Advent 3C – Good News in the Wilderness

12/16/24 • -1 min

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. ¹⁷His 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...

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.

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]

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.”

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.

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

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...

Previous Episode

Advent One – The Fruitful Tree

Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Advent One
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Luke 21:25-33

When all this begins to happen, stand upright and hold your heads high, because your liberation is near. – Luke 21:28, REB

+ In the name of the living God: the Father , the Son , and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today, we observe the first Sunday of Advent, the season in which we anticipate the coming of Christ. First, we look to the end of the age, and then in later weeks to the babe of Bethlehem. Advent is about what’s coming. But what if what’s coming doesn’t seem too good?

Today, Luke gives us uncertain signs. Signs that are hard to interpret, or perhaps can be interpreted in too many ways. Astronomical – or perhaps astrological – chaos, environmental changes, and helpless nations. Luke tells us that, “People will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world.” but what exactly the signs are referring to is not explained. The signs of the apocalypse are profound, but uncertain.

We have more certain signs, however. We only need to look around. From Eden onward to Babel, to Egypt and Babylon, and into our present day, we see clear signs that our world is broken. Our culture is broken. Things are not as they were meant to be. In 1919, after the first world war, the poet, William Butler Yeats pinned his famous work “The Second Coming .” He is describing his experience in post-war Europe, but the words describe our age all too well:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The signs of our life at the close of 2024, as it ever has been since we left the Garden, point to the fact that things are broken. They are not as they were meant to be.

These signs, if we are honest, create in us a sense of an uncertain destiny. Living in an uncertain present, we are tempted towards nostalgia – looking backward to a better past – or perhaps our temptation is some form of progressivism, looking forward to a more hopeful future. These are, I believe, false choices. The truth is that every time – past, present, and future – has its own crisis. We do the best we can to adapt, to overcome, to apply technique and technology to our situation. What all that has produced, however, is a life of means without ends. We go through the motions of our daily life not really knowing what it all means, what’s it for, or where we are going. So often, our hope is in just getting through the day, just getting through our lives. In many ways there is no goal which we are living for or towards. It is this directionless, hopeless, rat–race kind of life- so often lacking any measure of meaningful truth, goodness, and beauty- that the revelation of Jesus Christ judges and will ultimately put an end to. Before you flinch at that statement, remember what I said two weeks ago about God‘s judgment: it always has a curative intent. There is no anger, no vengeance, but hope, purpose, and healing. Looking at the signs of this age, we may feel that we have an uncertain destiny, that’s understandable. Today, Jesus invites us to look at something else, something that- when we understand it- shows that in fact, our destiny is both certain and secure. In the midst of all these confusing and frightening signs, Jesus invites us to consider the fig tree.

The parable of the fig tree appears today in verses 29 to 31 of our Gospel reading. However, this isn’t the only place it’s mentioned. A fig tree also appears as a sign in Mark, Chapter 11 and Matthew 21. You remember the story, don’t you? It takes place during Holy Week. Jesus has entered Jerusalem for his final confrontation with both the Jewish leadership and the Temple, and He finds a fig tree bearing no fruit. Because it bears no fruit, he judges it with a curse. It then withers and dies. Then, he goes on to judge the temple with his cleansing. What’s the connection? In the Old Testament, the people of Israel are sometimes represented as a fig tree that bears no fruit. Both Hosea and Jeremiah use this imagery. Now, the withered fig tree makes more sense: it is a parable of the judgment of God on the Temple, which has become a dead tree that produces no fruit of righteousness. More broadly, the withered fig tree- like the signs in the heavens and the nations -is a judgment of our life of means without ends. Like the Temple , all our human systems left to our own devices, are ultimately barren. Taking this as backstory, what can...

Next Episode

Advent 4C – Merciful Judgement

Visitation by Mariotto Albertinelli (1503)

Advent 4C
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:39–56

Be strong, fear not, your God is coming with judgment, coming with judgment to save you. – Church of England, Common Worship, Canticle “A Song in the Wilderness,” verse 5

In the name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the 1991 Lawrence Kasden film Grand Canyon, Kevin Klein plays Mack, an immigration attorney who breaks out of a traffic jam leaving an LA Lakers game and tries to drive around it. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he begins to notice that each street seems darker and more deserted than the last. Turns out he’s wound up in South Central LA. And then there’s a problem. His fancy sports car stalls. He manages to call for a tow truck, but before it arrives, five local thugs, surround his car and threaten him. Before things get out of control, the tow truck shows up and it’s driver Simon, played by Danny Glover, walks right through the gang and begins to hook up the sports car. The young men protest: the driver is interrupting their crime. So, Simon takes the group leader aside and gives him a five sentence introduction to sin:

Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without asking you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything supposed to be different than what it is here.

The soliloquy, which continues from here, is successful. Simon hooks up Mack’s car and he’s able to drive off safely. I like the whole movie, but it’s this scene that still sticks in my mind even after all these years. Because as it progresses, as Simon keeps talking, what becomes clear is that the young men really don’t know it’s not supposed to be like this. They are trapped in their world just as much as Simon and Mack will turn out to be trapped in theirs. The carjacking, to these kids, makes a certain kind of sense. Throughout the movie, the line between perpetrator and victim is blurred over and over again. Victims are perpetrators. Perpetrators are victims. Everyone is trapped in their own world. And it’s not supposed to be like this.

Our gospel story today has a cinematic quality as well. A young mother-to-be is hurrying through the Judean countryside, to share the good news of her pregnancy with her elder relative, who is surprisingly also pregnant late in life. The miracle is even more profound than it first seems: It is, if fact, a virgin womb that is greeting a barren one. God is at work. Mary and Elizabeth also live in a world where things are not the way they are supposed to be. They live under Roman occupation, ruled by collaborating Jews and a corrupt Temple elite. The dream of the prophets has been for a just society, and for Israel to be the light of the nations. It has not turned out that way. And yet strange and wondrous things are afoot: the older woman’s son leaps for joy at the voice of his cousin‘s mother, and inspired by the spirit of her infant son, the younger woman sings of the coming judgment and mercy of God. The world they are trapped in is about to be broken wide open. Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls her song the first Advent hymn. He writes:

There is none of the sweet, wistful, or even playful tone of many of our Christmas carols, but instead a hard, strong, relentless hymn about the toppling of the thrones and the humiliation of the lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. This is the sound of the prophetic women of the Old Testament—Deborah, Judith, Miriam—coming to life in the mouth of Mary. Mary, who was seized by the power of the Holy Spirit, who humbly and obediently lets it be done unto her as the Spirit commands her, who lets the Spirit blow where it wills— she speaks, by the power of this Spirit, about God’s coming into the world, about the Advent of Jesus Christ.

We have her song in the gospel reading today: it tells of the great reversal, the upending of the established order, and the new kingdom that Mary’s boy will bring. In some ways, it reads like a work of spiritual theology, in some ways it reads as a political manifesto. What is clear in the Magnificat is that God is fulfilling his promises, God is making both a people and a kingdom for himself—with him alone on the throne. God knows it’s not supposed to be like this, and he will set it right. He alone is the only one who can free us from the world we have trapped ourselves in. Some 2000 years later, the work is still ongoing, and we talk of his Second Coming and prepare to celebrate his First. Things still are not yet the way they are supposed to be, but our annual observance of both Advent and Christmastide remind us the God is still on the move, that he has not given up on his creation—or on us.

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