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| The Sermon of St John the Baptist, Pieter Brueghel the Elder; 1566 Creative Commons |
Every time I watched a movie about the end of the world,
I just knew, without a doubt, that if such a situation should ever occur -you know, vampires, earthquakes, zombies, whatever-
I was one of the few that would make it to the end.
I was prepared, I wouldn’t bend under pressure, I had nerves of steel.
After all, as a police officer I had executed search warrants,
-Sometimes high risk search warrants- where you never knew what was lurking behind the door.
I had executed felony traffic stops following high speed pursuits, unfazed by the adrenaline or my elevated heart rate.
I had even participated combat operations in Iraq as an Infantry Marine.
Steady hands, level head, and mostly due to the fact that I was always, always, always, prepared.
Then one spring afternoon, my wife informed me that it was time for us to go to the hospital because we were going to have a baby.
Being the anchor, the rock that I am, I took my wife’s bag that had been PRE-packed and loaded it into my truck.
I secured my wife and her passenger into the passenger’s side seat and made certain they were both securely buckled into the vehicle.
I ran back through the house, made sure all the animals were prepared, the house was prepared, and I grabbed my own overnight bag -my “go-bag” which had also been PRE-packed- which was waiting by the front door as I secured the entire house.
I started up my truck as I prepared to transport my pregnant wife to the hospital, the same way I did, at least, once a week over that final month of her pregnancy.
The same route I also would travel on foot at least once a week, during my long weekly runs.
I turned my truck toward the main road -aware of my speed, obeying all traffic laws, and utilizing my turn signals-
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| The Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh; 1889 Public Domain |
Then, as I was waiting for the light to turn green… I turned right on red.
“Where are you going?” my wife asked
I assured her that I had made a split second decision to get us to the hospital faster.
I think she almost believed me until we arrived at the next intersection.
“Left, Left, Left, Left!!!!” my wife reminded me.
By the time we arrived in the hospital parking lot, my wife was tenderly rubbing my back and advising me to breathe slowly in through my nose and out through my mouth.
Kindly, she lied to me that evening, after our child had been born, and assured me that I did a good job getting her there safely.
That night I realized something
No matter how prepared I was for many things, there are some things that we can never be prepared for, in fact;
The best way to prepare for some things is just to be honest about how unprepared we actually are.
I am still unprepared to be a father, and I proved that when I got lost again, going to that same hospital when our second child was being born.
~
In today’s gospel, we once again hear of John the Baptizer.
This story always falls into the second week of Advent, emphasizing the importance of preparation.
After all, that is John’s primary function.
John serves an important role, one that was important for all rulers and kings.
John is the one who is tasked with announcing that the Lord, the King, the Ruler of a particular territory is entering into that very neighborhood or province.
This allows the Lord’s subjects, to put their best foot forward, to get all their ducks in a row, to mind their p’s and q’s, or as John quotes from Isaiah to “Make the Lord’s paths straight.”
John is a bit eccentric, one could say.
He certainly has a taste for the theatrics and is definitely a charismatic leader.
Matthew’s take is interesting, because unlike Luke,
Matthew makes no mention of John’s heritage.
John, according to Luke, had every right to take up a special place in the temple as a high priest.
A privilege that was not only reserved for distinct communities, but was passed down from fathers to sons.
And while Luke points out John’s potential inherited advantage
Matthew chooses to emphasize John’s repentance or turning away from this special privilege to serve as a high priest.
Matthew shows John’s “turning away” by emphasizing a description of John in the wilderness.
Not only his location but his attire, his food, even his very actions.
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| Saint John the Baptist, El Greco; 1600 Public Domain |
John is the very definition of a spectacle.
But it is the spectacle of John the Baptizer that attracts people from far and wide.
People who are coming to the most remote place, to witness a religious figure that is anything but a high priest in the temple.
The spectacle that has drawn crowds so large, that John has attracted the attention of the Sadducees and Pharisees.
Not high priests themselves but perhaps having been sent by the high priests to investigate.
Sadducees and Pharisees, devout classes of religious leaders who didn’t always see eye to eye.
The Sadducees, who denied certain beliefs as heretical, such as an afterlife and the Pharisees who embraced the notion of an afterlife.
