Community Church Sermons

Second Sunday of Advent, Year C - December 10, 2000

"In The Desert - A Voice!"

Luke 3:1-6

On this, the second Sunday in Advent, we meet Jesus' cousin - John - who happened to be a Baptist. John is the one who didn't much go in for dressing up in Docker's pants and Polo shirts, but preferred instead to wear a leisure suit made of hairy camel-hide, with lots of leather accessories. And John wasn't one you'd find at the local Sushi Bar since he himself lived on a diet of grasshoppers dipped in honey. And John wasn't afraid to stand up and speak like a prophet. Why, you remember how he became famous for echoing the words of Isaiah, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God!"

And what John said, as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, is exactly what Advent means: to prepare the way for the coming of God's salvation.

Now, it strikes me that all of us want God to come to us. Those of us who suffer some terrible frailty of body, mind or soul; those of us who anguish with members of our own families going through hard times; those of us working hard in the community, trying to meet the needs of hungry people, and poor people, and people who seem to be lost in our world - we earnestly seek God's coming to make things right and well.

And John the Baptist offers us great hope by teaching us how we can experience the salvation of God. And if you're here today needing that salvation to come into your life, or the life of a family member, or into some injustice in our society, here's what John says you have to do:

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"

But what does this mean - to prepare the way of the Lord?

As I was studying the text from Luke this week, I noticed something I'd not noticed before. The story teaches about how it can become possible for God to come to us, by showing us how God came to John! Listen:

"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee - and, to make a long list of names short, all their relatives were the political powers in various other regions - the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the DESERT."

John was in the desert when God broke through to him!

Now the desert is an interesting place, not only for what the desert obviously is, but also for what the desert is so obviously not.

For instance, the desert is not Jerusalem where you might expect religious types like John to go in search of God's salvation. The desert is just about the opposite of Jerusalem - the familiar religious center where all the theological ducks are lined up neatly in a row. The place where all the complexities of life are boiled down to a series of Scripture quotations and formulae. The setting where all the answers are easy, and everything is clearly spelled out in black and white. Oh no, the desert in which John finds himself is not a place of religious certainty at all. The desert, rather, is a terribly inhospitable place - an environment of tremendous uncertainty, often painful experiences that defy easy explanations, and sometimes deep human suffering.

And it was in this desert that God came to John with his Word. And the word was simple and yet deeply profound. It was very different than the words of his religious upbringing. Salvation is coming to all humankind! So get ready!

Now, I know a little bit about this desert, and this word of salvation, too. In fact, the times in my life when God's word has most clearly come to me have been those moments when I've been pulled out beyond the outskirts of my own religious territory, and thrust into the uncharted waters of faith.

Like that day years ago, just two-weeks before Christmas, when I was called by the police to the home of a parishioner who, no longer able to withstand the pressures he faced at work, took a gun and put an end to his life. And as I pulled up to the house, with the flashing blue lights of police cruisers all around and investigators moving quickly in and out of the house, I spotted them - huddled in the cold of the open garage. There was the man's family - his wife and three children. They stood there, looking numb, shivering uncontrollably, unable in any other way to even begin to express their grief and shock.

And there, in the parched depths of that real-life desert - far away from easy answers, quick fixes, and life as we all want it to be - the word of the Lord came to me, although not in any audible or obvious way. No, it was just that, in my heart of hearts in that moment, I somehow intuitively knew that God's salvation is for all humankind - including troubled men and brokenhearted families. And I was faced with the task of connecting God's love to this family - and their husband and father. In other words, my job in the life of this family was to somehow help prepare the way of the Lord.

A colleague of mine tells of once going to a prison to lead a worship service. While there, he met a prisoner known to be extremely violent and beyond help of any kind. Thinking that he could perhaps change the man's heart by witnessing to him, my friend sat down beside the man and started quoting from the Scripture. But before a sentence was out of his mouth, the prisoner grabbed my colleague's Bible, hit him over the head with it, and then tore the Bible apart - page by page. My colleague says he just sat there, in a state of shock. And then, in the midst of that violent tirade, my friend says a thought kept coming to mind. "For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave His only Son..."

