Advent Perspective: A Highway in the Wilderness

The following perspective is an excerpt from a sermon to be delivered on December 6, 2020, the Second Sunday in Advent.  The entire sermon will be posted on that date.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

A Highway in the Wilderness

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5 (NRSV)

And though these are days of great trial
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still, we are the voice in the desert crying
"Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"

From “Days of Elijah” by Robin Mark

The second part of the Book of Isaiah, in which words of warning give way to words of hope, begins with a scene that some commentators have described as a “heavenly council.”¹  Amid this divine gathering, God calls for words of comfort to spoken to God's people, who are far from home, in Babylon.  “Comfort, O Comfort my people,” God says.  “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”²  The people of God have paid the price for their unfaithfulness, and their long exile is finally coming to an end.

Another voice in the council then cries out, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  The voice says that valleys are to be filled in, that mountains are to be leveled, and that rocky ground is to be made smooth, so that all people may see the glory of God.  God is at work, and there are to be no obstacles to stand in the way.³  God is going to God's people in exile to gather them, as a shepherd would gather his scattered flock, and to lead them home through the wilderness.⁴

St. Mark begins his Gospel with a reference to this very scene from the Book of Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”⁵  He then goes on to describe a voice in the wilderness named John.

Mark's description of John makes the prophet seem a bit eccentric.  He lives in the wilderness, wears strange clothes, and eats strange foods.⁶  Scholar William Barclay suggests that every aspect of John's life is an act of protest.  John lives in the wilderness, away from the hustle and bustle of society, so that he may hear God's voice in the stillness, silence, and solitude.  By rejecting comfortable clothing and donning the garb of the prophet Elijah, a robe of camel's hair and a leather belt, he reminds people of the ancient prophets who called the people to repentance.  The food he forages, like locusts and wild honey, are the kinds of simple foods the poor of his day would eat.⁷

Mark tells us that John proclaims “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”⁸  In other words, John calls people to change their hearts and their lives and to receive God's forgiveness.  In another Gospel, he proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”⁹  The people of Judea come to him in the wilderness to confess their sins, and he baptizes them in the Jordan River as a sign of their penitence.¹⁰

St. Matthew and St. Luke tell us, in their Gospels, that John is a fiery preacher.  To the people who come to him in the wilderness, he says, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits worthy of repentance...  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”¹¹

Luke tells us that when people ask John what they should do, he offers them practical ways of “bearing fruits worthy of repentance,” ways that they may demonstrate that they are indeed turning their lives around.  He encourages those with excess to share with those who do not have enough, saying, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”  He urges those in authority not to abuse their power.  To tax collectors, he says, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”  To soldiers, he says, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”¹²

God is at work once again, and, in the same way that the voice in the Book of Isaiah calls for the removal of all mountains and valleys to build a highway in the wilderness, John, the voice in the wilderness, is calling people to build a highway into their hearts by removing the sinful obstacles from their lives.


Notes:

1. Joel B. Green, William H. Willimon, et al.  The Wesley Study Bible (NRSV).  2009, Abingdon Press.  p. 860
2. Isaiah 40:1-2 (NRSV)
3. The Wesley Study Bible, p. 861
4. Isaiah 40:10-11
5. Mark 1:3 (NRSV)
6. Mark 1:6
7. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 16-17
8. Mark 1:4 (NRSV)
9. Matthew 3:2 (NRSV)
10.  Mark 1:5
11. Matthew 3:7-10 and Lk 3:7-9 (NRSV)
12. Luke 3:10-14 (NRSV)

The photograph of the desert highway was taken by Linnaea Mallette and released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: Be Not Vacant

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Be Not Vacant

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love

From "They'll Know We Are Christians" by Peter Scholtes

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about a person who is tormented by an evil spirit, in which he compares the person to a haunted house.  After the spirit is cast out of the house, it wanders the wasteland until it decides to return to its former residence.  It finds the house cleaned and straightened up but empty.  Finding the house welcoming, the spirit takes up residence in the house once again and invites seven other spirits to live with it, all of which are even worse than it is.  Jesus concludes that the person represented by the house ends up worse off than the person was before the spirit was cast out in the first place.¹

What went wrong in this parable is obvious: the house was vacant.  If the house had been occupied, the evil spirit could not have returned and invited its friends.  Basically, if we get something negative out of our lives, like an addiction, willpower and gritting our teeth will only get us so far.  We need to be intentional to replace it with something positive, otherwise we are essentially inviting it to come back with a vengeance.  Scholar William Barclay offers the example of an athlete whose athletic ambitions ward off any temptations to engage in any indulgent behavior.²

In reference to the person tormented by evil spirits, Jesus says, "So will it be also with this evil generation."³  Before Jesus tells His parable, He is confronted by a group of His detractors who demand that He give them a sign that He has indeed been sent by God.  Jesus replies, "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign."⁴  Barclay points out that these detractors, a group of religious leaders and scholars, had "a religion of not doing things."  They focused on the "thou shalt nots" of their religious law, seeking to rid people of evil things without replacing them with good things.⁵

I think that much of what Jesus says about the religious leaders of His day can be said about Christians in our day.  For many people, the Christian religion is all about sin management.  Christians want to make sure that they are not doing anything that is displeasing to God, and they want to make sure that anything they have done to displease God has been forgiven.  Far too often it seems that Christians are known primarily for what they oppose.

