2021 12 05 Sermon
Sermon for December 5, 2021 Advent 2 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 1:68-79; Luke 3:1-6 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
What comes to mind if I ask you to think of the wilderness? Maybe a cabin up north, being surrounded by forests, lakes, and fresh air; a place where you might go hunting or fishing, and where wild animals make their home. Or maybe you think of being out west, and what seems to many of us to be an otherworldly landscape of hot, dry, and rocky desert, wide open vistas and clear skies. Maybe you think of a place where you’ve gone camping, canoeing or hiking, and where you had to rely on your knowledge and skills, as well as the people you were with, in order to meet the challenges of a place with no modern conveniences, but still a place where you went on purpose to find beauty and restoration.
For most of history, however, (including during Bibles times) the wilderness was regarded as a place of chaos and danger. The wilderness was not a place you went for fun, but that you hoped to get through for survival. Even so, whether you view the wilderness as good or bad there are some commonalities to both of these perspectives—and that is, many people feel closer to God when they are in the wilderness; and that building a sense of community with others is key to making it through the wilderness to life on the other side.
In the Bible, many of the most significant events happen in the wilderness. In fact, the Hebrew name for what we call the book of Numbers in the Old Testament is actually “In the Wilderness”, which sounds much more interesting than a story about counting and organizing things. And it is more interesting! The other books of the Bible even reference the stories in Numbers 50 times—because these stories tell what it means, whether for an individual or for a community, to rely on the presence of God, to follow God, to wait for God, to know that God is with you throughout your time in the wilderness on the journey to the Promised Land.
The Hebrews had to spend 40 years in the wilderness after escaping from slavery in Egypt. All the while, they didn’t like being there, they complained, they suffered hardships, and the rebelled against God and Moses. But they also needed that time in the wilderness, because they were not ready to go directly from living as slaves to living in freedom. God had gifts waiting for them in the wilderness, so that they could learn what it meant to live as free people according to God’s ways. They had to learn new patterns of living, so that when they finally did reach the Promised Land they could build a new society based on freedom, justice, mercy, and equality. And they could only do that by learning how to trust and rely upon God, so that God could transform them into the people he always meant for them to be.
So when we hear in the gospels about how John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah, his being in the wilderness was the sign that this was a continuation of the kinds of things God had been doing way back when, with the Israelites during their 40 years of wilderness wandering. God was reminding people of where his power to transform lives is most at work. Not among the big shots like Emperor Tiberius, or Governor Pontius Pilate, or King Herod and his brother Philip, or Annas and Caiaphas the high priests—all of whom were most definitely not out in the wilderness. Who did the Word of God come to at the time when all of those big shots were in power? The Word came to John, who was living out in the wilderness.
An interesting thing about John the Baptist is that, according to his background, he could have been one of those big shots back in Jerusalem. His mother Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron, who was the brother of Moses and Israel’s first high priest. His father was Zechariah, who was a priest in the Jerusalem Temple (and our Psalm for today was the “Song of Zechariah”, spoken by Zechariah about his son John when he was born). The Temple represented safety and security in the midst of a world full of chaos and danger—in other words, the opposite of the wilderness. And yet, the wilderness is where John found his calling.
John went to the wilderness around the Jordan River, the area where the ancient Israelites had first crossed over into the Promised Land, and there John (like Moses) prepared God’s people for how to live in freedom. This time the freedom would be a gift of grace from the Messiah, for those who lived by faith. So John proclaimed if you want to prepare the way, learn to rely on God and seek forgiveness. And then he quoted the prophet Isaiah, teaching a “back to basics” lesson on the kind of society the Messiah wanted to build. It sounded a lot like the society that the Israelites were learning to build during their 40 years in the wilderness: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low—Equality! The crooked shall be made straight—Justice! The rough ways made smooth—Mercy! All flesh shall see the salvation of God—Freedom to live according to God’s ways!
It is a message that resonates to every generation—God has gifts to give us when we spend time in the wilderness, even though we might not want to be there; we might complain; we might suffer hardships; we might rebel against God. Yet when we find ourselves in the wilderness—and each one of us will spend some time there during the journey of life, whether we like it or not—God can be most powerfully at work there, transforming us into the people he always meant for us to be, when we cling to Christ in faith.
Many of us won’t spend much time in the wilderness of the natural world. But it might be a feeling of wilderness in your spirit; or in your heart; or mind; or soul. The wilderness might be a crisis that turns your world upside down; a challenging situation that never seems to end; a questioning of yourself; a questioning of God. And it’s not only for us as individuals. We also see these wildernesses in the world around us. A senseless act of violence when a man drove his car into the Waukesha Christmas Parade. Another senseless shooting at a school in Michigan. Another variant of covid makes its way around the world, and more people get sick and die, while the healthcare system in many places gets stretched to the limit yet again.
Saint Paul frequently spent time in wildernesses of this sort, and in today’s reading from Philippians we hear about the kinds of gifts God had for him while he made his way to the other side: compassion; overflowing love; knowledge; insight. If you remember, St. Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians while he was unjustly in prison for preaching the gospel. Yet the joy in his heart shines through in this letter to his friends. How can he be so joyful despite his circumstances? Because he’s been through the wilderness and back again, and in the process has learned to surrender himself to God, and to allow the grace and mercy of Christ to reach down and pick him up. Paul knows that his true identity is not about whether he’s in or out of prison, or whether he’s safe and secure or in the midst of chaos and danger. Paul’s true identity—and your true identity—comes from the crucified and risen Jesus himself, who’s love for you not even death could destroy. This Messiah has gifts waiting for you in the wilderness, too. Amen.