And though his immediate reaction had been to turn his back on the troubled prisoner, shake the dust off his feet, and confer upon the man an eternity in hell, that word held him back. God's salvation is for every eye to see, John says. And my friend knew that meant this man, too. And his job was to try somehow to prepare the way of the Lord.

Do you see what I'm getting at? If you want to experience the deepest meanings of Advent, look into the deserts of life. The tragedy you've experienced. The difficulty your friend is having. The injustice you see in society. The relationship that's causing you so much pain.

And as you look into these desert moments that come into all our lives, listen for the word of the Lord! God's love is for everyone! Salvation is on the way! So get ready!

Now, John uses some fascinating words to describe how we can do that. He says, "Fill in the valleys! Lower the hills! Straighten the curves! Smooth over the pot-holes!

Back in the days of Elijah, who John is quoting, when kings traveled out to the cities of their kingdoms, the first thing that would be done was to send out advance road crews. These crews would build berms to bridge the valleys, and excavate hillsides down to grade. They'd straighten the roads, and fill in the rough spots so the king's chariot could travel fast and smooth. To prepare the way for the king meant to begin a reconstruction project that would facilitate the king's coming.

And that's what Advent calls us to do! To prepare the way of the Lord is to begin a reconstruction project in your life! And the focus of the project is this: to remove all the dips, bumps, curves and other obstacles in the way of God's love toward yourself and others, and to build a superhighway of grace! And here's what you and I can do during this Advent season to begin this reconstruction project.

We need to let God reconstruct the very religious underpinnings of our lives. You know, I remember as a child going to a summer vacation Bible school at one of our neighbor's homes, and one day a missionary came to tell of her work in South America. And, as she related her story, she kept referring to her ministry among the heathen. It wasn't until I was older that I learned that the heathen is a word we use to describe people who are beyond God's salvation.

And as my life has gone on, I've come to realize that we people of faith toss lots of folks into this category of people left outside the reach of God's love. People of other religions. People who doubt. People whose lifestyles are different. People who live in other nations. Even people who don't belong to the Christian denomination we do!

And, as my ministry has unfolded over the years, I've learned that the faith of my youth is woefully incapable of effectively ministering to many desert-dwellers - the victims of suicide, those with AIDS, capital offenders. Traditional faith simply discards such people.

The first time I heard a real live Jewish person tell me of their experience during the holocaust, and of their inability to ever again believe in God after watching all their family members gassed to death, it became apparent to me that my theological certainties simply crumbled in the face of such a desert experience. And when it turned out that several of our friends in one town where we lived had been victims of sexual abuse by a religious authority figure, and were now far away from ever being able to have good feelings about Jesus in whose name, and in whose house the crimes had been committed, I knew for sure that my faith foundations were shaky indeed, and completely inadequate to ever truly minister to these dear desert-dwelling people who needed it most.

My faith needs reconstruction! There are places where it falls off into deep valleys and loses some of God's children traveling along the road - and John says I've got to build bridges across those valleys! There are spots along the road where the incline is so steep, people simply cannot make it to the top - and John says I've got to excavate that hill until people can make it over. My faith has hairpin turns in it that some folks can't negotiate, and there are pot holes along the way that cause some to trip and fall - and John says I've got to straighten those curves and fill in those holes!

And why must I do it?

So the people I meet there in the desert of life - the people everyone else throws away - can experience the love of God!

Oh, my faith needs reconstruction! Does yours?

Friends, as Advent continues, we are commanded to prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight! Ask God to help you reconstruct your religious foundations. Go into the deserts of life, and listen carefully to the people who live there! And may you have the courage to lift up your every valley, and make low your every mountain. May God help you straighten out the crooked places, and make smooth the rough ways.

And may the precious people you meet - in those uncertain desert places of life - discover through you a superhighway of grace, so that even they shall see the salvation of God!