Advent 2C
Luke 3:1-6, Luke 1:68-79
In
the fourth year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Andrew Cuomo was
governor of New York, and Maggie Brooks Monroe County Executive, and Kirsten
Gillebrand and Charles Schumer were the US Senators from New York, during when
Mark Hanson was presiding bishop of the ELCA and Marie Jerge was bishop of
upstate New York Synod, the word of God came to Bethlehem/St. Martin Lutheran
Church in the suburbs.
What
is that word of God? Well, hate to tell you, but it still isn’t about the
sleeping babe of Bethlehem, at least not initially. Today, we get to talk about
John the Baptist, and with that, we get to talk about sin.
“Sin?!”
you ask. “When do we get to the Christmas-y stuff?” Well, we may not want to
talk about sin during this season, but John sure does! You remember John, known
as “the Baptist,” Jesus’ sort of wild and crazy cousin, son of Elizabeth and
Zechariah. When he wasn’t eating locusts and wild honey, John was all about talking about sin – from the very beginning!
His dad even prophesied about it when he was born! This past week in our
midweek Advent Bible study, we learned about the Benedictus, which, coincidentally is our Psalm today, and which
is spoken by John’s father, Zechariah. We were a little shaky on Wednesday on
how all of this hangs together, so before we go on, let’s do a little review
together:
Zechariah
was a priest, and one day he gets elected to enter the sanctuary of the Lord in
the synagogue and offer incense. While he’s in there, lo and behold the angel
Gabriel appears and tells him, “Hey, guess what? Your wife [who is, by the way,
getting on in years] is pregnant! This child’s name will be John, and he will
be filled with the Holy Spirit, and lead many people to God, and prepare the
way of the Lord.” Zechariah is understandably shocked by this, and because of
his disbelief (because let’s face it, it’s pretty unbelievable!), the angel
makes him unable to speak for the next nine months. Fast-forward to John’s
birth and subsequent dedication, and they name the kid John, despite no one in
the family having that name. And as Zechariah writes that on a tablet (because
remember, he couldn’t speak), his mouth was opened and his tongue freed and he
begins to speak, and what are the first words out of his mouth? These words
that we read a moment ago for the Psalm. And in this prophecy, Zechariah lays
out what will be the purpose of his little son, John: “And
you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;” he says, “for
you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
to give knowledge of salvation
to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.”
So
there you have it: the role of John the Baptist, to give knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of sins. And to address our earlier question about what sin
has got to do with Christmas… Well, what could be more Christmas-y than the
forgiveness of sins? After all, our sin is the reason Jesus had to be born at
all. Plus, Zechariah tells us that it is by the forgiveness of sins that we
will come to have knowledge of salvation.
During
Advent, we talk a lot about preparing ourselves, our hearts for Christ’s
coming, and in our Gospel today, John tells us precisely how we are to do that:
repent. “He went into all the region around the Jordan,” Luke tells us,
“proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” I think
there’s some baggage around the word, repent, maybe because it is often
associated with fundamentalist street corner preachers telling us we need to
repent or we’ll burn for eternity. I don’t know about all that, but I do know
that repenting is not such a bad thing.
But I like the way our
reading today from Malachi describes it. He describes repentance as being like
refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap. In both of these images, a substance is
washed, scrubbed, beaten down, burned – it goes through an assortment of
strenuous, high impact treatment in order to get rid of all the gunk and come
out with something precious, pristine, stronger and more valuable than before.
Repentance can be like that! It sure isn’t easy, having to reflect on the grime
and grub on our hearts, to name it, to deal with it in a healthy manner. But
once we do, do we not come out stronger, shinier, and more beautiful than
before?
I
don’t know, do you really believe that? If we really believed that, would we
not be more ready, even more eager to participate in this repentance that John
the Baptist and Malachi both proclaim? So what keeps us from doing it? Why is
repentance so hard for us? Maybe it’s because we think we’re not so bad, that
there’s not so much gunk on our hearts that needs to get off, and so why go
through the trouble? I’m ready enough for Jesus. Bring it on.
Or
maybe, we are worried that there is so much gunk in our lives that after it’s
gone, after the fuller has scrubbed it away and the refiner has purified it…
that there won’t be anything left. We’ve grown so accustomed to the false
truths that guide our lives, that if we get rid of all that, everything we have
known, what will we have to rely on anymore? How can we be sure that what is on
the other side of repentance will feel as safe and comfortable as it does on
this side?
I
mentioned several weeks back that I had started watching the TV show, Lost, about a group of people whose airplane crashes on a
strange island. One of the best parts of the show, I think, is learning the
back-stories of the characters. Recently, I watched an episode about Sayid, an
Iraqi man who served in the Republican Guard as an interrogator and torturer –
a time of his life he deeply regrets. By chance, he ends up in the hands of the
husband of one of the women he tortured, who insists that Sayid confess to what
he did. Terrified of what this man might do to him, Sayid repeatedly denies
having touched her. Finally, Sayid is left alone with the woman, and, having
shared with him her story, she asks him again to confess. Finally, through
tears, he does, apologizing profusely for what he has done to her and others,
baring and risking his soul to her. Through the intensity of his sobbing, she
says, “I forgive you.” Sayid looks at her in astonishment, the look of a man
who has felt the utter fear of repentance, and the sweet relief of forgiveness.
How could he know before she said those words what would happen if he admitted
to what he’d done? But having felt that relief, how could he ever go back?
It
is hard to face our demons, the things in our lives that fester inside us and
draw our attention from God. It is hard to give up our false “yeses,” our
reliance on things that ultimately hurt us and keep us from feeling peace. The
work is difficult, and we fear we cannot be sure of what lies on the other
side. We would rather stay where at least we know what to expect, even if that
means our relationship with God suffers.
But
is this not why Jesus comes to earth? To bring us back into a right
relationship with a God who loves us so much? John the Baptist is right: the
birth of Christ is about forgiveness.
It’s about getting past those demons – the ones that haunt our past and the
ones that plague our present, but the ones that need not persist in our future.
In Christ, we are forgiven of our sins, our demons, our dirty thoughts, our
less-than-cheery moments, the ways we hurt ourselves and our neighbors. Every
last one of them: forgiven. And in that forgiveness, we are not left the
nothingness we may have feared. Rather, we are left with the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding. We are left with a Christ to stake our lives
on. We are left with a closer relationship with the God who made us and loves
us no matter what.
Let
us pray. Blessed are you, O Lord our God. We have so many things that are
heavy on our hearts, so many things for which we need forgiveness. Grant us the
courage to repent, so our hearts would be ready for the coming of your Son, and
all the love and joy that comes with him. In the name of the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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