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Preparing your way through the wilderness of this life is simply to be the change God needs you to be. Change takes time, we expect too much and are of course, impatient and unforgiving. These were the first few thoughts the Holy Spirit had float up to the top of my mind to where to begin this morning. Probably finishing a 19-page paper reflecting on the body of worship we just finished from All Saints Sunday to Christ the King Sunday was helpful too. My use of the word highway in this morning’s message is twofold: Yes, I am alluding to the pathway, but I am also speaking about one’s pathos.
Truth be told, but John the Baptist is probably one of my
favorite character’s in the greatest story ever told. He was a rugged individual in one sense, and
on the other, he was committed to being God’s messenger. The Biblical language speaks of God’s
messenger as being an “angel.” He was
hardly, an angel, but he lived into being prophetic. A little known and still debated fact about
both he and his cousin, Jesus, is that they may have spent some time in this
ancient order, known as the Essenes. If
anyone ever watches the History channel, they had a wonderful presentation on
this a few years back.
It was a number of years back, that the Dead Sea Scrolls
were discovered in a hidden area that was determined to be the ancient library
of the Essene community. The Essenes
were the rebellious opposite of their somewhat snobby counterparts in Jewish
society, known as the Pharisees. The
Essenes, just like the early church’s beginning monastic movement, dedicated a
life to utter simplicity and humility.
John the Baptist was a true “in your face” preacher who didn’t care
about the luxuries of the everyday, in fact he was known to have eaten bugs and
dressed perhaps a little underneath “Charlie Chaplin’s the ‘Tramp,” ancient
attire. That wasn’t important to him, he
was committed to the “Highway” in both senses of what I mentioned—pathway and
pathos.
Two of my favorite Jesus movies are ‘Godspell,’ the
musical from 1973 and Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ mini-tv series
from 1977. Both versions or depictions of John the Baptist are wonderful. In ‘Godspell,’ he almost looks like a cross
between a conductor and the Burger King mascot.
In ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ we would probably think that he looks and acts
like a crazed homeless man screaming his endless thoughts into the air. Michael York does an excellent job at
capturing the passion and energy that John the Baptist was known to have. Let us remember, he had a hard job ahead of
him, he had to prepare the Way for the coming of the King!
It is a tragedy that the New Century hymnal doesn’t
include the hymn—‘Prepare the Royal Highway…’ It is lovely and says exactly
what he intended to do. His was a voice
that lived into Isaiah’s echo by crying into the wilderness of our lives to be reined
into the Gospel with hope-filled expectation. Christianity is indebted to the
voice of Isaiah, since his prophecy carried down to us, began to reveal the
story of the King of Kings, the messiah, the Christ. The Essene community’s Dead Sea scrolls contained,
an unknown version of the prophet Isaiah dated some 900 years earlier than what
was originally handed down thousands of years before. Isaiah like John the Baptist, was a voice
filled with the Holy Spirit. Both Isaiah
and John the Baptist fully incorporated the Spirit of God calling them to truly
be messengers.
One of the beginning scenes in ‘Godspell,’ is where the
John the Baptist character is blowing his bugle to be heard throughout the
hustle and noise of New York City. I
actually use this beginning song as my default ringtone. Leo played the piano version as our prelude
this morning—Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.
I love that scene, especially where the people who would soon become
Jesus’ disciples, begin to drop what they’re doing and run towards the center
of where the Baptist is bugling and singing. Of course, by this time, he is at
a New York City fountain ready to Baptize them all. In the Jesus of Nazareth tv miniseries, he is
atop a hill nearing towards the Jordan river shouting his hopes to call those
to metanoia. Bet I made you think there,
good! Metanoia literally means to change
the inner person. This changing of the
inner person we could relate to being or having a change of heart.
From our days in discipleship school the past several
months, having a change of heart or turning the heart to God is reaping, you
guessed it, that New Nature. This is our
active role in reconciling to God or in heavier language, seeking
repentance. Now if I began with the word
repentance, I’m sure it would’ve unfortunately turned you away from hearing
what God grace hopes for us to hear. The
Advent of New life in the world isn’t just the incarnation of Christ being born
into humanity by the God Bearer, Mary, but the New life He would teach us to
bear later on through the voice of His Cross.
