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If ever we needed “comfort,” now is the time. If ever there were and occasion for God to speak “tenderly” to our souls, now is it. But why in the “wilderness?”
This is the Second Sunday of our Advent Season. Each year on this Sunday we hear the story of John the Baptist from one of the gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke. And, in each instance, we hear a quote from the prophet Isaiah. This year, from Mark’s Gospel:
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
Worship Booklet
Communion Prayer
Printer-Friendly Version (Sermon)
If ever we needed “comfort,” now is the time. If ever there were and occasion for God to speak “tenderly” to our souls, now is it. But why in the “wilderness?”
This is the Second Sunday of our Advent Season. Each year on this Sunday we hear the story of John the Baptist from one of the gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke. And, in each instance, we hear a quote from the prophet Isaiah. This year, from Mark’s Gospel:
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
If ever we needed “comfort,” now is the time. If ever there were and occasion for God to speak “tenderly” to our souls, now is it. But why in the “wilderness?”
This is the Second Sunday of our Advent Season. Each year on this Sunday we hear the story of John the Baptist from one of the gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke. And, in each instance, we hear a quote from the prophet Isaiah. This year, from Mark’s Gospel:
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
Just to be clear, the "wilderness” that Isaiah is talking about is not the wilderness of a pristine national park, a well-tended shoreline, or the forest havens we associate with National Geographic photo essays. The wilderness of the Bible was harsh and austere … it was bleak and inhospitable … its weather patterns were unpredictable … its water sources were scarce. There were no trails to be found amidst its rocky crevices … persons in the time of Jesus did not have a GPS, only the stars in God’s heaven to guide them. In this wilderness people have to forge their our own path by their our own sweat, blood, and tears.
Moreover, the wilderness of Scripture … very often … was not a destination one chose for themselves. Today … like back then … we often end up in wildernesses by no choice of our own. Sometimes, we end up in a spiritual wilderness against our will … we end up in this wilderness because of illness … or loss … or trauma … or hardship. This kind of wilderness is a place of captivity … of exile. We end up there when our careful plans fail … when someone we trust betrays us … when a loved one dies … when a pandemic suddenly appears … when the faith which has rewarded us suddenly dries up. The wilderness of the Bible is not by any stretch of the imagination a place we would wish to inhabit if it were completely our choice.
Yet it is in just this kind of hostile desert that the text tells us that God “speaks tenderly” to God’s people. It is when we “prepare the way of the Lord” in the wilderness … when we “make straight in the desert a highway for our God” … that the promise of relief comes: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”
Do you remember what happened to the people of the tribe of Israel in the time of Isaiah? They had been attacked and forcibly removed from their homes by the Assyrians. Their temple had been destroyed. They were in exiled to Babylon, a foreign land. The children of Israel had been exiled from their homeland, their identity, their kin, and their spiritual anchor. These were people who had been robbed, ravaged, demoralized, and crushed by their Babylonian captors, driven away from all that was safe and familiar to them. In every way imaginable, they were in the wilderness without a roadmap and no familiar landmarks.
Does this sound at all familiar to you in these days of COVID-19? It is as if we have been exiled to a tiny bit of wilderness in our own homes. If we are responsible and follow the advice of epidemiologist experts and CDC guidelines then we don’t travel … we don’t visit parents, brothers and sisters … sons and daughters … we certainly don’t get to hug our grandchildren … and they don’t get to hug us back when we so dearly need that intimacy.
Our reading from Isaiah begins with:
“Comfort, O comfort my people,” says your God. 2“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem …”
Then the Gospel of Mark begins with:
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
So, what do you do for “comfort” in these dreadfully uncomfortable times? Where do we find the “good news?” If I were to ask you to make a list of the places you associate with healing, restoration, nurture, and consolation, I would expect something like a walk on the beach … a hike in the woods … maybe even the risk of a road trip to visit to a mountain hide-away. If you were looking for “good news” it would be that everyone could get the vaccine tomorrow … that the hospitals were functioning again and had room for persons ill with something other than COVID-19 … that the economy was recovering for everyone, not just the people at the top. It is “good news” when all our loved ones were safe and healthy.
However, in our readings for this second week of Advent, comfort resides in a place we wouldn’t necessarily expect. According to Isaiah … and the Gospel of Mark quoting the prophet … comfort is found in a hard place … a paradoxical place. If you seek the comfort of God, these texts tell us, head to the wilderness. If you want the “good news” you are going to find it in a barren place.
As we move deeper into Advent, and consider what it means to wait for the coming of Jesus, these readings challenge us to consider hard questions about where and how we are to fully know the Incarnation. Why do these lessons ask us to dwell in the wilderness in the weeks leading up to Christmas? Why must God’s comfort come to us in such barren settings? Why does the coming of the “good news” begin with a scene of desolation?
