All Saints Lutheran Church
December 15, 2002
Pastor Raita Neely
Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28

In our Gospel reading for this morning John the Baptist describes himself as a voice in the wilderness-surely the last place you would expect to hear a voice. Somewhere out in the sand and the wind and the singing silences of the desert, John lived beneath the scorching sun and the shining stars, eating his organic food, and listening, listening for God's still, small voice.

Then suddenly, at the right time, at the time God had designated, like some solitary crag towering above the banks of the Jordan river, John loomed bigger than life and began preaching. His words were like a hot wind off the desert, searing the hearts and souls of the people. Like rolling thunder, his voice shook the Jordan Valley. He was a life giving storm building in the arid, lifeless desert, bringing new life to his people.

John had a message to bring. He attacked entrenched evil in high places and in low. The world around him seemed to have lost touch with God. Religion had split up into warring factions: The Pharisees were teaching a morality that nobody could keep; the Sadducees were making the church simply a place to collect and disburse money, and the Zealots were determined to root out, in the name of God, anyone they considered uncommitted, disloyal, or subversive. People seemed to have all the little answers without having asked the big questions.

In John's view, people seemed to have made God's good world a dangerous place in which to live. His concern for pollution went beyond air and water, it went straight to the peoples' hearts. Like so many others, he had almost given up on religion as it was practiced in Jerusalem. He did not see it doing what God had intended it to do. Religion in John's day was only interested in keeping its status quo, being careful not to upset the powers who were in charge of church or country. John was fearless. He upset them all.

He was somewhat like the small boy who, concealing a cap gun in his pocket before going to church, let the preacher get about halfway through the sermon before whipping out the gun. At the loud bang that rang out over the congregation everybody seemed to jump about two feet. The father grabbed the boy by the arm and hustled him down the aisle. As he got to one of the back pews, a matriarch of the congregation stood and said, "Don't take the boy out. He scared the hell out of more people today than our preacher has in the last ten years."

John affected people in just that way. He had no credentials, no ordination, no church, no choir. He was just a plain man - an honest, angry man taking dead aim at the personal and political dishonesty he saw all around him. He was taking dead aim at the greed and sin that he saw spreading ruin everywhere.

The surprising thing was, in spite of his tough message all kinds of people came to sit by the banks of the Jordan to listen to him - the curious and the hostile as well as the hopeful. They came with their endless questions and their empty lives. But then, how well do any of us know our lives? I know people who know more about the workings of their computers than they do about the inner workings of their own hearts. I know people who earn a lot of money, but they don't take time for their family and could not name three friends with whom they can share their joys or their sorrows. I know people who only think of themselves and have never invested themselves in those who need them. John had a message for the empty ones.

"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness 'Make straight the way of the Lord."' John was quoting the prophet Isaiah. And what does Isaiah say is the purpose of all this construction? "So that the glory of the Lord may be revealed for all the world to see!" John's message for Advent is that God wants every person in the entire world to know the power and the glory of God.

This hard, dark, bony desert prophet knew that God wanted to be known in a different way and to move in our history in a new way. John invited people to become part of that process and to get ready for it. He wanted people to turn around and put their lives and their society in order, to get ready - for God was approaching in a new way. They had time to do it -so do we. The question is do we want to?

In this post Watergate, post Clinton era, I hear people saying, "You can't change human nature. That's the way people have always been. That's the way it will go on." But don't we all have something to say about what our reality will be like?

I've heard some say, Well, everything would be all right if we could just get back to the ethics of our forefathers. I wonder. Did people really live more ethical lives in 1933, or 1900, or 1845? 1 doubt it. If you read history at all, you notice there have always been a mix of people and their attitudes and motives. The people who founded this country certainly didn't trust any supposed goodness of the people who lived here. They built an elaborate system of checks and balances into our government precisely because they felt they could not always trust people.

"Make straight the way of the Lord!" How might you and I do that? John's answer: Repent. Last week Pastor Tim preached on repentance. His sermon would be well worth revisiting today, you can pick up a copy by the Welcome center. What we all know is: that selfishness, jealousy, envy, greed and lust just to name a few of our stumbling blocks all have the same deadly effects on us and our life in society that they've always had. Each culture defines this brokeness in different ways.

An old Cherokee Indian was teaching his young grandson about life as they sat by the fire. "A battle is raging inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil .... he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. But the other wolf is good ... he is joy, peace, love,, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." "Young man," he continued, "This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person too." The grandson peered into the flames of the fire and thought about this for a time, then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old man simply replied, "The one you feed."

Knowing Jesus and trusting him to guide your life you learn to feed the good wolf. Jesus came to put you and me in touch with God and with the life God intends us to live. As you lean on Scripture to make your decisions, as you listen to Jesus and search how he lived his life, you learn to feed the good wolf.

Once you've discovered Jesus' way of living, and the joy that He brings you He calls you to a mission that God has placed upon every one of us: to open up a path to God for others who are in need of God's love and grace. John is telling us that because of Jesus' coming into our world we have wonderful news to tell.

Our relationship to God is not a "consumer faith" in which everything is neatly packaged for us and all we have to do is pick it off the shelf when we need it. Nor is faith a "let someone else do it" affair in which we allow a dedicated few to bum themselves out doing the tasks which belong to all of us. John is saying that Advent road building requires the active involvement of every one of us year around. He is saying we are to build these roads everywhere - into our jobs, our schools, our communities, our neighborhoods-anywhere and everywhere we go!

We like to say, "Actions speak louder than words" if this is true, then at Christmas God has virtually shouted to the world that God cares enough to enter the place we live and bring light to the dark places in our lives that we cannot seem to light on our own. Christmas light is about an end to isolation and despair that even our best efforts can't seem to fix., Christmas is about hope when the stage of life is the darkest. Christmas is about a future that God has provided for eternity when death appears to be the final word in life.

We need to hear this message again and again. Somehow the passage of time takes a subtle toll on our spirits. Because it happens little by little, even to the most dedicated believers, we usually don't notice it. Then, one day it suddenly gets dark and we wonder what happened.

John's Advent message to you and me is: tell each other the glad news that God is even now living among us. Our glad news is that we can care for each other, work with each other. We know more of the story than John did. We can confess: The Messiah has come, He has lived among us, He died for you and me, his sign is on each one of us who believe in him. His Spirit still gathers, enlightens and brings to faith. Joy and peace to you as you listen to Jesus, learn from him and walk your Advent days in your Savior's company.

Amen.