Repent and Follow - Advent 2

Luke 3:1-6 “1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ””

The Advent story is about waiting, preparing, anticipating the hope of Christ’s birth. We heard this last week — wait and hope! Watch for the signs.

Today, our message shifts to remind us the waiting takes place amidst political turmoil and the pressure of imperial power that overshadows the people of Judea. We hear of Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas — political and religious elite whose names mark the era. These are not the years of our Lord Christ, no, these are the years of the Caesar and the power of strict religious rule.

To wait in hope is to be able to nurture this little spark of faith in the coldest season, the deepest night. To stand up, if only for oneself and family, with internal resistance to the greater powers who would demand allegiance. This is a time when prophets speak up and get punished for it. This is a time when the poor are held in their suffering, doors are closed for pilgrims on their journey, and the king of the world, Christ, is born in a stable. The world is upside down.

Using the metaphor from our passage — the road is winding, like a maze, rolling and tumbling and uncertain on the way. But the one who is coming, the one who brings forgiveness and wholeness — this is the one who will make clear the path.

So how do God’s people participate in this new way of life while all the pressures of the external forces bear down on them?

Don’t we also ask these kind of questions? How do we remain faithful when so much demands that we turn away from God’s leading and follow lesser things.

We need the powerful, liberating words of John the Baptist. John, as we know, is a wild man, a man out in the wilderness, crying out in a thunderous voice — Prepare! John doesn’t seem to worry about upsetting the established order. John, the son of Zechariah, temple priest. Zechariah, who unlike his son, has been one who chose to laugh at God’s promises and finds himself silent before his son’s birth.

And so we have John. Son of the once silent priest. Cousin of the Christ child whose birth narrative has just been told in the preceeding 2 chapters of Luke. John, the man in the wilderness who has received the word of the Lord to proclaim to God’s people.

And what does he say? Repent!

John quotes the great prophet Isaiah, tugging on the heartstrings of the people. The people who had known exile and seen God return them to the land of promise. The people who had awaited a savior and witnessed countless revolutions try and fail to overthrow Roman power. The people who had wondered at the years of God’s own silence, the time of wandering and dispersion throughout the Mediterranean Sea.

To these people, John calls for baptism — be washed in the forgiving love of God.

To Repent is to turn and leave behind our old ways. It is tied in with baptism because to be baptized is to be ritually washed clean, to turn away from the former ways of the self and receive belonging in the family of God as a new creation.

John does not mince words, but says it plainly — be batized, repent, and know that God is going to do the great work of leveling the heights of the mountains, straightening the twisted paths — God is going to bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly. God is going to clear the paths for people to return to God that have seemingly been blocked.

All flesh shall see the salvation of God, John declares.

If last week, you wondered what are we waiting for, what do we hold hope for, well here it is: that the coming Messiah is the one who will make all things level, equitable, right, again.

A brief interlude regarding how we might be tempted to read John’s use of Isaiah. We may be tempted to see this with a sense of triumphalism as we hear about the one who would come to level all high places (which would be places of worship and power) and lift up all the valleys (which could sound like flooding over the places where the poor may perhaps dwell). This text is often mistaken to be a rally cry to justify Christian nationalistic feelings, where we wish to see God take up the seat of power or wish to see a flattened world as a righteous outcome, not ever taking into account what such a leveling would truly require of us — that we actually lift up the poor, that we actually give away our riches, that we actually undermine the powers of privilege and position to bring equity and freedom to all. But if we are not tempted to go down this path, if we remain faithful to the hope that Christ liberates all — then we can hear vs. 6 not as a justification that all would be placed under the thumb of yet another tyrant ruler, but instead, that all creation would see wholeness and healing, the salvation of God — this is a demanding and remarkably different way.

When we consider what it means to prepare the way of the Lord, to witness the salvation of all flesh, we realize that we have a choice to make. We can join in the remaking of things with Jesus, the loving restoration that lifts up all people. Or we can resist, reinforcing our own place of power, maintaining the status quo to protect our own interests and position.

This is where Advent gets radical, uncomfortable, and rich. We are called to look for the places of great leveling that God is up to and seek out our own ways to participate in it as well.

To love our neighbors is to seek their flourishing and wholeness as well. Not just for this season of giving, but for all time and in all things. We are to tend to John’s words by preparing, in ourselves, a capacity to take part in the great leveling of power. We are to make ready our own hearts so that we might make room for the Messiah to dwell in us and form our lives.

As I’ve thought about repentance and restoration this week, I can’t get the dramatic ending of the 1983 Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, out of my mind.

There is the final showdown battle in the throne room of the Emperor, where Luke Skywalker and his father, Darth Vader, are fighting to the death while the Emperor looks on and laughs.

Luke is gravely injured. Darth Vader has the opportunity to finish him off. The Emperor has joined in and begins attacking Luke as well.

And then there’s this close up shot of Darth Vader’s mask. No emotion can be seen, since his black mask covers his entire head. But something happens in Vader in that moment, there is a turning, a shift in his body. He watches his son in pain and something clicks — he must rescue this poor boy. The camera pans across Vader’s face and we see him turn — not to attack Luke, but with all his remaining power, to pick up the Emperor and hurl him into an energy conduit shaft into the core of the Death Star.

We see repentance here. We see a turning. Vader goes, in one long shot of his helmet, from evil and menacing to compassionate and sacrificial. He repents. He turns.

We know the rest of the story. The Emperor “dies”, Luke and Vader live. Vader takes his last breaths without his mask on, looking into the face of his son with love and regret, pain and restoration. He rejoins the light side of the Force, having repented of his violent ways, and comes home to his son, even as he dies.

I love this scene for its cinematic quality. But it seems to me it rightly figures the act of repentance that John is talking about.

For us to repent is to be able to turn, to shift, to look a different direction. Do we hear John saying it to us today: turn! repent! be baptized, make a new covenant, turn your allegiance over to the true King. This is what we are being instructed to do as we prepare during Advent.

First, we foster hope in our waiting. But then, we also turn, repent, and begin a new path.

So, this morning, today, at this juncture in the Advent season — what must you turn from? I could give you a list of all the things I know I need to repent of and change and turn from. Perhaps now truly is the time to begin.

What voice do you hear crying out to you, calling for your repentance and your wholeness? Do you hear John? Do you hear Jesus? Repent, receive the good news, start the journey again in the righteous direction.

Repent, turn, find hope.

Here again is the promise of what this repentance leads to:

The New Revised Standard Version The Proclamation of John the Baptist

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5 Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

May this be so in us, in our lives, and in our Advent. Amen.