Roger Lynn
December 6, 2020
2nd Sunday in Advent
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“Prepare the way of the Lord!” John the Baptizer – the wild prophet in the wilderness – proclaims this challenge to the people around Jerusalem in the middle of the first century. And 2,000 years later the message still resonates with us. It is dramatic. It stirs the soul and gets the blood flowing. It urges us to do something. But what does it mean? What is the “way” we are being called to prepare? I suspect that much of the reason why we enjoy hearing “prepare the way of the Lord” in this season of Advent is because we are looking ahead to Christmas and thinking about the sweet little baby Jesus. This is a season which we often fill with warm, cozy feelings, and we like it that way. But if we are to take John’s message seriously, we must look beyond the manger. The voice of the Baptizer, crying out from the Jordan river, calls for a change in the very fabric of our world. He joins the likes of Isaiah in offering a new vision of hope, but it is hope which comes at a cost. We cannot continue “business as usual” because a new age is dawning. God is bringing something new into our lives, and nothing will remain unchanged.
The theme for this second week of Advent is “Peace.” It is a word which we love to hear and love to speak, particularly in times such as these which we now find ourselves facing. We long for peace to find its way into our lives and into our world. But as with most things associated with this season, we tend to reduce our understanding of peace to a simple message that will fit on the front of a Christmas card. We don’t want it to challenge us. We don’t want it to cost us anything. We just want it to feel good. Fortunately, for us and for the world, the peace of God is bigger than that. One of the word which Jesus would have used to speak of peace was the Hebrew word “Shalom,” which can also be translated as “wholeness.” I find that to be a helpful concept. True peace is founded upon and emerges out of regaining and restoring the sense of wholeness and unity which God intended for all of creation.
This is the vision which comes to us through prophets such as Isaiah and John. In a world filled with violence, destruction, and despair, they see God’s active presence moving us towards a bold, new future of hope and peace. There is a coming together of the broken pieces into a new wholeness. It is a powerful vision. But for many of us who would look to such a vision for comfort and security, we may well be in for a serious shock. The wholeness which forms the Shalom of God will require a new way of relating with each other. We will no longer be able to profit and benefit and enhance our own lives at the expense of others. Justice (in the Biblical sense of restorative justice) for all means exactly that. When God’s peace begins to find root in the world, our lives will change. And for those of us who are used to being on top and being in control, we may find the experience uncomfortable and challenging. In describing both the promise and the threat of this new vision of peace and wholeness, Isaiah uses some disturbingly strong language. I find myself wishing he had found some other ways to express himself, but at the very least it has the virtue of making it very clear that abusive imbalances of power have no place in God’s peace. What will have a place, indeed the central place, in such a vision of peace is a fundamental re-orientation towards harmony, community, and interdependence. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6) The old ways of living in the world – ways based on power over and self-preservation – must give way to a basic awareness of the ways in which we are connected and interdependent. I invite you to spend a moment reflecting on all of the myriad ways in which our lives would be dramatically altered by such a radical new understanding of life.
So John comes along and calls for us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” In Matthew’s Gospel, the first word out of John’s mouth is, “Repent!” That word literally means to “turn around and go the other way.” “Carefully, and urgently, examine the ways in which you are living your life,” John is saying, “and look to see if it is consistent with a vision of God-centered wholeness, peace, and justice.” We are to “make the paths straight.” “Level the playing field” might be another way to put it. The “way” we are called to prepare for God involves making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to experience the fullness of God’s presence in their lives. Everyone!
It is not the kind of peace we might have chosen, because it will require that we change in ways which will be uncomfortable and might even be perceived as threatening. But ultimately it is the only kind of genuine, lasting, meaningful peace which is possible. And it is only possible when we begin to let go of our need for power and control, and begin instead to trust in the God who is calling us to a new sense of wholeness with each other, with the world around us, and with God. God is always coming into our world in bold new ways. How are we preparing the way?
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