Episode 4

Finally!  Episode 4 

            and we get to John the Baptist.

Advent just isn’t Advent without John the Baptist.

 

This year we are not getting his fiery sermons.

            We don’t hear him yell at us, “You brood of vipers!”

 

This year we get to look at his nativity, his birth.

            And there are some interesting things to note about this.

This is the back story,

            before John became a wild man dressed in camel hair

                        with grasshopper legs and dribbles of honey stuck in his beard,

            coming out of the wilderness to baptize people in the Jordan River,

                        re-enacting the Children of Israel crossing over Jordan

                        to enter anew into the Promised Land,

                                    this time the Kingdom of God at hand.

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth did not name this child Zechariah Junior.

            Their friends, family and colleagues who had gathered for the brit

                        figured that given the circumstances

            old, mute Zechariah would want this child to carry on the family name,

                                    so this was a surprise.

 

There was also probably an implicit expectation

            that this late born son would continue in his father’s profession,

                        carry on the family legacy of the priesthood.

He would have a favored place in the clergy hierarchy in Jerusalem.

But, as we know, none of that would happen.

            For this child was already anointed by the Holy Spirit

                        for a prophet role, a specific prophet role,

as the precursor for the One who would upset the whole religious enterprise

            and proclaim the Gospel of Good News

                        that the Kingdom of God was at hand.

 

I wonder if it was hard for John, growing up with elderly parents,

            to escape being absorbed into his father’s profession

                        which was specifically handed down father to son.

But no fancy vestments for him,

            and no succumbing to deferential treatment and status 

                                    he could have as a priest in that culture and society.

 

There is some speculation that John left all that behind

            to go out into the desert,

                        quite possibly to the community of the Essenes,

            sort of an early form of Jewish monasticism 

                        down by the Dead Sea

where two millennia later ancient scrolls of the prophets would be found.

 

All we know from the witness of scripture is that he was in the wilderness 

            until the day he showed up and started preaching.

The wilderness, the place devoid of any signs of human habitation

            in the raw elements of nature,

            is the place traditionally where God can be encountered,

            where nothing distracts the attention from the witness of creation itself.

 

It was in the wilderness that Jacob, fleeing his brother’s understandable anger,

            took a stone for a pillow 

            and that night had a divine epiphany

                        that showed that God is too immense to be housed

                                    in anything less than the vastness of the starry ski.

 

John, touched from the womb with the Holy Spirit presence of Jesus,

            will be able to recognize him 

                                    when he shows up on the banks of the Jordon,

            John, who will say to his own disciples, “Behold the Lamb of God,”

            who will state about Jesus 

                        “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

 

Last of the Old Testament Prophet,

            John will be the bridge to the New Covenant 

                        of God’s justice and peace and righteousness and kingdom.

 

Notice the words in the Canticle, the Song of Zechariah,

            the first words out of his mouth after nine months of silence.

Zechariah proclaims that God, “promised to show mercy to our fathers  
               and to remember [the] holy covenant.” 

 

The old covenant “was the oath [God] swore to our father Abraham.”

 

The purpose of that covenant was

            “to set us free from the hands of our enemies, 
Free to worship [God] without fear,  
    holy and righteous in [God’s] sight 
    all the days of our life. “

 

And the covenant, of course, had two sides, two parties agreeing to it.

            God’s people would follow the Torah, the Way of Life,

                                    what the Law, the Commandments point us to.

            That was the side for God’s people to do,

but the other side is what God promises to do:

            to set us free from the hands of whatever is an enemy to us,

                        whatever binds us in fear, that’s what the enemy is – fear !

            and thus set free, we can then truly worship God

                        and live in right relationship with God,

                                    or that is what righteousness and the Way of Torah is:

            right relationship with God.

 

Now there is a new covenant, a renewed set of promises,

            for now God commits to us a savior.

 

Zechariah continues his song speaking prophetic words:

 

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, * 
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, 
To give his people knowledge of salvation * 
    by the forgiveness of their sins. 
In the tender compassion of our God * 
    the dawn from on high shall break upon us, 
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the 
                             shadow of death, * 
    and to guide our feet into the way of peace, shalom,

            which is wholeness, well being, the fullness of life.

 

And John grows up to do his job and he does it well,

            attracting lots of attention 

                        with his wild appearance and powerful, prophetic speech.

 

And then when he has handed over his own disciples to Jesus,

            his role of precursor complete,

he is taken completely out of the scene at the whim of a despot 

                        with a scheming wife who is astute in getting her way.

No reward for John for his faithful ministry,

            and no opportunity for John to see the salvation of his people?

That, my friends, is reality; there is not always a happy ending to every story.

 

Or is there?

 

We have now completed our pilgrimage though Luke, Chapter 1,

            all in preparation for the main event in Chapter 2,

so that our hearts will be open to receive the Nativity of our Lord.

 

If we identify ourselves here with the Nativity, 

                                    if that is the name we call ourselves as a faith community,

            then we have a great gift waiting for us under this Christmas tree, 

a gift that can transform our repetitive prayers week after week, day after day,

            from merely a religious obligation, a transaction with God,

                        to an awakening, a coming to consciousness in our hearts.

 

This would be a truly life giving gift,

            for we would realize how much we are loved by God,

                        how everything fits together

                                    for us as individuals and for us as a faith community.

We would finally find words to describe our connection to Jesus,

            sweet baby Jesus in the manger

                        and the Jesus who tells us parables that jar our consciousness

                        and the Jesus who shows mercy to repulsive lepers 

                                    and foreigners like the Syrophoenicion woman 

                                                with the demon possessed daughter 

                                    or the crazy man living in the tombs haunted by a legion of ghosts.

Or the Jesus who would not compromise truth before Pilot,

            who would die for love of us

                        and conquer death that we might live

                                    not just a life in heaven after the body gives out,

                                    but a fullness of life right now

                        a life of confident joy because our faith has been enlivened

            in our heart’s encounter with him.

 

Heart awareness is a moment to moment choice to let our truest self emerge into our lived reality and intersect with the outside world.

 

That’s why Luke wrote Chapter 1,

            so that we can receive Chapter 2 with open hearts and be transformed.