Advent. Who would have ever expected a baby?
And that is certainly what God did in the life and ministry of Jesus. Who would have ever expected a ministry of healing, and reconciliation, and inclusion, and justice tendered by mercy?
And that is most certainly what God did in the resurrection. Who would have ever expected that?
God is the one who not only exceeds our human expectations, but absolutely blows them away. Since Advent is the time of expectation, Advent is a good time to put aside our limited expectations for God and the confines we place on God, and let God be God and let God surprise us.
John’s
expectations for Jesus were formed by his own religious understanding. Like
John, Jesus preached repentance, but with it he offered mercy and healing. John
was a powerful witness to God's word, but as we heard last week, while he could
call people to repentance, he couldn't give them what they really
needed—forgiveness. The message Jesus sends in response to John’s question
from prison is this: Jesus has come as the prophet Isaiah foretold, to save
people through God's forgiveness. And that's how God judges us: through Jesus
and with mercy. Judgment has come and mercy is the decision rendered by the
judge.
We are an Advent people who live in hope and trust in God's promises. We
followers of Jesus are also a continuation of his presence in the world. What
he said about himself and his ministry of healing is now up to us to continue.
The Advent scriptures ask us to live the mystery of Christ in our time. It is
clear from Jesus' response to John that he did not withdraw from engagement with
the world; he did not call a small band of elite to live a privatized code of
rules and regulation; he did not form a military band of rebels.
What he did was confront the world's evils through healing and forgiveness. Now we, his church, are to "go and tell" what we have seen and heard in Christ. We do this by confronting the evils and hurts of the world and its people with healing and forgiveness. We do this by offering of ourselves to one another, reaching out to those in need, healing our aching planet, working for peace and justice, finding ways to give value to human life. When we do this, we become, like Jesus, good news to the world.
Sometimes you hear people say, “God has a plan for your life.” I’m not so sure that God plans the details of our human lives, for that would restrict the very freedom that God created us to enjoy. What I am certain of is that God does have an overall plan for us. And that plan is that we become like Jesus – good news!