Advent 3C – Good News in the Wilderness

St. John the Baptist Preaching by Mattia Preti (1665)

Advent 3C 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Luke 3:7-20

They’ve come to see him. They’ve come to hear this voice crying in the wilderness.

Some have come to mock or to criticize. Some are spying on his words and actions. And some are desperate for the Word of the Lord. The sounding Word reverberates into the vast silence of the wilderness.

Israel has suffered...under the rule of Rome, under the rule of Herod. As they struggled and grieved through centuries of oppression, the voice of God was silent. Though the people had returned from exile in Babylon, they felt stuck in the wilderness.

I’ve spent many months in the wilderness. God seems to be silent. No word of hope or encouragement. Just waiting and watching and hope that God has not forsaken me.

Into this vast space of abandonment, a voice cries out. A voice of authority, a voice resounding God’s Word from on high, a voice crying “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” ^[1]

As we meet the crowds in the Gospel of Luke, at first, we’re taken aback. John the Baptist does not sound like a comforting voice. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”^[2] Standing alongside God’s desperate pilgrims are vipers: religious ones. They seek to crush the move of God or anything that might threaten their power.

Then the pilgrims cry out, “What are we to do?”

“Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” ^[3] This sounds a bit like Jesus in the “Sermon on the Mount.”

As we listen to John’s voice, we realize these people are outsiders, marginalized, those whom the city frowns upon. There are tax collectors. “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”^[4] Soldiers. “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages.” ^[5]

While John the Baptist is inviting them into the way of repentance, he is primarily pointing beyond himself to the One to Come. Even today, he is pointing beyond himself to the One to Come.

“I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” ^[6]

This sounds a little intimidating, and yet, Luke reminds us that “with many other exhortations John preached good news to the people.”^[7]

As I was rereading and reflecting on this Gospel text, I also reread “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. Each year, I encourage my students to read this Gospel-shaped story. In Stave Two, Scrooge comes face to face with his past. He realizes his own brokenness and bitterness.

In Stave Three, he sees a world rejoicing in the gift of Christmas. All through the story, Dickens weaves in Scriptural references and images. Scrooge longs to join in the joy he sees all around him. But these people cannot see or hear him. He is like a ghost. And he has lived his whole adult life like a ghost wandering isolated through the middle of humanity.

He wants to change. He wants to be the man who can truly repent and share his cloak with one in need. But first he must face his true condition. You must remember that when Scrooge meet the Ghost of Christmas Future, he expects to see himself in the future. He keeps looking for himself. Though the reader may realize that Scrooge is dead, Scrooge thinks he is still alive. He sees the way people disrespect the humanity of a dead man, but he does not realize that he is the dead man. When we come to the end of the scene, Scrooge sees his name on the tombstone, and he realizes that he is the dead man.

Scrooge must come face to face with his own hopelessness before he can discover the true gift of grace. This makes me think of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands if an Angry God.” Or Zephaniah’s opening salvo.

The book of the prophet Zephaniah opens with one of the most terrifying images in Scripture.

The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

² “I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
³ “I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away th...