Bearers of the Light - Advent 2C/ Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 3:1-6
Do you ever think the world is upside-down? Malachi did.
Malachi, the unknown prophet from an unknown era was hoping and waiting for the
coming “day of the Lord” to set things right-side-up once again. The Hebrew
prophets in general agreed that the world which God created “is good,” with all
the resources necessary for all people and all creatures to thrive, but had
ended up with most of these resources in the pockets of a few powerful people
through theft and hoarding leaving little else for everyone else. Malachi was
particularly hard on the Temple priests who he thought had become corrupt and
lazy. Malachi is confident that will all change on the day of the Lord, and
that a messenger shall come first to “prepare the way.”
The question is, says Malachi: “Who can endure the day of
his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” When he appears to turn things
right-side-up again with the “goods” of creation falling out of the hoarder’s
pockets to rain upon the poor, the widow, the orphan and the resident alien. To
return to those days when the world was “good.” Many still wait for that day!
Centuries later, Zechariah, a priest in Jerusalem during the
time of the Roman occupation, is going about his priestly duties one day in the
Temple when an angel appears to announce that his wife, Elizabeth, heretofore
barren, shall bear a son, name him John, Yohanan, “YHWH is gracious.” John will
be filled with the Holy Spirit and will “make ready a people prepared for the
Lord.” The old man stutters in disbelief. The angel assures him it is true, but
for his disbelief Zechariah will be mute until the child is born. [Luke 1:1-80]
Elizabeth bears a son.
On the eighth day at the babe’s circumcision they are asked for a name and
Elizabeth says, “John.” But you have no relatives named John, the people say.
You should name him Zechariah, they say. The mute priest takes a tablet and
writes, “His name is John!” Immediately his tongue is loosed and he begins to
sing and praise God for showing “mercy to our fathers” and to us. “This was the
oath he swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our
enemies,” and turn the world right-side-up again! “You, my child, shall be
called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare
his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their
sins.” Suddenly, after months of silence, the old man is a poet and a prophet
himself.
The text concludes, “The child grew and became strong in
spirit, and was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to
Israel.” It was in the wilderness that YHWH, the God of the Exodus, forged a
disparate band of slaves into a new people, a people of God, strong in spirit. The
wilderness will be that place that the young man Jesus will go, “driven by the
Spirit,” to become discern what it means to be God’s Beloved as the voice
proclaims at his baptism by John.
At the appointed time, when hoarders of fortune and power like
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias were ruling over
Israel, and Annas and Caiaphas were the Temple priests, the people heard
“Thunder in the desert!” John, like his father before him, began to speak. And
the first words out of his mouth were those sung centuries before as Isaiah
announced the liberation of God’s people from the wilderness of Exile in
Babylon:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every
valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth; and all flesh shall
see the salvation of God!” John proclaims real power and truth against the so
called “rulers of the age,” the thieves and hoarders of the Empire and the
Temple. The very Temple priests whom Malachi had called upon to reform their
ways.
We are told all the people left the city and the towns to
stream out into the wilderness to be with John, the man filled with the Spirit,
preparing the people and the way for the one who comes to set the world
right-side-up again. The one who will shower the people with God’s Mercy – a
mercy so wide you cannot get around it, so high you cannot get over it.
Mercy comes and calls us all to join in a life of mercy for
all people; a life of enough resources for all. And the Malachi’s question
remains: “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he
appears?” Zechariah had sung that this mercy will consist of teaching and
forgiveness – that to prepare for the day of the Lord’s arrival is to become a
people schooled in the ways of YHWH’s Love and Merch, and who know how to
forgive as God forgives. Forgiveness is love, love is forgiveness. John knows
all about this Way of the Lord.
John was emptied in he wilderness so as to be filled with
God and the Spirit; so that he might become, as Jesus says after John’s death,
a lamp to shine on the path, the way, for us to welcome the coming of the Lord.
John wants us to be prepared to welcome Mercy, Love and Forgiveness as he comes
to greet us. John knows that sometimes this Mercy and Love can be unbearable.
We all know what it is like to be in a supermarket as a child, having a tantrum
and our mother’s or father’s arm around us, loving us at our worst, writes
Maggie Ross: “We remember the rage, not only the anger at being thwarted, but
the even greater rage at being loved all the same. It is the hardest thing in
the world for that little kid to pass through the terrible loneliness from
rage, to the grief that burns the anger from us so that we can accept our
parent’s love. Or, Gods… The wrath of God is his relentless compassion,
pursuing us even when we are at our worst. Lord, give us mercy to bear your
mercy.” [i]
Malachi, Isaiah, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Jesus all
lived in an upside-down world. They all spent time in some kind of wilderness.
They all heard and accepted words like, “prepare the way of the Lord,” “do not
be afraid,” “make the rough places smooth.” Malachi envisions that God’s wrath,
God’s love, God’s mercy are all the same thing – and that the Lord is like a
“refiner’s fire … he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will
purify” us and refine us like gold and silver, until we present offerings of Mercy,
Love and Forgiveness to the Lord in righteousness.
We all live together in the wilderness of an upside-down
world in need of repair. We do not flee this wilderness, we go into it as John
did, or we are driven into it like Jesus. We go into the wilderness to be empowered
to bear the Word, as the Spirit empowered the prophets bear God’s Word; as John
proclaimed his coming; as Mary bore him. We pray: Holy God, Holy and Mighty,
Holy Immortal One, have Mercy upon us. Wherever and whenever we are in the
wilderness with John, we become like John, “bearers of the light, lamps in the
windows of God’s house, fired with the oil of repentance, keeping us burning as
we wait for him. Jesus, Son of the living God, to be borne in us today.”[ii]
Amen.
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