WATCHWORD:
The Second Sunday of Advent
3 The voice of him that cried out in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Isaiah 40:3-5
3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; 6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Luke 3:3-6
Meditation:
And Along Came John
This is where John enters the Christmas storyline, and then fits nicely into his new name, The Baptist. It’s a name that he earns even to martyrdom.
It is a familiar story for us, for we all know that Jesus and John the Baptist knew each other since childhood. We know that Mary, after she was told by an angel that she would become the mother of the Messiah, made the journey from Nazareth all the way to John’s mother’s home when she was several months pregnant. And so it was that the two apparently got along very well.
John, when he grew up, embarked on a very special kind of mission, to be the forerunner of the Messiah. How he knew that this would be his purpose, we do not know. But we know that he spent some time with the Essenes, a group of strict observance Jews waiting for the Messiah, where he felt quite at home.
Of course, as the years passed, Jesus himself grew to manhood, left the carpenter’s bench and went off into the Jordan Valley where he was baptized by John. And so His story of ministry began.
In Biblical history, John the Baptist is a wonderful figure, a very courageous man. Maybe he could get a little out of hand he was so dedicated to the coming of the kingdom of God and the meaning of what God was doing. John knew that whatever God did was not out of revenge for sin, as some people think, he was doing it to save and heal the people that somehow had turned away from Him.
So it was that John the Baptist’s message was “Repent,” a message that is sometimes misunderstood. His message wasn’t repent the way we think about it, the begging for forgiveness for real or imaged ‘sins’, sack cloth and ashes, etc. No, John’s repentance was something quite different. He was using a word that may best be understood in the Greek, where a word has multiple meanings. John used a word for repentance that means, “Come back to the Lord,” or “turn your life around”. Stop walking all around avoiding the presence of God, full of harm for yourself and hopelessness for others, and come back. He is calling, the Messiah is here.
Anyone who stood in the way, often Pharisees and Sadducees who thought that they were spokesmen for God and spoke a very, very harsh kind of religion, a religion of rules and regulations that had no heart and no feeling. When John the Baptist turned on them, his anger burned, because they would see sin as breaking the law.
But John knew that sin was a failure to love, and it still is. So be it.
Bulletin Board:
The Hebrew word ‘Sin’ literally means missing the mark or turning from God.
Prayer of the Day:
Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son. By his coming nurture our growth as people of repentance and peace; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