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but some thoughts come to mind … especially in this year of 2020. First, the wilderness is a place that lays us bare … it show us our vulnerabilities. It's a place where we must contend with our own powerlessness. In the wilderness, there is no safety net … no back-up plan … no shelter to protect us. In the wilderness, life is raw and risky, and any belief in our own self-reliance falls short of reality. In the wilderness, we have no choice but to wait and watch as if our lives depend on God showing up … because they do. And, it’s into such a wilderness environment … an environment so far removed from power and security as to make power and security laughable … and it is into this wilderness environment that the word of God comes.
So, why might people journey into the wilderness to find John the Baptist rather than go to the Temple in Jerusalem? Perhaps it was that instead of what they saw as a superficial and hypocritical holiness of a sacrifice at the Temple, they sought a true experience of the sacred in an un-brokered relationship with their God. Maybe the “comfort” and “good news” for these people was that God could be found in the wilderness … in the spiritual washing in the Jordan River … and that their life of repentance and integrity would mean that they lived in the realm of God’s love and forgiveness.
Most of us try to stay away from those wilderness places. Yet that is exactly where the cry can be heard … it is in the wilderness that the “good news” is most often proclaimed and listened to. So what might happen to us if we were to break through the denial in our lives that avoids the recognition of the wilderness we may be living in? What might we gain by entering the wilderness with our eyes and ears open? What would we lose? What is the “good news” that you might be longing for … or the “comfort” you so desperately desire … that could only be encountered in one of those wilderness places in your life?
On this Second Sunday of Advent we are waiting in hope and anticipation for the birth of Jesus at Christmas. This is the Incarnation … God coming alive in the world in which we live. This is the “good news.”
Mark’s gospel does not begin with a story of Jesus’ birth. Rather it begins with a call to be prepared. If we are to know the reality of the Incarnation; that is, if we are to know what it really means for God to come alive in this world, then we have to be able to hear this “good news.” Part of our preparation is to leave the comfortable and secure places in our lives and choose to enter our own wilderness with our eyes and ears … and our hearts and souls … ready to hear the “good news” that God loves each and every one of us. In those untamed places in our psyche that we know as a wilderness we have to be open to living into God’s forgiveness as an ever-present reality so that God can come alive in us. In those dark and forbidding places in our soul where we feel unworthy of anyone’s love … including our own … we can encounter the proclamation of God’s love that transcends all boundaries, even those we place around our wilderness.
In just a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of the Christ child. We can either acknowledge it as just one more Christmas … one more celebration of the birthday of Jesus … or we can live into the reality it represents. We are all living in this wilderness brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moreover, we all live in a wilderness of one kind or another in our personal lives, and it is there that we can encounter the “good news” … the Good News of God alive in Jesus … and the “good news” that God can come alive in each of us as well. It is in that longing for the “good news” and “comfort” in our wilderness that we live throughout this Advent season. And, it is in that hope and anticipation of the coming of God in Jesus that we prepare our lives for something more than just another birthday celebration.
Amen.
This is the Second Sunday of our Advent Season. Each year on this Sunday we hear the story of John the Baptist from one of the gospels of Matthew, Mark or Luke. And, in each instance, we hear a quote from the prophet Isaiah. This year, from Mark’s Gospel:
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
Just to be clear, the "wilderness” that Isaiah is talking about is not the wilderness of a pristine national park, a well-tended shoreline, or the forest havens we associate with National Geographic photo essays. The wilderness of the Bible was harsh and austere … it was bleak and inhospitable … its weather patterns were unpredictable … its water sources were scarce. There were no trails to be found amidst its rocky crevices … persons in the time of Jesus did not have a GPS, only the stars in God’s heaven to guide them. In this wilderness people have to forge their our own path by their our own sweat, blood, and tears.
Moreover, the wilderness of Scripture … very often … was not a destination one chose for themselves. Today … like back then … we often end up in wildernesses by no choice of our own. Sometimes, we end up in a spiritual wilderness against our will … we end up in this wilderness because of illness … or loss … or trauma … or hardship. This kind of wilderness is a place of captivity … of exile. We end up there when our careful plans fail … when someone we trust betrays us … when a loved one dies … when a pandemic suddenly appears … when the faith which has rewarded us suddenly dries up. The wilderness of the Bible is not by any stretch of the imagination a place we would wish to inhabit if it were completely our choice.
Yet it is in just this kind of hostile desert that the text tells us that God “speaks tenderly” to God’s people. It is when we “prepare the way of the Lord” in the wilderness … when we “make straight in the desert a highway for our God” … that the promise of relief comes: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”
Do you remember what happened to the people of the tribe of Israel in the time of Isaiah? They had been attacked and forcibly removed from their homes by the Assyrians. Their temple had been destroyed. They were in exiled to Babylon, a foreign land. The children of Israel had been exiled from their homeland, their identity, their kin, and their spiritual anchor. These were people who had been robbed, ravaged, demoralized, and crushed by their Babylonian captors, driven away from all that was safe and familiar to them. In every way imaginable, they were in the wilderness without a roadmap and no familiar landmarks.
