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One of my favorite things to do to
prepare for Christmas is to set up our family’s nativity
scene. There are lots of reasons I really enjoy setting up
the familiar scene, but there are two in particular that
make this otherwise seemingly small job so meaningful. The
first reason is because it connects me with my mom. Many of
you know my mom died from cancer at the young age of 51, and
it is during this season that I miss her most. She made
this nativity scene – hand-painted every piece. It was
always a part of our Christmas celebration growing up. So
now when I set it up in my home each year it gives me this
chance to stay connected – connected to my mom. In the years
to come when we set this nativity up, it will give me the
chance to connect my kids to the grandmother they’ll never
know.
The second reason that I love to set up
the nativity is because it connects me to the story that
sits at the center of this season – the story of a child
born in a little town called Bethlehem some two thousand
years ago. It starts with the place it all happened- the
stable. The stark simplicity of the structure reminds me
that God’s coming into our midst happened in a very
surprising place…a barn – hardly a place for any
child to be born let alone this one. The child should have
been born in a castle with doctors to care for him,
religious leaders to pray for him and armed guards to
protect him. One of our teens, Lindsay Swarthout said to me
this week, “Maybe Jesus was born where he was born to remind
us that sometimes God shows up in last place you’d ever
think to look.” The savior of the world born in a barn – a
surprising story, indeed.
After I have the barn set up, I reach
back into the box and begin to pull out the people who are
characters in the story. I reach in and pull out the two
figures, and as I unwrap the newspaper from around them, I
find that I am holding the Christmas couple. Here they are…
Mary and Joseph… and immediately I am struck by how unlikely
a pair these two were for the task with which they were
charged. Many believe that Mary was probably only a
teenager, somewhere between 14 and 16 years of age. She is
engaged to a decent enough man, Joseph – the scripture only
tells us two things about him: that he was righteous (a man
with integrity) and he was a carpenter (a man with a job) –
but then again maybe those aren’t bad criteria when it comes
to choosing future husbands. The story tells us that God
charges these two…a teenager and a tradesman…with the task
of bringing salvation into the world. Just as the place
where it all happened is surprising, so too are the people
charged with making it happen.
I reach into the box, and this time I
pull out the shepherds. The shepherds were the first to hear
the news of the coming child. They were the first to tell
others about what they had seen and heard that first
Christmas. The first people to proclaim this baby as Lord
and savior were shepherds – the invisible, marginalized
people who lived on the edges of society. If you were going
to pick credible witnesses to the most important event in
human history, people whom others trust and believe, you
wouldn’t pick shepherds. The Shepherd King – a surprising
way to bring salvation to the world. Surprising place,
surprising people, surprising plan all connect to the
surprising baby that would grow up to be the surprising man
who would die a surprising death only to surprise us one
more time that first Easter morning. One of the reasons that
I love to set up the nativity scene each year is because it
connects me to the story.
So let us turn to our story again today
and see if there are places within it that we might
connect. It is interesting that when we turn to the
lectionary, the calendar of scriptures set out as guides for
Sunday, we discover a part of the story we often don’t
associate with Christmas. This week’s reading comes from the
third chapter of Luke’s gospel and reads:
In the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius
Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his
brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene —during the high priesthood of
Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of
Zechariah in the desert. He went
into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism
of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As is written in
the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of
one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.’”
Another strange
scripture for the Christmas season, don’t you think? None
of the familiar characters from the nativity are anywhere to
be found. No Jesus at all for that matter. The only
characters we get are a list of guys whose names are hard to
pronounce and some guy named John. What are we to make of
this? The hard-to-pronounce names – Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate, Herod, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas – these
would have been the names all over the newspapers of the
first century world. These were the movers and the shakers –
the people with power and influence – these were the
celebrities of their day. And I guess that if God was to
speak, to deliver a word to someone, you might think God
would choose one of these guys. But surprise! The scripture
says that when God’s word came, it didn’t come to those in
halls of power. No, it came to some backwater, country
preacher named John. Maybe that’s why we read this story to
prepare for Christmas – to remind us that God’s word comes
to us in unexpected ways and through unexpected people.
This scripture would suggest that the
nativity scenes we place in our homes, churches and
communities might not be complete without this character,
John. Maybe he should be standing there right next to the
shepherds or the cow. Wherever we put him, the scripture
says the Christmas scene is not complete without him.
So, who is this John? He is the character
better known as John the Baptist. Other scriptures tell us
he was wild in appearance. He never cut his hair or trimmed
his beard. His wardrobe was “out there” – camel’s hair and
a leather band around his waist. He ate crazy food – wild
honey and locusts. That’s right….bugs! The man ate bugs.
Perhaps the scriptures insist on putting
John into Christmas because there was no human person more
influential upon the life and career of Jesus than this guy.
Luke says that Jesus and John were about the same age-
within six months. Luke tells us they were cousins. Maybe
they were already close. We don’t know. The scripture
doesn’t say, but what they do tell us is that there came a
moment when Jesus left it all behind and went out to the
desert to find John. And not only did he find him, he joined
him. He was baptized by him. He was influenced by him. The
scriptures tell us that Jesus’ first sermon was a lot like
the sermons he had heard John preach: “Repent! For the
Kingdom of God is at hand.” Maybe that’s why we need to
include John in our nativity scene. Because maybe in order
to understand anything about Jesus, we need to understand
something about John.
