Second Sunday in Advent: December 10, 2006.

Malachi 3:1-4

Luke 1:68-79 (Zechariah's song)

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

First Reading

Once again there isn't much happy news in the First Testament or Gospel readings for today. Malachi talks about sending a messenger who will refine with fire. Luke's story places John in history and then tells us that he came proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Paul is once again thankful for a community of faith and encourages them to remain steadfast until the day of Jesus Christ. Perhaps preachers will be drawn to Zechariah's song, which takes the place of the psalm for this Sunday. This text, sung out of the joy of a new father's experience, has many elements of promise/fulfillment for the Advent season. It also foretells John's ministry and message and may link to the latter Luke text.

Like last week, we need to ask what God is doing in these passages. On the surface the answer looks easy: God is sending a messenger who will straighten out the people. But let's look a little deeper and see if we can find more. Of particular interest to me are Malachi's mention of the covenant ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and Luke's placement of John in the wilderness for his proclamation, because they change how we hear John's message, this week and next. The prophets were the guardians of the covenant faith of Israel. This faith--a tribal faith, not an individual faith as we might assume today--was molded and formed throughout the wilderness experience of Israel for forty years. When this faith was lost, the covenant support of Yahweh is removed and the people are driven into exile. This exile continued for Israel even after their return home, as evidenced by their occupation by foreign powers most of the time since. Malachi and John the Baptizer are about reshaping the people to make them fit for the covenanted return of God to be among the people again. In Malachi, God specifically returns to the Temple, making the offerings of the people acceptable again. For John, God's return is seen as the people symbolically go out to the wilderness to be remolded by God.

This remolding and reshaping happens to all of the people collectively, not individually. (More on this next week.) God is going to regather and reshape God's people in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The people are invited to be washed ritually and cleansed for this by John. The sign that they are forgiven is the presence of God among them (which we know to be happening already in Jesus from Luke 1-2). Thus we see themes that will serve us later in the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany cycle. This concept will come up again at Jesus' birth, baptism, and transfiguration. The adept preacher will be able to reinforce and nuance this theme as the cycle continues.

And we have one of the answers to our question "What is God up to?" (There may be many others; this is only one.) God is up to, in some sense, the same thing as God's been up to all along: the choosing of a people, who are gathered in the wilderness and prepared for God to dwell with them. Their purpose in repentance is not to effect God's return. God has already returned. Instead, the repentance and forgiveness are part and parcel of what God is accomplishing: drawing all nations together in Christ.

Pastoral Reflection

Like last week, the challenges of the First Testament and Gospel texts should not be left to the worshipers to ponder alone. People need to hear their preachers wrestle with these texts, too, and in such a way that we don't solve the problems too quickly. We will be mired in self-pity, if not fear, if we focus on our own actions in these texts. Many a preacher will preach this week and next on the need to repent, only casually mentioning the things that God is up to. However, it is our obligation to remind our people what God is up to in these texts.

Many people, not all of them on the political or religious right, draw parallels between Israel as God's chosen people and the United States as God's new chosen ones. Some who see a close parallel might take offense at the suggestion that, like Israel, our whole nation may need to repent of some things. But even this suggestion is troublesome to me. What can it mean for a society as culturally and theologically diverse as the United States to be called to a national repentance and baptism for forgiveness? Is John's call to repentance for any one nation today? If so, how can we be so arrogant as to assume that nation is ours, or anyone's? Is this a call for all humanity? If so, how does it come? Is it a call to the Christian church, to return to the wilderness, experience our call anew, and be prepared to be God's beacon people as God refines us?

These readings serve as a critique of Israel and any nation that claims to be God's instrument. They are a critique of every congregation, synod, district, or church body that claims to serve as a beacon of God's love in the world. All of us individually, and all of our institutions of salvation, political or religious, must heed the call to return to the wilderness. It is there that God continues to call and shape the people and we ourselves find out who we are and where God is.

You might invite your congregation to join you on a trip to the wilderness. That wilderness my be a forest or a desert; it may be in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of an urban landscape. Invite them to come out of their comfortable lives, even if for an imaginary journey. Invite them to leave behind all that is safe and familiar and be stripped bare by God. You might recall the story of the baptism of Eustace Scrubb in C. S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the Chronicles of Narnia. Eustace is a nasty human being who, through greed and self serving, becomes a dragon. When all is taken from him, he repents, and Asian, the Lion, comes to wash him. Eustace is told to "undress" for his bath, but he cannot peel off enough skin to suit Aslan. In the end, Aslan digs in with claws and painfully tears away at Eustace's dragon skin. Eustace is returned to his comrades a changed boy. He still has faults, but he also knows the presence of Aslan through the rest of his Narnia adventures. Eustace is a symbol for those who see the world, including religion, as there to serve the self. He is called and washed in the presence of Aslan to be so much more. So it is with all of us, collectively, and the baptism of John during Advent. LLB