Second Sunday of Advent, Year C

We all have that friend…loud, opinionated, brutally honest and proud of it…the one we have to plead with not to offend other people when going into a crowd…the one we excuse with “that’s just how they are”. 

Well, in old testament times, that’s what the prophets were like.  We think of prophesy as foretelling the future, and that was part of it – the other part was maintaining the covenant with God.  These prophets were people who were painfully honest, and called it as they saw it. 

Prophets weren’t popular people.  Prophets point out shortcomings.  They highlight flaws, air family secrets.  They love to point things out, and we don’t like that.  I definitely don’t like that.

I like to hide my flaws.  I think we all do.  We have this image we want people to see of us, and we do everything within our power to construct and maintain this image, which means we hide stuff.  Stuff that embarrasses us.  Stuff that isn’t pretty.  We hide our warts, and lumps, and bumps, and we do all sorts of crazy things that support this “image” of us…this elaborate façade we want people to perceive….

And then comes this “friend” who pokes holes at this thin and delicate shell, exposing who we really to others, and even worse, forcing us to see our true selves.  In his day, I think this “friend” was John the Baptist.

John, the only child born to an aged Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Cousin to Jesus.  We learned all about him as children in our Sunday school lessons.  In my mind, he’s a skinny, lanky fellow…probably of average height.  And in appearance, he seems to have a whole lot of crazy going on.  He’s dirty, hair and beard unkempt, he’s clothed in camel hair, with a leather belt, and he eats locust and wild honey, kind of like a cave man, living in the wilderness of Judea.  He was counter-cultural, for both his time and ours. 

John got his name as The Baptizer for obvious reasons – he baptized.  Ritual washings were already a part of Jewish culture at that time…but they weren’t married to the concept of redemption.  John put these things together when he baptized as a sign to show that the people were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. 

And we like to picture John, in the beautiful waters of the River Jordan, in a white robe, dunking people in white robes, but that’s not exactly how it went.  The Jordan River is muddy…and nasty.  And the people getting baptized would have been covered in this muck and mud. 

And John did things people didn’t like…he didn’t preach feel good sermons.  We see in the text to come that he called the crowd gathered to hear him preach a “pit of vipers”.  He warned that trees that produce bad fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire…a good old fashioned “turn before you burn” sermon.  He encouraged honesty, and benevolence.

But the biggest thing John did, was prepare the way for Christ, just as Isaiah foretold so many years ago.  He prepared for the coming of God’s salvation.  For the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  The hope that is to come. 

So the text about making the paths and roads straight, and filling in the valleys, and the mountains made low…I think that goes back to those hiding places.  I think we make our own path of life curved.  We keep our roads erratic.  We create hiding places in the valleys.  We hide things from ourselves, we hide things from others, and at times I think we even try to hide things from God.  And when we’re reminded that before God all hearts are open and all secrets are known, we sink down a little further in our shame and embarrassment.  We think of God through the only lens we know – the human one.  We know that there are certain things about us that if others knew, we would be met with judgement, disgust, harsh words and persecution.  God does, indeed, see all; and still loves us.  He sees through the façade and constructed image.  He sees around the corners and down into the valleys.  He sees, and still he sent a savior for you and for me.  A savior who would rescue us from those awful things in the bends of our path and the valleys along the way.  We were sent peace to quench the chaos that is our life.  Thanks be to God.