"Are
you ready for Christmas?" is the question of the day in many casual
conversations. No one expects us to answer yes, but our questioners don't
really want to hear the litany of how
unready we are. Our Advent season
of preparation in church is only a moderate help in resisting the glitter of
Christmas. And according to some
measures, we are already ready,
for much Christmas celebrating has come and gone. The Liturgical Theater has presented their seasonal drama "Christmas in Oz," followed up by the Grove Christmas parade. Holiday parties for our various groups
and organizations, even within the church, are over. My gifts for out-of-town family are in the mail –
hallelujah! Of course, there are
some good reasons why we charge ahead during Advent with so much of our
Christmas celebrating; everyone's social schedule is complex and full. And here at Grace, we know that lots of
folks will be traveling elsewhere for Christmas itself, so we don't want to
miss out on the rejoicing altogether.
We had wonderful evening singing Christmas carols on Friday. I hear in many of our conversations the
eager anticipation of holding a new great-grandbaby and of sharing the delight
of a family Christmas.
Speaking
of travel, as you drive out west of town, you have noticed that we are in the
beginning stages of more highway work.
So far, the re-laying of pipes and cables prepares for the more
extensive and time-consuming addition of two more lanes of highway from town
all the way to Sailboat Bridge to match the Honey Creek crossing on the south
side of town. One more step
toward making travel smoother and faster into and out of Grove, though highway
traffic will be disrupted for a long time during the main construction. I thought of all these things while
reading Luke's introduction to the appearance of John the Baptist. Borrowing from the prophet Isaiah, Luke
informs us that John the Baptist will be urging us toward some major roadwork
to prepare for God's appearance among us in Jesus. John's appearance only one week before we expect to see
Jesus laid gently in the manger is not a warm fuzzy "Christmasy"
reassurance. His approach to
Christmas preparation is not part of our popular culture's nativity story. The preparation that John lays out for
us is not a gathering up of gifts, nor a friendly holiday dinner with family
and friends, but a giving away, a turning around, a significant reconstruction
in our lives.
Before
Luke announces John's arrival, he has named all the important people of the day
– Emperor Tiberias, Pontius Pilate, local rulers Herod and his brother
Philip, the high priests Annas and Caiaphas. This is no "once upon a time" fairy tale story; Luke wants
us to focus on God's entry into history.
Enter the fire and brimstone prophet John who throws a few curveballs to
us readers. For one thing, he
comes proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and then he seems surprised that the
crowds gather to take advantage of his offer. He begins his sermon with a caustic greeting that would get
me booed out of the pulpit - "you brood of vipers!", he thunders. He questions
their motives and suggests that they just want to coast by on their family
connections. It is not completely
clear how baptism was viewed in Judaism – purification using water is
common to many religions, including Judaism, and apparently Gentile converts to
Judaism were baptized before circumcision. So, maybe John was wiping the slate clean in offering
baptism to the whole crowd of Jews and Gentiles alike, surprising his listeners
by putting Gentiles on an equal footing with Jews, something Jesus will do as
well.
Yet,
for all John's scary wildness, his bark is worse than his bite. He gives rather surprising answers to
the crowds' question – "What then should we do?" in this time of waiting for
the ax to fall, for the Messiah to come.
This crowd seems eager for change and John has some empathy with
them. Remember, John came from a
privileged background – his father was a temple priest – yet he
became a rebel prophet carrying only life's bare necessities out into the
wilderness to experience God. So,
he understands his crowd of mostly poor people who also barely have the
necessities of life. He doesn't
throw out handfuls of locusts to the crowd so that they can imitate his
lifestyle, he doesn't encourage them to follow him back into the desert
wilderness. He doesn't tell them
to go to church every Sunday, or pray 6 times a day, or read their Bibles every
day.
He
tells them to make changes in their lives right where they are, to band together
as a group in rejecting the normal, often corrupt, way of getting by. The changes he encourages are
significant, but in continuity with everyday activities. John asks the crowd to give away
everyday essentials, not leftovers.
If you have food (not even more than you need of food), share with those
who do not have any. Or clothing -
two shirts would have been the norm for an average Jew, one for every day and
one for Sabbath. "Give away one,"
says John, "to someone who has no shirt."
Then John turns to the IRS agents and CPAs of his day, the toll
collectors holding franchises who were hated and feared by a burdened
population. "Don't collect more
than is required by law, don't add a fat commission to enrich yourself," though
such were normal "perks" of the job.
Even soldiers (Roman or local mercenaries) were admonished to treat
their civilian subjects fairly, to forego bullying and threats that were
considered normal for military "protectors". John's teaching doesn't let the rich off the hook, but
he is speaking to the average Joe here, he is telling the poor (90% of the
population) to help the destitute.
Such cooperation is contrary to normal expectations, but it is
consistent with John's promise that "all flesh shall see the salvation of God".
We are not poor in the same economic
sense as the crowds who came out to John, but we are bound by certain
expectations, especially in this season of holiday preparation. How might we hear our expectations, our
own everyday lives, being addressed by John? We have trouble focusing on the appearance of the Messiah,
this person of Jesus, because our Christmas culture encourages us to prepare
for that one big day, the "what" rather than the "who" – the tree, the
decorations, the collection of nativity sets, the baking extravaganza, the
special meals, the gifts. Now we
know the truth about Christmas behind all the hype and the buildup, that giving
is better than receiving, but the type of giving that occupies our time and
energy often makes us weary rather than joyful. We are often suckered into a cycle of debt that we would
rather forego. We might welcome
the permission that John offers us to change our habits.
I
spoke to someone a while back who has been trapped in anxiety and depression,
that sense of impending doom that is paralyzing. Christmas had been advancing upon her relentlessly, with the
overwhelming prospect of 42 gifts to buy for people who already have more than
enough stuff. "Repent," cries John
in one ear, "share your food, give away that extra shirt, get off the credit
card express"; "Rejoice" call the prophet Isaiah and the angels in the other
ear, "God is in our midst doing wonderful things." How do we reconcile two apparently contradictory and
impossible commands at this season? My friend makes a dreaded, but necessary, phone call to
her children - "I can't stomach all this gift-buying this year. Let's do
something different." Miracle of
miracles, her daughter agrees to the plan, and a family begins to shift its
giving toward Heifer International and other good causes. The point is relief, freedom, rejoicing
came out of this repentance, this turning away from previous expectations about
Christmas and giving. Sometimes it
just takes one decision, even one born out of a painful situation, to turn our
lives in a different direction, to break us out of expectations that are
trapping us.
Maybe
you are coming toward Christmas this year with your life littered with looming
piles of "have tos," expectations that you would like to shed. The road you are traveling has some
deep potholes of despair that you would like to fill in with useful
activity. If you are no longer
working, maybe you can offer someone who will be working on Christmas Day -
policemen, firefighters, hospital workers - some holiday treats with a note of
thanks and appreciation for their dedication.
The good news for us is that God
prepares people, and people prepare the way for the Christ. In this case, John has been prepared by
God in the wilderness, the quintessential place where preparation always takes
place in the Bible. Then John
turned his preparation to the crowds who came out for baptism and answered
their question "what should we do?' with some practical, concrete advice. He
assures us that it is possible (and necessary) for the ordinary people of that
day and in our own age to work on the rough places and straighten our highways.