On a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson finds himself in a harrowing escape from his place of employment, the town's nuclear power plant.  He follows a map into a dark hallway, where he is confronted by a giant spider.  The map reads, "To overcome the spider's curse, simply quote a Bible verse."  Homer, who is not the most pious person in the world, begins, "Thou shalt not..."  Unable to think of anything that might come next, he gives up and throws a rock at the spider.⁶  Homer could have said, "Love one another," or he could have said, "God is love," but his mind went straight to "Thou shalt not."

Later on, in the Gospel of Matthew, a religious scholar asks Jesus which of the commandments in their religion is the most important.  Jesus replies, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"⁷  When Jesus is asked about what matters most, He says nothing about what God doesn't want us to do.  Instead, He speaks only about what God does want us to do - to love God, each other, and ourselves.  For Jesus, religion is not just about getting sin out of our lives; it is, more importantly, about getting love into our lives.

For followers of Jesus, what matters most is not avoiding sin but loving radically, as Jesus loved.  When we love God, other people, and ourselves, as we are meant to love, sin becomes less of an issue for us, for we will not want to do anything that brings harm to anyone.  May we Christians be known not for what we oppose but for whom we love.


Notes:

1. Matthew 12:43-45
2. William Barclay.  The Parables of Jesus.  1990, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 196
3. Matthew 12:45 (NRSV)
4. Matthew 12:38-39 (NRSV)
5. Barclay, p. 196
6. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0763029/quotes/
7. Matthew 22:34-40 (NRSV)

The photograph of the old house was taken by Darren Lewis and released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Introspection: Thank You, Dad

 I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Thank You, Dad

Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.

Psalm 91:14-15 (NRSV)

I just wish I could have told him
In the living years

From "The Living Years" by Mike + the Mechanics

My father, Bobby Snyder, died suddenly almost three weeks ago, on the morning of October 27.  His health had not been good, but his death was not expected.

Dad and I had a strained relationship.  It is said that religion and politics are two subjects one should not discuss in polite company.  Dad loved to discuss these very subjects, though I tried to avoid them, and our differences came between us.  My mother tells me that the reason that Dad and I did not get along is that, though we did not see eye to eye on a lot of matters, we were both opinionated and headstrong.  Dad argued his opinions rather aggressively, but I struggled to stand my ground without becoming defensive or angry.

For the last six years or so, Dad and I did not talk with each other as much as we talked previously, but, after I had to take him to the emergency room back in March, I made it a point to check in on him regularly.

I thought about Dad a lot in the days following his death.  As I looked back to some of the better times we shared, a few stories came to mind.

On a Wednesday evening back in 2008,¹ my mother and I joined my grandmother for dinner.  At that time, I was working at a job I hated, and, for some reason, I was feeling especially anxious about it that evening.  I called Dad after dinner, and he picked me up from my grandmother's house and took me for a long drive to calm me down.  At one point, he told me something he had told himself when he was stuck in a job he hated: "I'm doing this for me and a paycheck every week."  Basically, he reminded me that my job wasn't my purpose in life and that I was only doing what I had to do a the time.

In the summer of 2010, after I had moved on to my current job, the car I had been driving since I was a freshman in college was wearing out, so I needed to buy another one.  I had never purchased a car, so I was a bit nervous.²  I asked Dad to go with me to the dealership, and he drove me there.  He did not step in to haggle with the salesperson or anything like that, but he gave me moral support through his presence.

On one Saturday evening in late 2012, Dad and I went to a pub downtown.  That year, I had suffered some mistreatment by someone I once trusted and respected, and I told Dad about it over dinner and some beers.  I don't remember anything he said to me that evening, but his listening to me vent about my problems meant a lot to me.

Dad and I had our differences, but he was there for me when I needed him.

Looking back, I also see that Dad had a lot of influence on the career path I chose.  He gave me my first computer, a Tandy 1000 HX from Radio Shack, as a Christmas gift when I was in the first grade, and he picked out my next two, which were both Christmas gifts from him and my mother.  He also introduced me to StarCraft, a strategy game for which I could design and program my own levels.  I suppose it was inevitable that I would become a computer programmer.

Incidentally, the Sunday after Dad died was All Saints Day, the day on the Christian calendar when we remember the "great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before us.  During my church's All Saints Day service, Christine Matthews, one of my pastors, said that saints are not perfect people but that they point us to God in some way.³  If Dad pointed me to God, it was through his being there for me when I needed him.  God is always with us.  God is there for us when we need God and even when we forget that we need God.

Dad and I didn't always get along, but I know that he loved me and that he was proud of me.  The pastors of my church say that, though we grieve when we lose loved ones, we grieve with hope.  My hope is that someday Dad and I will see each other "on the other side" and that the things that came between us in this life will be no more.  Until then, I simply hope that somehow he knows that I'm grateful.

Notes:

1. Or was it 2009?
2. I had never bought a car because, after my mother bought a new car, she let me drive her old one.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaK1c7nKxjw

The photograph of my father and me was taken by Becky Smith in the late 1980s.