Prepare the Way
Sunday, December 4th, 2005
Advent 2B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Mark 1:1-8
Nowadays I get most of my news from the radio, or online, depending on where I happen to be driving. National Public Radio is my drug of choice, but I usually try to tune in to the EIB network to hear what the take is from that end.
This week I had the opportunity to watch some news on television, something my schedule doesn’t always lend itself to anymore. The footage and the stories are truly disheartening.
So it is with a heavy heart that I come to the second Sunday of Advent, when we’ve focused on peace, we’ve heard a reading on peace, we’ve lit the candle, and we’ve prayed for it. And though we may to some degree be experiencing peace in our respective lives, it is perhaps the most elusive of gifts, for we do not see it in the greater world around us. Not by a long shot. Even the local news is anything but peaceful. We hear of arsons, and shootings, and wrecks, and attempted escapes, even in this relatively quiet corner of the world.
The image in today’s passage – at the very beginning of the Gospel according to Mark, is of John proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, the promised one, and in that proclamation, there is a foreshadowing of the turmoil to come. We’ve read the passages, John didn’t have just a few followers, he had CROWDS following him – coming to him for baptism – for the forgiveness of sins.
Do you remember what it was like to be confronted with your own fallen-ness, your own brokenness? Coming to grips with one’s sinfulness is not a soothing experience. For me, it usually involves pain and sorrow beyond words – and even anger – at the realization that, as much as I try to let Christ govern my life, his is not always the voice that commands, that prevails.
So Jesus DID come to proclaim the ‘favorable year of the LORD,’ but he did not promise us peace on this earth, in this life.
We may catch glimpses of it, dim reflections … as Paul says, “through a glass, dimly.” Can you think of any? I had the opportunity to witness one of those moments yesterday morning, when baby Alejandro first came back from the nursery to be with his mother and father. There is something eternal and transcendent in the sight of a new family forming, something that speaks so strongly of hope, and a hope in the future, that even when conditions are anything but in their favor, the first response is to smile and thank God for the miracle of life.
But then life HAPPENS. And we have all seen and know that life is anything BUT peaceful. Even in the pursuit of peace, there is danger.
Last weekend, and in the days since, there have been several abductions in Iraq. In one, a British citizen, two Canadians, and a U.S. citizen were abducted. Night before last the reports started coming out that the group responsible for the abduction stated that the men would all be killed unless Iraqi detainees are not released by this coming Thursday.
We’ve grown … what? Somewhat immune (is that the word?) to the reports, haven’t we, that this many soldiers and that many civilians were killed in a car-bombing in Baghdad, that so many Iraqi police trainees were slaughtered … how is it that such devastating, heart-rending news is summarized in a two or three sentence note trimmed to fit the timeslot, and we go on with our lives.
The four men are members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a program born out of the Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches in the United States and Canada. Denominations that have from their beginnings taken to heart Jesus’ beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount – ‘blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ – and their pursuit of peace may end up costing these men their lives. It has yet to be seen.
I fully realize that there are radically differing views on the war in Iraq and on the reasons for the war – a fact that is drilled into me by my choice of radio listening, if nothing else. I am at a loss when it comes to trying to find some resolution to the situation. I’m not that smart.
But I do know one thing.
Christ calls us to follow him, to be like him. And though his call does initially cause distress, it ultimately results in peace. And so I pray for peace – spiritual as well as emotional and physical – military and political. His promise IS for peace, ultimately.
It is one of his given names – the Prince of Peace. But this Prince of Peace has told us in his own words –
34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
(Matthew 10)
Jesus knows to whom he is speaking. He knows the human heart. He knows the passions of the human spirit, and he understood that what he was bringing into the world would first strain and even tear the fabric of our existence, for we live in a world that is NOT as it should be, it is NOT as it was originally intended, neither the physical world nor the spiritual and emotional one.
Simply stated, we live in a world in which peace is absent.
So we pray for peace, we work for peace, we seek peace in much the same way that we seek and pray for and work for the Kingdom of Heaven: in the expectation of its fulfillment, not in the reality of its full presence.
So our concentration on peace this day is with a yearning and a hope that it will one day BE – not only in our hearts, but in the greater work of creation around us.
And how are we to prepare the way for the Prince of Peace?
By nurturing, encouraging, strengthening the peace in our own lives that he has already planted there, by sharing that peace, by living OUT that peace, by living IN that peace in relationship with each other. We are, after all, the representation of God’s glory on earth.
How true to that glory are we being?
Let’s pray.
