How Do We Walk?

How Do We Walk?

“In poetry we can do things not permitted by logic or reason,” writes Walter Brueggemann. “Poetry will open the world beyond reason. Poetry will give access to contradictions and tensions that logic must deny. Poetry will not only remember but also propose and conjure and wonder and imagine and foretell.” [Devotions for Advent, Celebrating Abundance, p 14]

When times are tough, Jews write poetry. Isaiah is a Jewish poet. A voice, says Isaiah, declares: In the wilderness imagine a highway, straight, level, the hills made low, the valleys lifted up so as to make the journey home direct, safe, and swift [Is 40: 1-11]. Wilderness is another word, a metaphor, for exile or captivity. The people are displaced in Babylon, a long way from Jerusalem. The world is suddenly and frighteningly unfamiliar. Life has been disrupted. Yet, the poet imagines that there is a way out, if only we can imagine it and prepare for it!

A herald of good tidings, good news, proclaims the word that the God of the Exodus “comes with great might…He will feed his flock, He will gather his lambs and gently but swiftly lead them home again. The Hebrew word for this herald is mabasar, in Greek evangelion.

We are meant to notice that the word for this herald, this voice, is used by the Gospel of Mark at the very outset, in the very first sentence: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The beginning of the ev-angel-ion. Isaiah used it in the wilderness of Babylon for his imagined herald. Thank goodness for my high school homeroom teacher Mr. Baker and his Etymology course!  The Greek prefix ev, or eu, means good, angel means message or messenger, all of which we translate as “good news;” which in turn in old English becomes “god-spell,” or “gospel.”

Mark chooses this word carefully, for in the Roman Empire evangelion referred to a messenger from the Emperor announcing the “good news” that new territory and peoples had been captured by the Empire. Evangelion was, in essence, Roman Propaganda! Courageously Mark now turns the word in its current first century usage on its head to proclaim the coming arrival of the one who will strike blows against the empire – one Jesus Christ, who incidentally is the Son of God; the God of the Exodus, the God who motivated Cyrus of Persia [modern day Iran] to lead the people on the superhighway back to Jerusalem. Evangelion is now to be Godly propaganda!

Notice what a bold move Mark makes. Co-opting the Emperor’s chosen method of communicating news of his recent conquests to announce that there is coming a new authority – an authority that will energize us to defy the machinations of the Empire and return to “the way of the Lord.”

John picks up where Isaiah leaves off, and even borrows, with some changes, Isaiah’s poem. As John has it, Isaiah’s voice itself is now “in the wilderness.” And all the people of Judea and Jerusalem head out into the wilderness to hear the voice. And John is that voice. “Prepare the way of the Lord!”

“The Way.” The word means “good path,” a way of expressing the Hebrew halakha, which in turn means “how one walks.” Gustav Mahler, the composer, was a rock star in Vienna! He was the Mick Jagger of his day and age. Stories are told that people would follow behind him on the streets of Vienna and try to walk the way Mahler walks.

How do we walk? What is the way of our walking? That’s what John is talking about. This is what Advent is all about – walking in the way of the Lord. Mark declares that this is the beginning – a word meant to recall the very first words of the Bible, “In the beginning God creates…” Attending to our way of walking is a new beginning to things. The old ways of walking are not working. John says the command words are “repent” and “forgive.” To turn our lives around by walking and talking forgiveness. Do we walk in the way of the Empire? Or, in the Way of the Lord.

The first Christians were not called Christians at all. They were called the People of the Way. The way of walking like Jesus. Which was utterly unlike the ways in which the Romans walked. To repent means to recognize that we are already “in the wilderness” with John. We need to go down to the river and be washed. To let go of the ways of the Empire and to return to the ways of The Lord. This is as true today as it was back then.

It calls for an enormous public works project say Isaiah and John! Look at the highway projects, the reduced lanes, the reduced speed limits, the earth movers, the enormous effort necessary to make a highway straight and level. Don’t curse the highway projects. When you are stopped in a long line of cars waiting for the sign-holder to turn the sign from STOP to SLOW, remember what Isaiah and John proclaim – Prepare the way of the Lord. In this case, prepare a place within ourselves and within our community, our nation, the world, a landing strip if you will, for the Lord to come and once again dwell among us. For debts to be relieved, prisoners released, bind up the brokenhearted, comfort those who mourn, rebuild the ruins and devastations, and repair our ruined cities. It’s a big project Isaiah sees necessary to repair the world.

Isaiah and John, timeless poets of God’s Word, remind us that Advent is a time of hoping, receiving energy and resolve for the mission ahead. The mission is tough, but our God is not hidden, not indifferent and not powerless. And we are God’s people, God’s beloved community. We will once again escape the clutches of the Empire and walk in the way of the Lord!