What a powerful image and short message said right
there—the voice of His Cross. In John
the Baptist’s case, it would be his head on a platter as ordered through
Salome. The voice crying through the wilderness of Judea however, wasn’t
silenced by the depravity and great evil of Herod Agrippa and Salome… as soon as he turned the spiritual page of
perceptions from the Old Testament to the New, by Baptizing Christ, which we
will hear about during the Epiphany season, the New Covenant would see its
Genesis! Speaking of Baptisms, the now
broken structure of what we have as “church,” unfortunately has simplified the
understanding of Baptism down to being merely an initiation rite to simply
begin a membership in the “church…”
Christianity is truly more, about the church within our very being—the
heart is the first church and the place for the Holy Spirit to shape us, direct
us to where we need to go.
Just this past Tuesday, we saw a glimpse of glorious hope
for our future, as a Body to gather before we scatter with living into God’s
Word. What a wonderful sneak-preview of
endless hope and expectation to dream into!
The only thing for me which became a source of humor for a number of us
seeing this new potential space, was figuring out what on earth we would do
with a giant swimming pool in the backyard!
Both you and I don’t necessarily subscribe to full-immersion baptism yet
alone can imagine potential problems.
Yes, I could go into the shallow area with an infant but if he or she
slips out of my arms we are in deep doo doo. All humor aside, another way I saw
that swimming pool was thinking about how God provides and sends different
messages to us of hope. All that water,
the well of life, an infinite collection of Baptismal waters from many new
families, children coming to join our humble church family is the great message
of Hope I saw.
Today’s scriptures are the spark to the Hope that Christ
truly provides us with. In our preparing,
our way to serve the Lord, God provided.
He first had us challenged to take that gigantic and perhaps nearly
terrifying leap of faith to DO it—create change. This was lifting our voices, working with
others and getting over the hurdle of fear of thinking we’re too small to do it…
BUT we did it and I say, Thanks Be to God!
I know, we still gotta vote on things, dot our I’s and cross our tees,
but we did it! When I transferred to
finish my seminary studies from LSTC to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I
was, at first scared and still lacked the full confidence God is still helping
me to grow within myself, but I applied got scholarships for church planting
and preaching, and helped to plant 2 churches and one church ministry, from
ground zero. That Easter Sunday of 2012,
was in some senses an affirmation of my Baptism in seeing something wonderfully
NEW on the horizon that I knew would both change my heart and my life forever
onward from that point.
The blood, sweat and tears of preparation towards that
fateful Easter Sunday of 2012, saw its Genesis in a congregants’ dining room
“church” several months earlier. All
things are possible through God who always is trying to get through our thick
heads and sometimes closed minds to live into that New life! Hope has truly
proven itself to be our cause and effect. These are the fruits of God’s efforts
to be “still speaking,” in our everyday lives.
He and John the Baptist have one thing in common, they never tire. Well,
John’s voice was silenced in one sense but saw its genesis and resurrection
through the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus is our giant swimmin’ pool in that backyard at our potential new
church home. Look if the Beverly
Hillbillies could turn their swimmin’ pool into “Sea Man’s Pond…” then, so can
we!
A lasting word to reflect upon from this morning’s
message to you or should I say before you: Preaching is the fruit of God’s
witness, not in just my life, but never say never on being a bold witness,
voice in the wilderness of the East side of Vegas. Being God’s messenger is our
challenge to tapping into and reaping that New life Christ instilled in
us. We are once again, growing towards
the witness of its humble beginning to come in a barn shed in the midst of
Bethlehem. John the Baptist turned the world’s page towards the royal
highway. He transitioned the world to
begin to be overflowing with hope-filled expectation for coming of the King of
Kings… We have transitioned as the Body
to move from the “East” or Eastern Avenue down south, perhaps further into the
desert, but hardly into a wilderness we can’t continue to grow and change from,
in more ways than one.
Let us Pray,
Gracious and Loving Lord
We thank You for all of Your messengers,
You have sent humanity over the eons of Your timing
We thank You for the voice, prophecy, boldness of both the
Prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist
May their witness further enlighten us to change our
inner person
Seek reconciling ourselves to You and through Your Grace
With the fruits of Our lives lived in Hope-filled
expectation.
Help us continue to Prepare the Way for You, Gracious
Lord.
AMEN
December 10th,
2017; Second Sunday of Advent; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 85;
Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15; Mark 1:1-8
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am:
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