Advent 2 - Year A Isaiah 11:1-10 Psalm 72 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12 December 5, 2004 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder, Chaplain Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way." Amen. [A prayer by Minnie Louise Haskings, 1875-1957, England] Indeed we stand at the gate of the year. Can you feel it? Can you sense it? The newness, the freshness of it all? Its mystery and promise? A new year has begun, and of course, I mean our liturgical year, our year together in the life of the Church and our yearly retelling of the age-old story, our story - yours and mine. Do you feel it? Or have you missed it in the frenzy of the mad dash to year's end? My friends, the end of "our" year has come and gone, and it's now that we await what is yet to come. There's something else, too. While marketers, retailers and the world around us would like us to believe that Christmas is here, we proclaim and profess something a little different, don't we? Our yearly keeping of Advent tells us that we are not only at the beginning, but between times. Almost, but not quite. Almost, but something better yet to come. Almost, but something's missing. Almost … Our keeping of Advent gives us a deeper understanding into the blessing of "Almost." Yet this is something that we're not used to in our world today, what with our need for instant information, constant communication and computers and cell phones that are obsolete before they even hit the shelves. "Almost" is a hard concept for us to profess, let alone participate in not only to the larger world, but to ourselves as we find ourselves in that same world, part of it, called to be in it. "Almost" - as the beginning of the story - is hard to proclaim as the rest of the world races towards an ending, whether it's due to exams or final papers, or year-end quotas or financial reports, or remaining shopping days, or you name it. We hear, today, Matthew's account of the appearance of John the Baptist, one who stands as prophet, truth teller and signal. Here is John, saying again and again: "Almost." And folks don't seem to get it. For what were they looking? What exactly was it they were expecting? For what are they hoping? John tells them … us … "This is just the beginning." Though he is highly regarded within the gospels, we find John to be somewhat on the edges, and most likely by choice. He's out in the desert, eating locusts and wild honey, scraggly, weatherworn, a visionary of sorts. Today he might be called a beatnik, or a hippie, most likely granola, or maybe even a little Goth, or simply just "the outdoors-type." Yet there is no denying … John is aware. He's aware of himself and the world around him. John finds his greatest significance to us through his successor, Jesus. In short, John and his entire ministry merely point towards Jesus. Yet, many who came to John for baptism believed him to be the Messiah. It would seem in some sense that we know most about John by what we don't know about him. What I mean is that John was very clear in his message that he was just a, or rather "the" messenger. We know a lot about John because of what we know about Jesus. Yet the crowds kept coming. "Will we get it right?" "Will we look busy enough?" "Will we at least look like we're doing the right thing?" "Will anyone know the difference, anyway?" And John says: "You brood of vipers!" They're not easy words to hear - not for them, and certainly nor for us. It's not easy to swallow. It's all a bit off-putting isn't it, especially for those of us who think we've got it right, or all the answers. And, it even slaps the faces of us when we smugly keep Advent … just to show 'em out there how it's done rather than for other reasons. Isn't prophecy and truth telling sometimes hard for even us to chew? Imagine what it must have meant to those who heard it from John's own lips! Perhaps John's greatest quality shows through his understanding of just who he is not. John knows his limitations, he sees and interprets what is going on in the world around him, and he doesn't like what he sees. John doesn't make a judgment so much as he makes an observation and calls attention to both the situation and the one who follows him. He calls for repentance, a reordering, just as our sacred keeping of Advent calls us to reorder our time, realign our thoughts and hopes, rethink our place within the story that is still being written, thus renewing our lives in Christ. John bursts on the scene, baptizing people with water which becomes an outward and visible sign of the reordering into God's will of those being baptized. However, the prophecy of Isaiah that John's ministry heralds points towards a more perfect relationship which will be and has been instituted most fully by Jesus Christ himself and the baptism by which we are washed. This reordering of one's life should be and is visible within the whole of creation. As paths are straightened and valleys and mountains meet one another, true change occurs. In the case of John's ministry this change came in the form of a call to repentance - a shift of the entire world order, an about-face, if you will, to the cultural norms, to those things that would divide and separate. For us today, the change calls us away from those things that keep us from understanding more fully the working out of God's creation, or those things that compromise our own or other's full humanity. What I'm getting at here is not to say that it's a bad thing to be singing Christmas songs (or at least humming them), or putting up trees or greenery in and on our houses, or getting together with friends and family. Hey, I'd be guilty on all counts! What I am saying is something about what it means for us to keep Advent. What we do in this season is to make room once again that place within us to cherish and live our story, offering to God and to the world our thanksgiving that we are of a God who would come to us in the most unexpected and surprising of ways, and that we are of a God who came, not once, but who still comes to us. And, this reordering of our lives is not something we do once in a lifetime, nor even only once a year. It's something that we mark again and again when we come together weekly confessing those things that separate us from one another and which limit our closer relationship with God. The straightening of paths in our own lives signals our preparation to receive Christ not-only more fully in our hearts, but it becomes that visible sign that shines through the darkness of our world as we live by example a Christian life. It is in our confession and through our profession of Christ that walls that might otherwise separate and divide us from others in our lives begin to crumble, where we truly begin to stand on common, smooth ground, no matter what it has been that has been an obstacle for us. For in this we all are of the same story - enriched rather than divided by the various histories or traditions that give us differing vantages, or issues or political stances that might otherwise polarize us as community, or nation, or even as Church and Body of Christ. Making straight the paths before us opens us to a clearer, more profound means through which we can communicate in conversation and through prayer with each other and the Other, thus making means for interaction and relationship! Jesus comes to us through John the Baptist, straightening the crooked roads and tearing down the roadblocks so that our paths may lead directly to him. This is what Advent is about … understanding that we have as much a place within this great story as any other, even John … that we, too, are called forth to keep watch and wait with expectant hearts, even and especially if those around us are saying: "Enough already." And we, too, are called to proclaim: "Just wait and see!" It is our keeping of Advent that makes us aware of just what is going on around us. It makes our story less one of poignancy and nostalgia and more one of truth and salvation and ours to share. We stand at the gate in this season of Waiting and Almost. Gracious God, take our hand! Amen.