They differed on how they read scripture, on politics, and even on religious practice.
But it seems like John, and later Jesus, have a particular knack for bringing them both together.
And although we usually see these figures as adversarial, I would argue that they are no more adversarial than any of the other sinners, prostitutes, thieves, and tax collectors that Jesus encounters later on.
With one exception, they THINK that they are prepared.
So, most conclude that these biblical “bad guys” are coming around to spy on John and to turn him in to the high priests and the political elites back in Jerusalem.
Maybe they were, but no one really knows from Matthew’s account.
One thing we do know, is that these Sadducees and Pharisees -regardless of the intentions that brought them there- seem to have taken an interest in being baptized themselves.
So, why would John not celebrate these men?
Add them to his flock, which seems to already be quite an extensive island of misfit toys!?
John does come off a bit exclusive and snarky if we are to read it this way.
But we can’t avoid the text,
It’ll come back around the same time next year just a different gospel account.
But that may be the oddest thing about John’s story.
Because while an extensive description of Jesus’ birth can only be found in one Gospel,
John’s ministry opens all four gospel accounts in our New Testament cannon.
Think about that, the story of Jesus’ birth only occurs in two Gospel accounts; Matthew and Luke,
Luke being the far more extensive account.
And only in Luke do we find an account of Jesus’ childhood at all.
Yet in all four accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; there is the story of John the Baptizer, demanding that we repent, turn away from our regular lives to be prepared.
Or maybe, John is just trying to encourage us to recognize that none of us will ever be prepared for what is to come?
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This Sunday, I am sure that a number of pastors will address this issue and most certainly they should.
How do we prepare for Christmas?
Our preparation for the coming of our Lord is, after all, the central theme of this entire liturgical season.
But perhaps we need to question what is the best practice in preparing?
On Thursday, we flipped our calendars to December
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| Going to Work, LS Lowry; 1943 Public Domain |
Which means that businesses and many folks who had not dusted off their reindeer antlers, Rudolph noses, Santa hats, and jingle bells, have probably pulled them out of the mothballs by now.
And once everything is in place, the controversy will ensue.
A particular coffee company will present a cup with a snowflake rather than a picture of a reindeer, and everyone will know that war has officially been declared on Christmas.
Someone will be offended when they are asked to refrain from wearing their full blown Santa Claus costume to staff meetings
And while many find “Happy Holidays” to be the most offensive greeting imaginable,
I think John would have a different take when we pull out our big “…and a MERRY CHRISTMAS to you!” guns.
Because it isn’t Christmas yet, it is Advent.
And confronting those who don’t know the first thing about the hope we find in Christ, may do less to invite them to discover that hope for themselves.
It might do more to show ourselves to be an ill prepared brood of vipers.
The Sadducees and Pharisees aren’t wrong for showing up, and they aren’t wrong for seeking out the opportunity to be baptized.
Where they have gone wrong, is in thinking that their place makes them already prepared for their Messiah that has not yet even come.
Because what John is pointing out, is that everyone is ill prepared for the Messiah that has already arrived, in fact a Messiah, that at this point has been born, in Matthew, a mere two chapters ago and is now a grown man.
They are ill prepared because they don’t even realize that it is already too late to prepare for the Messiah that is COMING, because he’s already here.
And the message should not have changed all that much, because we too are preparing for the Messiah who’s already come, the Messiah that is still present with us today, in this meal and in the reminder of our baptisms, and yes, we prepare for the Messiah to come.
Because if we are to approach our baptisms the way John sees the Pharisees and Sadducees preparing, we aren’t seeking out a true baptism into the Body of Christ,
We are seeking out a lucky rabbit’s foot, just in case the Messiah shows up,
a little insurance to make sure we can get our card stamped.
What John wants the Pharisees, the Sadducees, his followers, the world, and US to realize,
is that baptism is not about eternal life, baptism is about living into an existence far beyond our own lives.
Much in the same way that Christmas is not about the beautifully wrapped gifts under a carefully decorated evergreen tree,
It’s about being the gift to this world that God has called us to be in our baptisms, as we kneel beneath that tree +.
Amen
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| Ascension of Christ, Attributed to Dossi Dossi; 16th Century Public Domain |
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