Advent 2
Malachi 3:1-7; Luke 3:1-14
The day started for him just like any other. He got up early, before the sun would peek over Jerusalem’s proud stone walls. It took him a little longer to get ready than most people, because he was a Pharisee, and as a teacher of the Law of God, his fellow Jews expected him to look a certain way. It was a little tedious, but he did it for God.
You see, he figured his very appearance was a sermon of sorts for the common people. In the fine tightly woven cloth of his robes, people could be reminded of the neat and orderly life that God called them to live. He wore phylacteries, little boxes with scripture in them which he would attach to his left arm and forehead, which reminded him, and the people he saw, of the importance of God’s Law. Just to be sure people saw them, he made sure the leather straps were wide. His outer robe was especially nice. The tassels seemed a bit long sometimes, and some thought they were a bit showy, but he reassured himself that they were not there to draw attention to him, but rather to the Name of the Most Holy God. After awhile, he was ready. He looked good.
And with the rising sun, he stepped out of his home, and made his way to the marketplace. Oh how he love the marketplace, and to be greeted with honor and respect, and to hear people call out to him, “Rabbi!” (cf. Matthew 23:7). It was out of respect for God, he told himself over and over. But it still felt nice. I mean, after all, he had worked hard to get where he was. He had studied hard to be a Rabbi, and was at the top of his class. And after becoming a Rabbi at 30 years old, he distinguished himself again with his superior understanding of the Law, and devout lifestyle. His parents were so proud when he was invited to join the ranks of the Pharisees. The Rabbi’s of Rabbi’s. He thought his dad would start crying tears of joy a couple of years later when they learned that their son, the Pharisee, was invited to JERUSALEM to work and teach there. It couldn’t get any better than that!
But as the fog of his daydream lifted, he noticed that something was different in the market this day. There weren’t as many people calling to him. There weren’t as many people greeting him. In fact, the market seemed pretty dead, pretty empty. He tried to remember if there was something planned for that day in the city, but nothing came to mind. So he stopped and asked Josiah, a vegetable vendor, what was going on. “Rabbi sir,” Josiah offered, “I heard that many of these people were going out into the wilderness by the Jordan River, to hear a man preach. Some people say this man is a prophet.”
This was ridiculous! A prophet! There hadn’t been any prophets from God for about 400 years, since the days of Malachi. He tried to think about something else, but as he made his way through the town it was all anyone was talking about. He met up with the other Pharisees at the Temple. They had similar experiences that morning, and after a brief conversation, they figured they had to go and see what all this commotion was about, and who this prophet named John really was. So they left the city, walked past the city gates, and into the desert toward the Jordan.
It took awhile, and he couldn’t help thinking, “Why would ANYONE want to preach out here in the middle of nowhere?” But the people were going out to the desert in droves, “what WAS it about this guy?” He thought to himself. He tried to picture what he looked like, and how he dressed, and what he might be saying. But when they arrived with the crowd at the Jordan, he saw a man so completely opposite of what he had envisioned, he had to laugh… at first. “John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. He food was locusts and wild honey.” (Mt. 3:4). But shortly the laughter stopped.
John looked at this great crowd of people, and then lifted his eyes to the group of Pharisees who were standing proudly off to the side. With eyes blazing like Elijah himself and a voice raised with firey passion he said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The Pharisees were speechless, burning with rage so hot that words could not express it. People don’t talk to Pharisees like that! Who did he think he was, in his beggars clothes and his locust encrusted teeth, to speak to respectable, honorable, proper leaders like they were? After all, they were children of…
And then, as if on cue, John raised his voice again, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our Father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear god fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
They had heard enough! And they began to ready themselves to leave. But as our Pharisee began to get his robes girded and ready for the long walk back, he noticed how John’s words moved the people. People were, “Confessing their sins (and), were baptized by (John) in the Jordan River” (Mt 3:6). Others were asking John how to respond to this message of repentance in their everyday lives. “What then shall we do?” As a Pharisee, he knew what advice he would give, turn to the 613 rules and laws of the Mitzvot! But John’s commands were so simple, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” He then went and answered the questions of the Tax Collectors and the Soldiers that had come out to hear him. Again, such clarity and simplicity, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” and “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
It was so different than anything he was taught to say or believe. He had spent so much of his time telling people all the things they needed to do to make God happy with them. All of the rules that would bring them closer to God, and all the Laws that would distinguish them from other people as holier, and cleaner and more proper. And people tried hard, they really did. But this was something different. People weren’t hiding their sins from John. They weren’t keeping up appearances, or putting on a strong face. They were coming clean, they were spilling their guts, they were confessing their sins. And this caused him to second guess himself, “Why haven’t they been sharing this with me? Have I been missing something? I have some things I would like to get off MY chest! I have some things I would have loved to leave there with John on the banks of the Jordan River, and to have felt that cold water on my forehead and have my sins forgiven.
The other Pharisees were so enraged, that they kept spewing their anger all the way back to Jerusalem. But he was silent. He couldn’t stop thinking about what John had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about the call to repentance. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the sins hidden beneath his expensive robes, and tassels, and wide phylacteries. He had to wonder if this John was the one the Prophet Isaiah had written about so many centuries before. The one who would cry out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
And if he were. Could it be that the Pharisees had misunderstood these words for so many years? He had always assumed, and been taught that HE, that GOD’S PEOPLE would have to prepare the way for the Messiah to come. That THEY would have to fill in the valleys, and take down the mountains in their lives, and straighten the crooked places and level the rough places in their hearts to see the salvation of God.
But John seemed to be saying something different. He was preaching that it was GOD, the MESSIAH who would come to do these things for his people. GOD would tear down the mountain barriers, and fill in the sinful valleys in our hearts, and straighten out the crooked lives, and level the rough places. “Could it be?” he wondered. Could it be so simple as repentance? Is that what the Messiah was going to come and do? Was the Messiah going to come and rescue people who didn’t deserve it, people who were wracked with sin, people who didn’t follow all the rules, and do everything right? Was the Messiah himself going to forgive, and restore, and reconcile his people to himself?
“It could be!” he thought. Malachi had actually said just that so many years before, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple… He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.” The people would not purify themselves, God would do it. God’s Messiah would do it! The righteous offering of the people would be their repentance, and the Messiah would forgive.
This was Good News! But it wasn’t easy. He heard the other Pharisees talking and complaining, and plotting revenge. And he knew why. What John was saying about the Messiah was that the God’s Messiah was going to come and mess everything up for them. He wasn’t going to be concerned with their clothes, or their education, or any of the rules they took such pains and pride in following. People would no longer flock to them, and honor them like they used to. Their very way of life was threatened.
As he returned to his home, he carefully put his clothes away, so as not to wrinkle them. But deep down he wondered if he would put them on again the next morning, or if he would wear common robes, and head back out into the desert again. The sun sank behind the far wall of Jerusalem. He had trouble sleeping that night. The Messiah had broken into his life that day. He made him uncomfortable, He shook him up. What would he do when morning came? What would you do?
The Messiah has broken into your life as well. In some ways that make you uncomfortable and shake you up. He won’t let you go back to how you were without him. He calls you to be honest and confess your sins. He calls you to step out of hiding behind clothes, and status, and title, and to say, “Lord, I am a desperate sinner.”
But here he breaks into your life in ways so wonderful, words can’t truly express. He comforts you with a comfort that can only come from the One, from the Messiah, from God Himself. He breaks into your life in a manger, on a cross, from and empty tomb, with promises of his return. He loves you more than you can ever know. He forgives you fully and completely. He calls you away from every empty thing, to give you the fullness of life, and life eternal.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
AMEN