But the scriptures say one more thing
about this John. They say he could preach. The scriptures
tell us that people came from all over to hear this wild man
of God preach. He didn’t mince words. He said what needed to
be said. “The day is coming. The time is drawing near.
Change your ways and get right with God before you run out
of time!” And what made John’s preaching so powerful was
that his character, who he was, matched his rhetoric, what
he said.
When John finished preaching, scriptures
tell us that crowds were so moved that they came to Jesus
and said, “What are we to do?” And he said to them, “If you
have any food, share it. If you have two coats, give one
away.” And all one had to do was look at John and know that
what he said and what he was were cut out of the same cloth.
So maybe that’s why the lectionary picks this text for us
today. Maybe what we need in order to get ready for
Christmas is hear John preach. So listen once again to this
word from John. He opened his bible to Isaiah and he said:
“A voice of
one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.’”
What are we to
take from this unusual character and his fiery preaching,
found on the edges of our nativity scene? First, John’s word
is a word for the present. John was never calling people to
remember the nostalgic past. Nor was he preaching some “by
and by in the sky when I die” kind of spirituality. John’s
preaching was always urgent. The time of the Lord was
now…right now. We need to hear that word as we journey
through Advent, because if Christmas is only the remembrance
of a past event, or if our Christianity is only about life
after death, then we will miss both the power and point of
this Advent season. John reminds us that now is the time and
that this is the season to get ready for Christ to come
again…right now…to come again…afresh and anew…into our lives
and into our world.
A second thing
to note about John’s preaching is that it is active. It
tells us that we have work to do. “Prepare the way.” “Fill
in the pot holes.” “Smooth out the rough spots.” “Roll up
your sleeves.” “Get your hands dirty.” “Get to work.” John
uses imagery that would have been familiar to his
listeners. In the ancient Near East if a king or ruler was
going to go on a journey, a group of people would go ahead
of him to prepare the way. They would always be at least a
day’s journey ahead of the King, and their job would be to
fill in all the potholes, leveling the steep inclines and
straightening out the crooked places along the roadside.
They were to make sure the King would arrive as smoothly,
safely, and as quickly as possible. The King would not make
the journey if the way hadn’t been prepared. John,
borrowing from the prophet Isaiah, seems to be saying, “If
you want the Lord to come, if you want God and God’s Kingdom
to come, then you’ll have to do the same. You’ve got work to
do.”
Advent is
indeed a season of waiting, but it is a season of active
waiting. John’s preaching reminds us that if we want the
Lord to come, then there are some things we need to be doing
to prepare for his arrival. And John’s preaching is pretty
clear about what those things are. We have some repair work
to do. There are places that need to be smoothed over,
holes that need to be filled, and some things need to be
straightened out. John reminded the people that in order
for God’s salvation to come to all of creation, there were
some things that needed to cleared up and cleared out.
It was just a
couple of weeks ago when the scripture became very real to
me. It started with a voice mail. I was a bit startled when
I heard the voice on the message. I hadn’t heard from this
person in quite some time, and let’s just say this was a
relationship that had its share of rough places and
potholes. I felt this was one of those people that I just
could never please. So when I heard the voice I was scared.
Why were they calling? What did I do now? I’ll admit I was
tempted to not return the call, but I finally did. “Hello,”
the familiar voice answered on the other end. I could feel
myself starting to sweat. I was prepared to get chewed out
for something. “Hello,” I answered. “This is Jeff returning
your call.” “Good. I’m glad you called back. I have
something I want to tell you.” I held my breath. Here it
comes. I am about to get it. “I wanted to tell you I was
sorry.” I think my jaw hit the floor. “I have just been
thinking about all the things that happened, and with
Christmas coming I just didn’t want to go through the season
mad at you. So I wanted to say I was sorry.” I couldn’t
believe it. Over the next fifteen minutes or so we had a
great conversation. I too was able to apologize for some
things I needed to apologize for…some rough places had just
been smoothed out, some holes had been filled in and some of
the crooked places had gotten straightened out. The junk
that we had held between us had been cleared out of the way.
And what I realized when I hung up the phone was that right
there in those fifteen minutes, a path had been prepared for
Christ to come, into our lives and into this relationship.
It was their courage to pick up that phone and clear the
path that made Christmas very real for me in the moment.
One of the
things that I think can make this season so stressful for
people is that it forces us to come face-to-face with those
people with whom we need to do repair work. Sometimes it’s
the office parties where we are forced to socialize with
someone we’ve really struggled with. Other times it is
members of our family… people we don’t “get” or don’t “get”
us that make us dread the family gatherings. Sometimes it is
going through the Christmas card list and coming across the
name of a person we haven’t spoken to in months because of
some words that were said. And you wonder, do you just cross
their name off? But if we are to take the scripture
seriously this morning, this is the season to repair the
relationships that have been broken. This is the season to
reach out to those we need to forgive and to those we need
to ask forgiveness from.
So this week
pick up the phone. Write a note. Bake some cookies, and
make a house call. Do what it takes to smooth out the rough
places, fill in the potholes and straighten out the crooked
places. Do what needs to be done to clear the path – because
when we do, we will see that Christ will indeed come.
“A voice of
one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.’”
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