Does this sound at all familiar to you in these days of COVID-19? It is as if we have been exiled to a tiny bit of wilderness in our own homes. If we are responsible and follow the advice of epidemiologist experts and CDC guidelines then we don’t travel … we don’t visit parents, brothers and sisters … sons and daughters … we certainly don’t get to hug our grandchildren … and they don’t get to hug us back when we so dearly need that intimacy.
Our reading from Isaiah begins with:
“Comfort, O comfort my people,” says your God. 2“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem …”
Then the Gospel of Mark begins with:
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
So, what do you do for “comfort” in these dreadfully uncomfortable times? Where do we find the “good news?” If I were to ask you to make a list of the places you associate with healing, restoration, nurture, and consolation, I would expect something like a walk on the beach … a hike in the woods … maybe even the risk of a road trip to visit to a mountain hide-away. If you were looking for “good news” it would be that everyone could get the vaccine tomorrow … that the hospitals were functioning again and had room for persons ill with something other than COVID-19 … that the economy was recovering for everyone, not just the people at the top. It is “good news” when all our loved ones were safe and healthy.
However, in our readings for this second week of Advent, comfort resides in a place we wouldn’t necessarily expect. According to Isaiah … and the Gospel of Mark quoting the prophet … comfort is found in a hard place … a paradoxical place. If you seek the comfort of God, these texts tell us, head to the wilderness. If you want the “good news” you are going to find it in a barren place.
As we move deeper into Advent, and consider what it means to wait for the coming of Jesus, these readings challenge us to consider hard questions about where and how we are to fully know the Incarnation. Why do these lessons ask us to dwell in the wilderness in the weeks leading up to Christmas? Why must God’s comfort come to us in such barren settings? Why does the coming of the “good news” begin with a scene of desolation?
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but some thoughts come to mind … especially in this year of 2020. First, the wilderness is a place that lays us bare … it show us our vulnerabilities. It's a place where we must contend with our own powerlessness. In the wilderness, there is no safety net … no back-up plan … no shelter to protect us. In the wilderness, life is raw and risky, and any belief in our own self-reliance falls short of reality. In the wilderness, we have no choice but to wait and watch as if our lives depend on God showing up … because they do. And, it’s into such a wilderness environment … an environment so far removed from power and security as to make power and security laughable … and it is into this wilderness environment that the word of God comes.
So, why might people journey into the wilderness to find John the Baptist rather than go to the Temple in Jerusalem? Perhaps it was that instead of what they saw as a superficial and hypocritical holiness of a sacrifice at the Temple, they sought a true experience of the sacred in an un-brokered relationship with their God. Maybe the “comfort” and “good news” for these people was that God could be found in the wilderness … in the spiritual washing in the Jordan River … and that their life of repentance and integrity would mean that they lived in the realm of God’s love and forgiveness.
Most of us try to stay away from those wilderness places. Yet that is exactly where the cry can be heard … it is in the wilderness that the “good news” is most often proclaimed and listened to. So what might happen to us if we were to break through the denial in our lives that avoids the recognition of the wilderness we may be living in? What might we gain by entering the wilderness with our eyes and ears open? What would we lose? What is the “good news” that you might be longing for … or the “comfort” you so desperately desire … that could only be encountered in one of those wilderness places in your life?
On this Second Sunday of Advent we are waiting in hope and anticipation for the birth of Jesus at Christmas. This is the Incarnation … God coming alive in the world in which we live. This is the “good news.”
Mark’s gospel does not begin with a story of Jesus’ birth. Rather it begins with a call to be prepared. If we are to know the reality of the Incarnation; that is, if we are to know what it really means for God to come alive in this world, then we have to be able to hear this “good news.” Part of our preparation is to leave the comfortable and secure places in our lives and choose to enter our own wilderness with our eyes and ears … and our hearts and souls … ready to hear the “good news” that God loves each and every one of us. In those untamed places in our psyche that we know as a wilderness we have to be open to living into God’s forgiveness as an ever-present reality so that God can come alive in us. In those dark and forbidding places in our soul where we feel unworthy of anyone’s love … including our own … we can encounter the proclamation of God’s love that transcends all boundaries, even those we place around our wilderness.
In just a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of the Christ child. We can either acknowledge it as just one more Christmas … one more celebration of the birthday of Jesus … or we can live into the reality it represents. We are all living in this wilderness brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moreover, we all live in a wilderness of one kind or another in our personal lives, and it is there that we can encounter the “good news” … the Good News of God alive in Jesus … and the “good news” that God can come alive in each of us as well. It is in that longing for the “good news” and “comfort” in our wilderness that we live throughout this Advent season. And, it is in that hope and anticipation of the coming of God in Jesus that we prepare our lives for something more than just another birthday celebration.
Amen.
