Sermon 12/8/2019 “Prepare the way of the Lord”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at Immanuel Chapel, Virginia Theological Seminary
Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Day: 2Advent, Year A
“Prepare the way of the Lord.” We EVIDENTLY remember these words of John the Baptizer, thanks to the 1970 rock opera Godspell. The prophet John was quoting the prophet Isaiah, who 700 years prior had foretold a coming prophet who would “cry out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
As our Goodwin House contingent discussed in Bible study this week, there’s a small problem with our translation. Our lesson today says the Voice was in the wilderness saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” However, this is where punctuation makes a huge difference. Some would argue that the comma—which doesn’t exist in Hebrew—should be earlier in the sentence. Hence, this argument goes, the text really should be read, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.”
Wherever we judge the comma should go, we must admit there’s a big difference. In the first case, the wilderness is where we hear the Voice of God directing us to prepare for his coming. In the second, the wilderness is where we are to terraform our world, making our world and ourselves fit to receive God.
You probably can guess my answer to this either-or question; my answer is YES. Yes, the wilderness is where we most often hear God: This is because the wilderness is more barren and with fewer distractions, allowing us to hear God better. But isn’t God always and everywhere calling us, telling us “Prepare the way of the Lord?” And the wilderness is the place most in need of preparation for God’s coming. The wilderness is the wilderness because this is the place most in need of God’s transforming love.
So, God is telling us in the wilderness (and everywhere), “Prepare the way of the Lord,” repent of our sins (as often as necessary). And God is calling us in the wilderness (and everywhere), to live a repented life—which we know from the example of Christ Jesus means to live a life of love for God and all others.
There you have it, the essence of today’s lesson, why this passage from Matthew is the gospel lesson in our lectionary cycle of scripture readings today: The church sees the need to remind us that Christ Jesus is coming soon and that the response is to prepare for his coming by repenting. The lectionary throws in the passage from Isaiah on which the gospel is based and adds our second reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans to add HOW we are to wait, in preparation, for the Lord’s coming: We are to wait in expectant hope.
This isn’t one of those instances, though, where we hear that someone important is approaching our door for a visit. Then, we scurry around putting things in order. But there’s rarely enough time between our notice of God’s coming to do anything other than throw ourselves on God’s mercy. This is why Jesus spent so much time warning us to get ready and stay ready for the coming of God: We don’t know when our spiritual house needs to be in order to welcome God.
So, what is there about the wilderness that makes God activate the voices of prophets there? And what is there about the wilderness that needs fixing?
These two questions and their answers are related: God always and everywhere directs us to prepare the way of the Lord. We just don’t usually hear God very well unless we are in the wilderness. This is why, like Jesus, we are to periodically visit the wilderness on planned trips. Free there of life’s usual distractions, we can better hear God.
Sometimes, life events dump us in the wilderness in unplanned visits, metaphorically speaking. The metaphorical wilderness is full of homeless people, ill people, jobless people, people with addictions, clinically depressed people, and others in desperate situations. When we look around the wilderness, we can easily perceive why God would direct us to make his path straight there. The wilderness is full of people who need to hear the Word of God, who are perhaps more ready than most to accept God’s Word in new ways. Once we ourselves have repented, perhaps we will be called to live into the love we are given by bringing God’s Word of repentance, love, and justice to the wilderness.
When I think today of the prophet John the Baptizer crying out God’s Word in the wilderness, I am amazed at how apt this lesson is for us at Church of the Resurrection. Aren’t we in the literal wilderness, waiting as we are for our new church building to be constructed? Aren’t we in the metaphorical wilderness of Advent, following the Voice’s direction to prepare for the coming of Christ as we move from life to death to new life?
Undoubtedly, John was in the wilderness at the Jordan River to remind the people of the Exodus. In this location, John was urging people to make their own Exodus from the “Egypt” of sin, then to trust God to lead them through the wilderness into the Promised Land.
We, too, have left the Egypt of sin and the Egypt of a broken building. We, too, have heard the Voice directing us to “Prepare the way of the Lord.” And we are working to do just that in the Beauregard Corridor, and even here on the campus of Virginia Theological Seminary.
One of the things our gospel lesson today teaches us is to recognize how strategic our location is: Our new church building will be on Hope Way in the immigrant alley of the West End of Alexandria: a wilderness that greatly needs hope, more hope than the coming high-speed rapid transit bus line that will stop right in front of our property can provide. Our new church building will be on Hope Way, right next door to three high-rise retirement communities, full of people who have invested their whole lives in preparing the way of the Lord—people who will be right at the average demographic of our congregation.
How will these factors play in our new life in our new land once we get to leave our present metaphorical wilderness? How will we prepare for returning to the land of our promise? How will you help terraform the wilderness this Advent?
Here’s some advice that I was once given: “Be the Voice: testify what God has done for you. Share the love of God, always remembering we are but the voice of God; God provides the Word.”
