Advent 2B
December 10, 2023
Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8
INTRODUCTION
One of the things I love about the Advent readings each year is that it is often so clear how the witness of scripture hangs together over the centuries of its writing. Today it is especially so, as John the Baptist will quote our text from Isaiah. In quoting Isaiah’s prophecy, John reinterprets that proclamation to speak to his own time. So let me give you a bit of context here:
Isaiah 40 offers a marvelous word of hope to the Israelites who are in exile in Babylon. Remember this part of the story? I talked a couple weeks ago about the history of bad kings in Israel, and how their idolatry and greed ultimately led to the split of Israel into Northern and Southern Kingdoms, and both kingdoms’ ultimate downfall. The Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem taken by the Babylonians, and the Israelites sent away into exile in Babylon. At the point Isaiah 40 was written, they have been in Babylonian captivity for two full generations, 40-50 years. And now, into this context, Isaiah speaks this word of hope. The voicing is kind of confusing; hopefully the way we read it today will help. You’ll hear God’s voice, the voice of someone in the divine council or heavenly host, then Isaiah, and then God again.
As for the Gospel, always on this second Sunday of Advent we hear from John the Baptist, calling out in the wilderness – and quoting today’s passage from Isaiah. As Mark is telling us this story, he is also speaking to a community living under oppression, Roman oppression. Mark was writing either right before or right after the second Temple was destroyed in the Jewish-Roman Wars. So, a similar situation to the Israelites! And so he starts off his Gospel by calling back to a previous story of how God showed up and delivered them in a time of oppression.
Both Isaiah and Mark bring to mind the possibility of new beginnings, especially when we are suffering. As you listen, think about some of the beginnings you have experienced, and some of the emotions you’ve had around those beginnings. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
It wasn’t Jerusalem, but it was home. That’s how it had started to feel for the Israelites living in Babylon. After all, it had been nearly 50 years here. There was hardly anyone left who even remembered Jerusalem. A few of their elders remembered being deported as children, but for the most part that golden age of living in Canaan, the land God had promised to Abraham, had been reduced to spotty memories and stories told and passed down around the table.
When they first arrived in Babylon, all anyone could talk about was having watched their beautiful Temple, the house King Solomon had built for God, burning to the ground as they left. The Temple was gone. The land was gone. They couldn’t imagine how they could possibly go on living as God’s chosen people as they endured this atrocity. The Babylonians would taunt them, asking them to sing songs in their Hebrew tongue, but how could they sing in this foreign land? When they remembered Zion, and all that they had lost, they could only weep. The worst part of all was that they knew it was their own fault. God had warned them, through the prophets, and they didn’t change their ways. They had gone too far off the path. This exile, they knew, was the natural consequence of their sin.
That was when God sent the prophet Jeremiah. “Build houses and live in them,” Jeremiah said. “Plant gardens, and eat the produce. Get married, have kids.” In other words, keep on living, and make the best of a bad situation. And they did. They had to – what other option was there? And so, in this new land, they told their old stories, and even started to write them down, lest they, too, be lost. They told their stories in ways that tried to make sense of their current reality. They found new ways to worship Yahweh, even without the Temple to serve as the center of their worship life. And they did their best to make Babylon their “home.” For two generations they had done this, and, well, they supposed it was working.
But now came something truly shocking. The prophet Isaiah had begun to proclaim a word from God – indicating the possibility of returning to Zion, to Jerusalem! He spoke words of comfort, words about them having “served their term,” saying that their “penalty was paid.”
Could it be? Was it possible they were forgiven? Could God be about to restore Israel? Isaiah spoke about a new exodus, in which they would be led once again out of captivity – not slavery in Egypt this time, as their ancestors, but out of Babylonian captivity and back toward their beloved Zion. They would be led out of captivity and into the wilderness. But this time, Isaiah said, the wilderness would not be the place of hunger and fear that it had been for their ancestors, back during the infancy of their faith. This time, all obstacles would be removed. “Every valley shall be lifted up,” Isaiah declared, “and every mountain made low. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed – you’ll see it! The Lord has spoken!” In other words: God was indeed bringing them back to the Promised Land, and this time, rather than wandering around for 40 years, it would be a straight shot.
It was a lot to take in. Surely, it was exciting – it was what they had longed for, all these years in Babylon! They had begun to think they would never get back! And yet, now that it was before them, a real possibility, even a promise… they had, well, a lot of feelings about it. After all, they had made Babylon their home. Most of them didn’t even remember Jerusalem; they knew it only through their elders’ stories. What would they find when they returned? Would it be a mere pile of rubble from a previously glorious city? What had the Babylonians done to it since they’d been deported? Maybe they would be better off just staying here in Babylon. It wasn’t great, no, but it was at least known to them. They had built lives here. On the other hand, here in Babylon, they were not living into God’s hope and promise for them. How were they supposed to feel about this?
Isaiah heard their concerns, and voiced them to God. “These people are feeling a bit withered and faded, God, after all these years of punishment. What am I supposed to say to them?”
God told Isaiah to assure the people it would be okay: “I know they’re feeling exhausted from all this, that the grass withers and the flower fades. I know this has been hard. But the word of God stands forever. So stand up and say it loud and proud: Here is your God! He comes with the might of a warrior, and the tenderness of a shepherd. God has got you! You will be okay.”
And they were. Many, though not all, did return to Jerusalem. They rebuilt the city and the Temple. Their new beginning was not an easy one, but God said he would be with them, and he was. Because God makes good on his promises.
…
Five hundred years later, when John the Baptist proclaims that the coming of the Lord is near, this is the story he calls upon. This story, of hope and resilience, against all odds. This story, in which the people were fearful of a change, a new beginning – that they wanted, yes, and yet, which scared them out of their wits. By calling back to this story, John is saying to the people, “I know life is rough right now. But life has been rough before, and God delivered.” It isn’t always according to our time, but according to God’s time. (After all, to God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a single day!) Restoration and deliverance may look different than we imagined. But God has always come through, and would this time, too.
I love how John reaches back to this story of hope to bring a similar hope to his contemporary audience, because it shows us how we can do the same. Maybe we aren’t living in occupied territory, like the first century Christians, but we are no strangers to complex and terrifying political realities. Maybe we aren’t longing to return to the land of our ancestors, like the Israelites in Babylon, but we know what it is like to long for change, even as that same change is terrifying in its uncertainty. Maybe we aren’t about to enter the literal wilderness for a long journey, but we know our own wildernesses, whether navigating difficult relationship dynamics, or seeking job satisfaction, or dealing with an addiction or a mental illness in ourselves or a loved one. When John reaches back to tell his current story through the historical story of faith, he gives meaning to the current struggle, and gives the people what they need in order to endure what lies before them with faith and hope.
This is what I love about the biblical witness: it shows us how the story of God and God’s people repeats itself, in different times with different characters. But one character is constant: The word of the Lord stands forever. Here is our God. Here in our pain. Here, in this place of uncertainty. Here, in the darkness and fear. Here as we figure out this new way to walk in this new place we are entering. Here is our God.
Let us pray… Emmanuel, we give you thanks for the witness of your people across the ages. Help us to see our story in their story, and in that let us find the hope and resilience that we need to endure our own struggles. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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