Luke 3:1-6 (Advent 2C)

I had a lot of trouble writing this sermon, so I didn’t end up writing a decent intro, hence the abrupt beginning…

Luke starts this story by listing the rulers – both secular and religious – who were around at the time of the story. Yes, the information can be used to locate the story in time, but I think there is more going on here. Luke does a similar thing at the beginning of this book in chapter 1 when, after he greets Theophilus, he starts out “In the days of King Herod of Judea…” and then launches into his story about Zechariah and Elizabeth (who happen to be John’s parents). He only mentions the one ruler, to give the very briefest of contexts. In this passage, however, he lists them all – the Roman emperor, the governor the Judea, and other rulers of surrounding regions, but not only that, he includes the Jewish religious leaders as well. These men held the power. They decided law and punishment. Right and wrong. How people lived their lives. Who lived and who died. And when the word of God came it came not to them but to John, in the wilderness, a place not even named. In other gospels John is described as wearing camel hair and a leather belt and as one who eats locusts and wild honey to survive. He’s wasn’t holidaying the wilderness, he was living there. Once again, God has chosen the most unlikely person, the most unlikely way to be revealed. Not through rules or the powerful, but the powerless, the one who struggles to be heard, the one least likely to be taken seriously. John, the one on the margins, comes with a radical message – proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” in order to prepare the way for Jesus and the Kingdom of God that Jesus will proclaim.

Firstly, John is speaking publicly – so publicly in fact that he attracts the attention of the rulers who eventually have him killed. He is no longer in the wilderness, he has come out into the region around the Jordan with his message. The Israelites would have immediately recognised him as a prophet as he’s following the tried and true method of a prophet who emerges from the wilderness to turn the people back to God. A “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” is a phrase that needs a bit of unpacking to make sense, I think, mostly because the language is now so “religious” that we very easily forget the deep meaning in these words. His public message of repentance sits beside, sits against other public messages. Where the rulers want conformity and allegiance, John is preaching repentance – a change of thinking, a release from bondage, a rejection of the status quo. And those who felt called to respond to John’s message were invited to baptism – to submit themselves to ritual cleansing, to publicly declare themselves as accepting of the message that things have to change – they, personally, have to change, yes – they’re not living full lives. They’re also declaring in this act that their world has to change, their world of structural inequality, poverty for many, riches for some – in that sense very similar to our own. In that act they’re declaring their allegiance to God’s truth, God’s peace, not the false promises and shallow peace and prosperity spruiked by earthly rulers.

And we know that John’s message isn’t the final message – he is merely the preface to Jesus, he points to Jesus, he wants the way prepared for Jesus in that he’s calling people to change, to turn away, and then when Jesus arrives they will be able to follow. It’s very hard to ask people to change to something unless you first convince them of the need for change, and this is John’s message – “Repent! Things need to change!” John’s message breaks down those obstacles to change, those barriers that prevent us from being open to God’s word in Jesus. The valleys are filled, the mountains and hills are made low, the paths made straight, the rough ways smooth, and when Jesus comes with his message of the Kingdom of God, the people are ready to listen to and accept Jesus’ Good News of salvation.

It’s the wilderness that intrigued me as I delved into this passage. For Israel, the wilderness is a place of vulnerability, struggle, confusion, nothingness. There are no distractions, the excesses of life are stripped away and you’re confronted with…  well you don’t really know until you get there, but if we’re to believe the many stories in the bible of people in the midst of struggle, we hope that God will show up. And God shows up because that’s where we need God most. We’re exposed and vulnerable and forced to rely on God to provide. That’s why the wilderness is a place of such profound transformation and growth, we find ourselves thrust into the messiness of our lives. Our true selves are revealed as God also reveals the truth about the world. The wilderness is a liminal space – that space between what was and is and what is ahead of us. In the confusion we see clearly, in the struggle our identity is established and secured.

At Christmas we remember that God came to us in an unlikely way – as a baby born of an unmarried peasant girl on the margins of a society that was itself tucked away and largely forgotten in the massive Roman Empire. No one expected God to show up there, yet God surprises us again and again by showing up at unexpected times and in unexpected places. God chooses to show up this way because that’s when God’s message of radical love and grace has a chance of making any kind of sense. The powerful and the rich are too comfortable to realise they need God. Those on the fringes, however, understand the truth – that broken systems are causing broken lives and that only God can save them, only God can save us all.

So there are a few things that I’m taking away from this story. Firstly, I’m reminded to be on the lookout for God, to listen to those voices from the wilderness – they might be heard from the poor, the broken, the addict, the mentally ill, the homeless, maybe on the fringes of the church? Yes, our job is to serve as we show God’s love in caring for them. As we do that, though, how is God speaking to us through them?

Secondly, I’ve been challenged to consider how I might get out into wilderness spaces more often. I think Wilderness is a physical reality. We actually have to move our bodies there, or physically change something in our environment to find ourselves in the wilderness, and I think the wilderness looks different to everyone depending on where their normal life is situated. For me, and quite a few of my contemporaries in the city, simply turning our phones off will plunge us into disoriented state of nothingness and confusion. For other, more balanced individuals, that change may be harder to create, but we go hoping to see something different, to listen, to be made new, to have truth revealed to us.

Thirdly, just as John came out of the wilderness to proclaim his message, what is my response to my time in the wilderness? I think this is something we can ask ourselves as a church. What are we doing with the truth that we’ve heard? How are we communicating the hope that we have? If we think things need to change, what are we doing about it?

These aren’t easy questions – they’re supposed to be challenging, and may the grace of God be revealed in the questioning. Amen.