The Second Sunday of Advent

December 7, 2008

Year B

Mark 1: 1-8

St. Francis, Norris

John the Baptist has always been one of my favorite biblical personalities. By the way, John the Baptist is not the founder of the Southern Baptist convention…just in case you were wondering. I think I like John the Baptist because he was eccentric. Perhaps he was just a bit crazy, at least according to standard behavior traits.

We have very little descriptive passages of what Jesus may have looked like, but we almost always form a visual image of this wild man from the wilderness, when we read about him coming to baptize and foretell of the coming of the messiah. We even get to hear of his diet and his clothing because it was so unusual.

What does it mean; he came out of the wilderness? The wilderness was the place between the center of Judea and the Dead Sea. It was basically a place that was uninhabitable. It was hot, rocky and dry. It was a place of desolation and solitude. More importantly, that desolation and solitude made it a place where a person could hear God…or even Satan in some cases. Remember this is the same wilderness Jesus goes into to be tempted by Satan immediately after being baptized by this wild man, John. This desolate solitude allows them to listen to their heart. A place where there are no distractions between you and the Spirit.

We don’t know how long John had been living in the wilderness; just that he came out of it to start baptizing. What on earth would cause the people to follow this eccentric in the first place? He wore animal skins and ate nothing but what he was able to scavenge in nature. He puts me in mind of a homeless man living under a bridge. So far, I have not come across a homeless person that I would want to follow.

(Pause)

As I think about it though, maybe that is exactly the kind of person that we are being told will lead us to Christ. When John came out of the wilderness it had been 400 years since the last prophet walked in Israel. That is a lot of time between prophets. That is a long, long silence from God. God had sent numerous prophets with varying degrees of success but as they disappeared so did their message.

Now, here comes John the Baptist, repeating what we heard (some seven hundred years earlier) from the prophet Isaiah. Make straight the paths and lower the mountains and fill-in the valleys. It is a hard road through this desert wilderness but there is a superhighway being built right straight through the middle of it. No sharp curves or steep hills, just smooth and straight easy to travel paths.

There had to be something charismatic about John, in spite of his appearance. Throughout his ministry he had a large following. He remained in touch with Jesus even from his prison cell. It seems that he had doubts from prison as to whether Jesus was the one or should we wait for another? He was feared by the Roman authorities as a dissenter to whom the masses listened. This implies to me that in some areas he had a larger following than Jesus at some point. His fierce determination gets him thrown in prison and eventually beheaded by Herods’ command. When Jesus asked who the people were saying that Jesus is, one of the answers was that Jesus was John the Baptist re-incarnated.

But John always knew his role in the plans of God. John knew he was to be the one who comes before the messiah. The emcee that announces and gets everyone exited about the show to come, is his task.

When Sonya and I went to New York a few years ago, we had tickets to the Regis and Kelly Show. Just before the show started, a man came out and warmed us up. He had us practice cheering and showed us the signals he would use to cheer louder or to clap and when to stop. He prepared us for the coming of the stars of the show. That is what John is doing with his baptizing. Preparing us for the coming of the star of the show…Jesus.

We should look at our own baptism in the same way. Baptism is the full initiation into the church. Baptism is the preparation for the coming of Christ into our lives. This is one of the reasons that I favor infant baptism. Jesus is certainly capable of becoming a part of a young child’s life even before there is a mature understanding of what that might mean.

John realizes that his role is only that of the introducer. He realizes that his task is that of preparing the soul. The soul is the wilderness that lives inside of us. Like the desert it can be harsh and unfriendly...even uninhabitable in some cases. Like the desert too, the soul is the place that we can be in total solitude and at one with God. It is the place where we can find peace and hear God speak to us. But we have to first come out of that wilderness, into the world. Just like John. Then we have to prepare the way through that wilderness. We can do that by being baptized with water. This is exactly what John is saying; preparing the way in the wilderness; preparing the way through the soul is not the same as the baptism that Jesus will do with the Holy Spirit.

It is the same as saying that the person who does the baptizing in the church, whether baptizing infant or adult, is only preparing that person to allow Christ to come into their own personal wilderness. They are not putting Christ into that person. They are only preparing the way. The actual change that occurs in that person will only take place when that path into the wilderness has truly been cleared. And that will allow the true baptism—with the Holy Spirit—to take place.

I talked to a young man not too long ago, who professed atheism. I talked with a man struggling, not with God, but with what it means to be Christian and the seeming exclusivity of a religion that constantly professes a desire for inclusiveness. It occurred to me that they are finding their way through their personal wildernesses. In both cases I pray that they will find a way to clear the path. Being stuck in your own personal wilderness is not a pleasant place to be.

The good news is that struggle is the way to clear the path. Contrary to the way some people believe, baptism with water is not some sort of magic that makes you a Christian. We all know lots of people that have been baptized but seem to have difficulty living into that baptism. We all have that struggle if you think about it.

Advent is the season of preparation and waiting. Preparation is another way of saying we are making straight the path. All or most of us have already been baptized with the water…the baptism of John. We need constant maintenance of our roadway through that runs through the wilderness of our souls. Waiting for the celebration of the birth of our Messiah is a perfect time to tackle that maintenance. Take some time during advent to think about this blessed event that is on the near horizon and prepare your wilderness for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. This is the perfect time for preparation. The presence of the Holy Spirit can be seen and heard and sensed in much that is going on around us in the whole world at this time of year. Let it come. Let it come.