A Voice in the Wilderness

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord….”

 

Today is the second Sunday of the season of Advent. Advent is the beginning of our church year. So it is fitting that we begin our annual reading of the lectionary, the ordered set of lessons we read each Sunday, with a reading from the Gospel of Mark.

 

Mark was the first of the four gospels to be transcribed from oral tradition, probably sometime around 70 CE. That is the time frame in which the Romans were busy destroying the Jewish Temple, driving all Judeans from Jerusalem. There is a sense of urgency in Mark that may well reflect the fear of its authors that the people who carried the stories about Jesus in their memories were rapidly being dispersed or killed. If these stories were not preserved in writing now, they would be lost.

Mark is the briefest of the four gospels, the most likely to be historical and the least overtly theological. The next two gospels, Matthew and Luke, will build on Mark’s beginning. They will add both the virgin birth accounts at their beginnings and their resurrection accounts will be added to Mark’s account which ends in an empty tomb. Mark’s gospel presents us with a bare bones account of Jesus that begins with this simple assertion: 

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

 It is particularly important to note where this account of Jesus’ life begins - in the wilderness. Its setting is the shores of the Jordan River where a wild-looking man who is harshly critical of his own Hebrew tradition has drawn hordes of people to the desert to hear him. 

Here he leads them in a ritual adopted from Jewish practice that involves a literal washing of their bodies as a sign of their willingness to repent of their sins. Their immersion into and reemergence out of the muddy waters of the Jordan will signify their rebirth, new life and new beginnings.  Among those who have been drawn from their daily lives to come to the desert to hear this wild man clothed in camel hide, subsisting only on a diet of insects and honey, is one Jesus of Nazareth. 

 

Prophet Isaiah, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel

The writers of Mark’s Gospel were very intentional in their use of Hebrew Scripture to describe this event. Isaiah is the favorite literary inkpot of Hebrew Scripture that Gospel writers will dip into to create their portrayals of Jesus. The words of Isaiah are put into the mouth of the Baptizer here who becomes the “voice crying out in the wilderness.” This has been literally taken from the third set of writings that compose this book of Isaiah, passages that scholars believe probably were written after the return of the Hebrew people from captivity in Babylon.

 There are several themes in the writings of this Third Isaiah that we should note in today’s lessons beginning with words designed to console a people who have endured tragedy. 

“Comfort, comfort, ye my people…” 

These words will eventually be immortalized in the masterful works of Handel’s Messiah. If you are like me, you probably have a hard time even reading these words from Isaiah without hearing that beautiful rendition.

 

James Tissot, Flight of the Prisoners (1902)

Isaiah’s comfortable words continue with a message that the Hebrew people are to be given a reprieve from their failings as a nation that resulted in the fall of Judea and their subsequent captivity:

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid….

 

Clearly, better times are coming for a people who have languished 7 decades in exile. These words are intended for a people returning from captivity to rebuild their land. But the prophet is clear that whatever good is to come for them, the people must recognize the major role that G_d is playing in this event.

 

“[S]urely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”

 

The restoration of Israel will require a responsible people to rebuild their nation from the ruins. But they must never forget their need for G-d’s presence in their lives in doing so.  

 

 

 

In our gospel lesson, John the Baptizer is clear in offering his ritual baptism to his disciples that their willingness to repent, to rethink their lives, change their attitudes and behaviors, is but the first step. They, too, will need G-d’s empowering presence. And on this first day of Jesus’ life recorded by the first of the Gospels, that help comes in the person of Jesus himself. As John the Baptizer tells them, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.... I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 

The themes of today’s lessons are powerful:         

• the wilderness
•  the prophetic voice which cries out
•  the consolation of suffering people       
• the need to reflect upon and reconsider life paths
• the calling to rebuild from the ruins
• the need for divine guidance

 If those themes sound familiar, they should. All we have to do is look around ourselves to see that these themes readily apply to our own lives here and now. Truth be told, this season of Advent could not have come at a more timely moment in our lives together.  

 

If there has ever been a time when the season of Advent with all of these relevant themes was badly needed, it is right now.

Like the Hebrew people to whom Isaiah offered his words of comfort, we come to a new church calendar at the end of what can only be described as a trying year at best, a tribulation on its worst days. We have lost members of our families of birth and families of choice to a pestilence. 

The reactions to the pandemic range from outrage to denial, evidencing the deep polarization of our countrymen and women from one another. We have just lived through a bruising election in which some of the worst behaviors of any in our 200+ year electoral history were exhibited. And we have lived through the increasingly evident results of human caused climate change in a fire season that took no prisoners and a hurricane season that seemed it would never end.

 

We are tired. We are bruised. We are lonely. We are heartbroken. And we all know that there is more tumult to come.

How badly we need this season of Advent.

     

This is a time of waiting and watching, of listening for the voice crying out in the wilderness. It is a time of reflection, reconsideration, and, yes, repentance. And it comes at a time when we, like the Hebrew people, are being called to rebuild our land. We will need to discern the valuable aspects of our lives before COVID that we must preserve as well as those aspects of which we must let go. We must determine those ways of living which bring health and wholeness to all of us, those which no longer serve us and repent of those places where our individual lives and our lives together have simply gone off the tracks altogether.

 As the days grow shorter, we watch with a fervent hope that a new light will soon come into our world. Our prayers will speak of second chances, new hopes, new directions to come in a new year that has just begun. We dare to hope that deep within the womb of the universe, a new reality is waiting to be given birth and we await divine guidance for discerning our roles in that new life together.

 It will come.

 

There will be much to do in a new year whose beginnings are already appearing as the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. But for now, for these next 20 days of Advent, let us rest and reflect. Let us intentionally and undistractedly be present with the Holy One who seeks to make all things new, beginning with our hearts of stone. For the moment, let us observe some holy silence in our very noisy world, meditating on who we are, who we have been, what we could become and where we need to go. 

 

 Let us remember that it was in the wilderness that G-d forged a people called Israel. And it was the wilderness to which Jesus turned after his baptism at the Jordan to come to grips with the realization of who he was and what he had been called to do. Awareness of the presence of G-d in the wilderness is assured for those who seek it. Indeed, perhaps it is in the wilderness that G-d’s voice can be heard most clearly.

 May the presence of the Holy One be so near to us as to be palpable in these days ahead. May we light candles of hope to dispel the darkness of despair. May the angels hover round us, holding us in their arms. May we cherish the memories of those we have lost even as we grieve their passing. And may we soon once again be able to hold our loved ones in our arms. 

 

 

Blessed Second Week of Advent dear people of G-d. AMEN.

 

A sermon preached on December 6, 2020, the Second Sunday of Advent, 2020, St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park, Florida.

The live delivery of this sermon can be seen here beginning at 37:00 minutes into the video. 

https://www.facebook.com/StRichardsWinterPark/videos/392493285529956

 

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Harry Scott Coverston

Orlando, Florida

 frharry@cfl.rr.com

hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

   © Harry Coverston, 2020

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