Contrary to popular belief, prophets were not fortune tellers or soothsayers. They did not see into the future or predict what was going to happen. The sum total of their strange skill set was in FORTH telling rather than foretelling.
As such, prophets were a versatile lot who served up words of rebuke, social, religious and political analyses as well as hope, encouragement and care. The common denominator of their message was a blue print to help us find our way home. By home, I don’t mean that place where they have to take us in, but rather that place where we have always belonged.
As a prophet, John collides with what we have done to Christmas. He doesn’t fit in with shepherds and starry skies and wise men. While the angels are singing in their gentle soprano voices; “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,” John is interrupting with his own song, sung loudly and off key; “you brood of vipers.” Then he quotes Isaiah, “In the wilderness prepare….”
The wilderness Isaiah refers to is not a physical place you can point to on a map. It is a state of being, a kind of spiritual lostness. It is an inner desolation where nothing is clear. It is where chaos and confusion and temptation are in charge. Perhaps you know that inner address. It seems to me we all take up spiritual residence there from time to time.
There are countless roads that take us there. Jobs evaporate, families disappoint, illness robs, death comes out of turn, war erupts, addiction consumes, choices are hard, consequences are unforgiving and the world teeters on the brink of disaster.
Every day we are reminded that life isn’t fair and, despite all our best efforts, we are not the captains of our own fate. Every day we catch a glimpse of the fragile human experience that binds us together and wonder what’s coming next. Perhaps more at this time of the year than any other, we see the parts of life that didn’t happen the way we thought they would.
Wilderness is a familiar place. It is around us and within us. And John says “prepare a place.” In that wilderness, prepare a place.
Even though John sounds a bit like a travel agent for guilt trips, he stands in the tradition of the great prophets, calling to people in the places of their deepest sadness, pain and confusion.
The primary incentive is not guilt. It is love. The prophets’ greatest motivation was that people would know in their bones, not just in their heads, the deep love and great passionate desire for God.
Moreover, they knew that only God’s life-giving love could transform the inner wilderness of emptiness and ache. They knew that the only way through the desolation of the present moment was to return to the embrace of the God who never lets us go and never lets us off.
It’s not just about us and what’s broken in our lives, but also what’s broken in the world. It’s all of a piece in God’s world.
It’s an invitation to repentance, which simply means to “get a new heart.” It is not a function of beating one’s breast and saying penance. Repentance is that gracious, life giving opportunity that allows us to pitch the “figure out your own life instruction book” and take up a more comprehensive guide. This guide is authored by the One who desires nothing less than to love us, heal us, hold us and send us on our way to invite others.
It’s not the Hallmark card theme song of Christmas, but it is the biblical one.
The images of shepherds and bright stars piercing the night sky will fade. John’s invitation to radically realign the assumptions of life has staying power. It is far more likely to bring lasting hope to our lives and to our world than all of our mad dashes to wrap packages and buy fruitcakes.
The Irreverent Reverend 