By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, RectorIn the Gospel of John we just heard the Priests and Levites ask John the Baptist, “Who are you, then?” He told them, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”
In that short quote John is linked to the prophet Isaiah who spoke similar words centuries before. In this Advent season Isaiah and John play essential roles as messengers of God’s immanent arrival. They speak to different audiences, looking for God to come in different ways, accomplish different things and yet the message is that God is coming. There is another similarity in the message these two men speak. And that is the wilderness. Isaiah speaks from outside the wilderness, John speaks from within the wilderness, and both about preparing a way for God to enter into the wilderness.
Isaiah lived in the city of Jerusalem in the eighth century BC. He was among the city’s elite residents and had access to the king to whom he frequently gave advice. He had a long ministry and served over the span of four kings. Needless to say he was well regarded even when his advice was hard to follow and his assessments of political decisions made by some of the kings were rather stinging.
It was he who advised the King not to enter an alliance with Egypt even though the Babylonian enemies were breathing down their necks. At the crucial moment when Egypt was needed, they backed out leaving Israel to fend for themselves. Israel didn’t last long and the Babylonian conquest left the city in ruins and many of it’s citizens taken hostage and forced to walk hundreds of miles to relocation areas in Babylon.
Isaiah’s dire words of warning prior to the attack turned over the years into the words of hope reflected in our first lesson, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners...” It was Isaiah who told them of the voice shouting, to prepare a way in the wilderness for God. The wilderness here had a double meaning - the exterior wilderness of the new land they were in and the interior wilderness of the sadness they were experiencing. In both cases, keep the faith and that faith will be the road by which God travels into the wilderness of your heart, the interior and exterior place of captivity, and lead you home.
Centuries later John the Baptist used words similar to Isaiah’s, but in his case he spoke as one who was actually in the wilderness. Again the use of the word wilderness has both a literal and metaphoric meaning. Being at the Jordan river, John was far away from Jerusalem and people had to walk a great distance to get to him. For anyone coming out of any city, the land beyond is all wilderness. If you’ve ever invited a Manhattan resident to New Jersey for dinner you know what I mean. They get very nervous about leaving the city, and would prefer we go there. No matter what century we’re talking about the phenomenon seems to be the same.
Even so in Jerusalem, to go to see John in the wilderness was a big deal. And of course he, like Isaiah dealt not only with the wilderness as a geographic place, but referred to the wilderness of the heart. John preached a message of repentance and forgiveness as a method to prepare the way for God.
With all the hubbub going on outside the city, the religious authorities wanted to go find out what was going on. All the talk about a Messiah on the way from someone new and not properly credentialed could be problematic, not only from a religious point a view, but from a political one as well. The Romans got rather ticklish about forecasts of new Messiahs. It usually meant rebellion and they would have to clamp down as they had in the past. The Priests and Levites went to find out what was going on before trouble began.
“Who are you?” They asked. The scriptures said that before the Messiah came, Elijah would return or one of the other Prophets. So the priests and Levites asked if he were any of these. John said no and invoked the words of Isaiah, meaning I’m not a prophet, I’m simply a voice saying prepare the way of the Lord. He’s coming soon.
Since this is Advent, we really don’t get into the part where Jesus actually arrives on the scene. We stay in the period of waiting in the wilderness. Holding onto that feeling of trepidation, wanting whatever is holding us captive to stop, and for things to get better; that feeling of being lost in the wilderness and waiting for God to come and rescue us. If you’ve ever felt that way, perhaps you can recall the feeling now and also recall how desperately we clung to the voices which gave us hope.
Those voices usually fell into two categories. First, people who didn’t know what we were going through but held our hands through the ordeal. The second category was the people who had actually been through what we were going through and spoke from experience. Both are needed, and yet both serve us differently.
It’s been two years since our youth group went on a mission trip to Mississippi to help the areas still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The destruction of the gulf coast was a wilderness all its own - literally through the devastation of the towns and cities and emotionally in the spirits and psyches of the residents. One of the most moving moments of our trip was when a staff member of the church we used as home base started to cry when telling our youth they had no idea how much it meant to them to have us there, that they weren’t forgotten by those outside the devastation. We were to them like the voice outside their wilderness speaking words of hope, that they are remembered and cared for by us, and so many others, and that God is working through us.
Their time of captivity will end. We don’t know when it will end fully, but it will, because we remember and God continues to work through those outside their wilderness.
This memory came back recently after seeing a news item on how far the work in the hurricane devastated area has come. In some places it’s progressed quite far, in many other places not far enough. I was stuck by one woman whose work was organizing schools for children displaced by the hurricane. Her dedication and commitment as a life long resident of the New Orleans area was immensely inspiring. Her strength of faith and character provided a different voice of one in the wilderness. Someone who knows the suffering first hand and is there for the long haul. She is helping the children prepare a way in their wilderness for God’s healing and hope.
Both voices are needed, the one calling from outside saying, “Hold on, help is on the way.” To the voice from inside saying, “I know what you’re going through, I’m here with you and we’re going to make it.”
We each have our places of wilderness and we all need God to enter. God offers the healing and strength we need at different times individually and collectively. Sometimes we need to hear the voice, and sometimes we need to be the voice. But in both cases the message is to prepare the way to let God in.
And that’s often easier said than done. Letting God in means first to quiet the voices of our particular “Priests and Levites” who ask, Who do you think you are? Who told you, you could be a voice? What are your credentials?
Those are the voices of insecurity. Like John we can state simply that indeed we are a voice, and that statement is the only credential we really need. Insecurity is one set of bushes and brush that block the road. We can clear them away and allow God entry. We can be the voice someone else needs to hear. We can step in and our concern is credential enough.
Another roadblock is our sense of unworthiness for God. Things that stand in the way are guilt over past hurts or mistakes we’ve made. We may not feel worthy to help another, or even more so, not worthy to be helped. Fear and doubt are road blocks and they keep the wilderness fortified. John leads the way here in offering repentance and forgiveness and real repentance requires confession. Confession really has a bad rap these days and it’s a shame. It really offers a lot of healing. We all have something we need to let go of. And confession is as good a vehicle as any to get rid of it. It’s comes as a big surprise to many that the Episcopal church offers private confession. It’s rarely taken advantage of and I believe that has much to do with first, not knowing it’s available and second, having horror stories from the past of private confession. Chris Carroll and I are available to hear private confessions and I promise we won’t make it scary. Mistakes that happened once in the past may still haunt. Some mistakes that happen time and again have their own pain that needs attention. Talking about it in a spiritually supportive environment helps.
People left the city in droves to get the reassurance of God’s love they needed from John the Baptist and the assurance of forgiveness. We all have a spiritual hunger for the same thing, and the solution is the same today as it was then. Talk about it, say the words out loud. Hear the words of forgiveness and the healing spirit of God.
I remember my last trip to my confessor where I told him my biggest and worst secrets. I still see the look in his eyes when he asked me, “Is that all you got?” I was actually insulted that he wasn’t shocked. But the point is, those things bothered me. And because they did, I lived in a wilderness that I could have gotten out of much earlier if I had simply talked about it through confession. With the words of forgiveness came a real sense of relief and healing. I invite you to take seriously the invitation to a healthy confession, not a guilt producing one, but a guilt relieving one.
Whether our wilderness is physical in where we live and move, or whether the wilderness is in the spirit created by insecurity, fear, doubt or guilt, God will come in. But we have to do our part and prepare the way. If we’re unsure of the way there are voices both inside and outside the wilderness to guide us. We wait in hope until we decide what to do and when we decide it’s OK to let God in, prepare the way God will come. Amen.
© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
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