“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'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 made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
Luke 3:1-6
Last week we talked about how the Gospel is about coming home. We looked at how the language of returning home from exile became the predominant language of God’s justice, mercy, and salvation in the prophets, and then to the New Testament writers who see in Jesus the fulfillment of the prophets. Here in Luke chapter 3 we see that exact language from the prophet Isaiah used to interpret the significance of John the Baptist in relation to Jesus.
This is such an interesting little section for the second week of Advent. It is as if the author of Luke’s Gospel is saying that this particular promise in Isaiah is happening right now at this particular time and place, this particular socio-political location in history.
Let’s try to make this relevant to today. If we were to do the same thing now instead of in Luke’s time, it might go something like this:
“In the fourth year of the presidency of Joseph R. Biden in the United States of America, when Donald J. Trump had been elected to be the next President, and the Republican party was poised to take control of both the U.S. Senate and House, while there was war in Europe and the Middle East, and the world was poised on a knife’s edge, and while Joshua Shapiro was Governor of Pennsylvania, and Francis was Pope, and while many evangelical Christian leaders had been actively involved in the election, at that time the word of God came to John to preach a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
If we read that today, it would be impossible to separate the message of John, a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, from the socio-political location. Luke goes to great lengths to do this, not just here, but at every opportunity.
Luke tells of John’s appearing in direct confrontation to the political and religious authorities of his day. In other words, those in positions of power ought to be concerned. This message of repentance is aimed at all, but they especially ought to be worried. After all, they have been called out in this message of salvation.
While the text from Isaiah doesn’t explicitly connect the language of “the way being made straight, the mountains being made low and the valleys being filled” to the toppling of earthly powers and authorities, Luke has already done this in chapter 1 and 2. By the time we get to this passage in chapter 3, we’ve already heard Mary explicitly put the powerful and the rich on blast by describing God’s favor and mercy as scattering the proud, bringing the powerful down from their thrones, lifting up the lowly and outcast, and sending the rich away empty just as he fills the hungry with good things. Luke’s Gospel sees this justice and favor for the poor, outcast, rejected, lowly, and lonely as explicitly tied to the upending of the seats of power of his day.
This same message of repentance that John preached in the wilderness over 2,000 years ago ought to bring fear and dread to the powerful and rich of our day. The gap between the rich and the poor of the world has never been greater than it is today. The wealthy and the elite sit comfortably in halls of power with more political authority than they’ve ever had, supported by religious leaders who help them get into those positions of power in exchange for political capital. The next President of the United States is one such wealthy business owner, famous for taking advantage of those with less power and influence to maximize his wealth and increase the authority that his brand and name hold: Trump.
The message of the Gospel ought to be unsettling to them, and to any of us who sit comfortably in positions of power and authority. Any of us who acquiesce to those authorities in lieu of God’s law are called to repent and return to God. As we’ve been talking about at IHS the last few weeks, Christians profess that Jesus only is Lord, Jesus only is King, Jesus is the only authority over the life of someone who follows his Way, and the kingdom of God is the only kingdom or nation that Christians swear allegiance to.
Religious leaders who play politics to gain power or build themselves up ought to be terrified at the dawn of God’s justice. Religious leaders with influence over how people think who crown, anoint, or consecrate anyone else but Jesus as an authority, as a ruler, ought to be terrified at the coming of the true Messiah. To the prophets, the dawn of God’s justice is a consuming fire that will burn away all that is impure or unrighteous before God.
But the message of John the Baptist, of Mary the Virgin, and of John’s father Zechariah is a message of good news. Again, Luke uses poetry to express God’s plan of salvation. These are the words of John’s father, Zechariah, as the prophet was born from Luke chapter 1:
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
Free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
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.
In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
This message of good news is not just about some far off day of salvation, not just a coming day of the Lord in the distance. In Advent when we are called to wait, we are not called to simply wait while nothing happens. This is not a salvation about avoiding hell after you die. In each case, this message of repentance, of forgiveness of sins, of salvation, is located in the here and now.
This is salvation from actual enemies who want to hate and do harm to the Jewish people. This is a promise of being able to worship God without fear. This is light to those in dark times. This is filling the hungry, raising up the lowly. This is calling God’s people home from exile.
All of this salvation is summed up in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of these prophetic words. Jesus is the dawn from on high that breaks upon us, God’s tender compassion in bodily form. In him, the paths are made straight, the valleys filled, the mountains brought low. In him we find our only true home.
Most importantly, this is a message of salvation for you today. In whatever situation you find yourself in, God promises favor and mercy. The thrones and powers of today are meaningless to those who worship God. God only sits on the throne, and he is a Lamb, and a prince of peace. Of course, God’s justice and mercy does not happen all at once. God has shown favor to the poor, forgotten, and outcast, the ragamuffins, the leftovers, so to speak.
The Message paraphrases the song of Zechariah in this way:
Through the heartfelt mercies of our God,
God’s Sunrise will break in upon us,
Shining on those in the darkness,
those sitting in the shadow of death,
Then showing us the way, one foot at a time,
down the path of peace.
One foot at a time down the path of peace, is where we are called to follow. That is how we wait on the Lord during Advent, taking one step at a time, one foot forward at a time, one day at a time toward justice and peace on the Earth. That’s the journey we take together.
Jesus is that dawn from on high that breaks upon us. But that Sunrise is also a consuming fire. We’ll look next week about that fire that Jesus brings and what it means to us in this time of Advent.
Comments