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The Second Sunday in Advent, 12/09/2018
Sermon on Luke 3:1-16, by Paul Bieber
Luke 3:1-6 Revised Standard Version
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness; 3 and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
also
Malachi 3:1-4
Psalmody: Benedictus, Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Prepare the Way of the Lord
Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.
On the First Sunday in Advent, we pray, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.” Advent means coming, on the way, arriving: the Advent of our God. Today we pray, “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the way for your only Son.” The Guest has stirred himself and is on the way. We pray that we might be stirred up as we await this arrival; stir us; make us Advent people.
There is one who comes to help God’s people prepare. Every year on Advent II we are again introduced to John the Baptist, the forerunner, the messenger, the voice crying in the wilderness. All the Gospels begin the story of Jesus with John. John appears immediately in Mark’s story. He follows the genealogy and the story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew. John interrupts his hymn to the pre-existent Word become flesh with reference to a man called John.
But it is Luke who gives us the prehistory of the one who appears in the wilderness preparing the way of the coming Lord. Luke introduces us to the aged childless couple who will become his parents: Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, a priest. In the Old Testament, childless couples provide an opportunity for God’s intervention, the best example being the aged childless couple Abraham and Sarah.
Just as Mary and Joseph are not expecting a child because they are only betrothed, not yet married, so Elizabeth and Zechariah are not expecting a child because of their age and Elizabeth’s barrenness. But six months before appearing to Mary, the angel Gabriel makes the first Annunciation in Luke’s story, to Zechariah as he is about his priestly business, offering incense in the temple.
When the troubled Zechariah asks how he could know that this improbable announcement is true, that he and Elizabeth are to have a child, the angel strikes him mute. Of course Mary asks, “How shall this be?” but she is told in response that Elizabeth has conceived, and it is at the meeting of the two expectant mothers that Elizabeth hails Mary as “the mother of my Lord” and Mary responds with the Magnificat, her song of praise to God.
Not until after the birth of John is Zechariah’s silence is broken, when he affirms that the child is to be called John, the name given by the angel when he said that the child would come in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of parents and children to one another—as Malachi had prophesied that Elijah would do before the Messiah would come—to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for his coming. And the silence is broken with the Benedictus, Zechariah’s song, our psalmody this morning.
It’s a song praising God for remembering his covenant and setting us free for worship and holiness of life. It’s a statement of how John will prepare the way for the Lord. It’s a promise of the dawn from on high to bring light to those who dwell in shadow and darkness.
Zechariah’s song concludes the prehistory of the word of God coming to John in the wilderness. Luke situates John’s ministry in its Roman political context and its Jewish religious context to make it clear that what is happening with John is God’s intervention in history—what Luke Timothy Johnson calls a “chronological drumroll.” John prepares for the kingdom that Jesus enacts. John is both the last of the Old Testament prophets, pointing to Jesus’ fulfillment of God’s promises, and also a character in the New Testament story calling his wilderness hearers, and us, to prepare the way for that fulfillment.
We are after all among his wilderness hearers. The wilderness is the place of testing, of waiting, of encountering God. It was so for God’s ancient people Israel on their way to the land of promise, for Jesus between his baptism by John and the beginning of his ministry, for the five thousand fed abundantly from a few loaves and fishes, and for us on our Advent way.
We journey through the wilderness that sin has created; worse, the wilderness that the denial of sin has created. All of us sin; the world is broken. Repentance, turning again toward God and trusting his promises is the answer. But trying to save ourselves, justify ourselves, secure our own lives by our own devices leads only to despair and our anger at our own frustration. If we think that some modern-day Tiberius or Herod Antipas, or even a religious leader like Caiaphas or his meddling father-in-law Annas can secure our lives, we will be disappointed by the lump of coal we receive.
Where are the valleys of despair that need to be filled in our lives, the mountains of pride that need to be leveled as we journey through Advent lives to fulfillment in Christ, the goal and meaning of our life? We are Advent people, living an Advent life, preparing the way for Christ to come. God began a good work in us, stirring our hearts to keep Advent, and he will complete it as promised.
The ministry of John the Baptist is to prepare us for the fulfillment of the promise, as the Benedictus says, by the forgiveness of our sins. Advent is God’s gift of time to prepare for the Guest, that we might perceive the meaning of his Advent.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.