Sunday, December 4th, 2005
Advent 2B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Mark 1:1-8
I am a recovering news junkie. It dates back to when I was a night clerk my last year in college. CNN was relatively new then, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Weeknights I was usually the only one in the lobby of the dorm, so I would flip back and forth between MTV and VH1 and CNN Headline news. I had to do something to stay awake, and when reading my assignments stopped working, I would turn up the TV and see what had been happening in the world.1The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,who will prepare your
way;3 the voice of one crying
out in the wilderness:“Prepare the way of the
Lord,make his paths straight,”’
4 John the baptizer appeared in the
wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5
And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem
were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing
their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around
his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, ‘The one who is
more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie
the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit.’
Nowadays I get most of my news from the radio, or online, depending on where I happen to be driving. National Public Radio is my drug of choice, but I usually try to tune in to the EIB network to hear what the take is from that end.
This week I had the opportunity to watch some news on television, something my schedule doesn’t always lend itself to anymore. The footage and the stories are truly disheartening.
So it is with a heavy heart that I come to the second Sunday of Advent, when we’ve focused on peace, we’ve heard a reading on peace, we’ve lit the candle, and we’ve prayed for it. And though we may to some degree be experiencing peace in our respective lives, it is perhaps the most elusive of gifts, for we do not see it in the greater world around us. Not by a long shot. Even the local news is anything but peaceful. We hear of arsons, and shootings, and wrecks, and attempted escapes, even in this relatively quiet corner of the world.
The image in today’s passage – at the very beginning of the Gospel according to Mark, is of John proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, the promised one, and in that proclamation, there is a foreshadowing of the turmoil to come. We’ve read the passages, John didn’t have just a few followers, he had CROWDS following him – coming to him for baptism – for the forgiveness of sins.
Do you remember what it was like to be confronted with your own fallen-ness, your own brokenness? Coming to grips with one’s sinfulness is not a soothing experience. For me, it usually involves pain and sorrow beyond words – and even anger – at the realization that, as much as I try to let Christ govern my life, his is not always the voice that commands, that prevails.
So Jesus DID come to proclaim the ‘favorable year of the LORD,’ but he did not promise us peace on this earth, in this life.
We may catch glimpses of it, dim reflections … as Paul says, “through a glass, dimly.” Can you think of any? I had the opportunity to witness one of those moments yesterday morning, when baby Alejandro first came back from the nursery to be with his mother and father. There is something eternal and transcendent in the sight of a new family forming, something that speaks so strongly of hope, and a hope in the future, that even when conditions are anything but in their favor, the first response is to smile and thank God for the miracle of life.
But then life HAPPENS. And we have all seen and know that life is anything BUT peaceful. Even in the pursuit of peace, there is danger.
Last weekend, and in the days since, there have been several abductions in Iraq. In one, a British citizen, two Canadians, and a U.S. citizen were abducted. Night before last the reports started coming out that the group responsible for the abduction stated that the men would all be killed unless Iraqi detainees are not released by this coming Thursday.
We’ve grown … what? Somewhat immune (is that the word?) to the reports, haven’t we, that this many soldiers and that many civilians were killed in a car-bombing in Baghdad, that so many Iraqi police trainees were slaughtered … how is it that such devastating, heart-rending news is summarized in a two or three sentence note trimmed to fit the timeslot, and we go on with our lives.
The four men are members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a program born out of the Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches in the United States and Canada. Denominations that have from their beginnings taken to heart Jesus’ beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount – ‘blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ – and their pursuit of peace may end up costing these men their lives. It has yet to be seen.
I fully realize that there are radically differing views on the war in Iraq and on the reasons for the war – a fact that is drilled into me by my choice of radio listening, if nothing else. I am at a loss when it comes to trying to find some resolution to the situation. I’m not that smart.
But I do know one thing.
Christ calls us to follow him, to be like him. And though his call does initially cause distress, it ultimately results in peace. And so I pray for peace – spiritual as well as emotional and physical – military and political. His promise IS for peace, ultimately.
It is one of his given names – the Prince of Peace. But this Prince of Peace has told us in his own words –
34 ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
(Matthew 10)
Jesus knows to whom he is speaking. He knows the human heart. He knows the passions of the human spirit, and he understood that what he was bringing into the world would first strain and even tear the fabric of our existence, for we live in a world that is NOT as it should be, it is NOT as it was originally intended, neither the physical world nor the spiritual and emotional one.
Simply stated, we live in a world in which peace is absent.
So we pray for peace, we work for peace, we seek peace in much the same way that we seek and pray for and work for the Kingdom of Heaven: in the expectation of its fulfillment, not in the reality of its full presence.
So our concentration on peace this day is with a yearning and a hope that it will one day BE – not only in our hearts, but in the greater work of creation around us.
And how are we to prepare the way for the Prince of Peace?
By nurturing, encouraging, strengthening the peace in our own lives that he has already planted there, by sharing that peace, by living OUT that peace, by living IN that peace in relationship with each other. We are, after all, the representation of God’s glory on earth.
How true to that glory are we being?
Let’s pray.
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