Angela Wiggins, seminarian> click here for the Scripture for the day
North Florida is a beautiful place to live,
but it seems to attract – or maybe inspire –
more than its share of roadside prophets.
Nearly every time we drove to the coast,
somewhere along Highway 319
we would see a prophet standing beside the road.
He – and they were always men – would park his pickup truck
and hold signs exhorting travelers to repent and follow God.
Then, at dusk, they would pack up and head back to their regular lives –
whatever regular means for a roadside prophet.
Without the posters, though, they looked pretty ordinary.
You would never pick them out at the grocery store.
But there was one prophet in Tallahassee that stood out from all the rest.
His signs had the same themes as the other prophets,
but he was a little more creative and
more concerned with justice and the poor.
He worked at the intersection of Monroe and Tennessee streets,
close to the capitol and the universities.
This was the premier location for prophesying.
Traffic moved slowly at that intersection and
there were pedestrians and bicyclists.
So, unlike the prophets out on the highway,
his audience could hear him preach.
Soon everyone recognized him.
He called himself King Love.
As you might guess, King Love did not dress like just any prophet.
After all, he was a king.
He wore a big gold crown like we put on the Magi in Christmas pageants
and he had big black boots.
But, best of all, he wore a floor-length red velvet cape
trimmed with gold embroidery and white fur.
You couldn’t miss him.
Like Santa Claus, he had big red cheeks and a long white beard.
And after a few humid days in that red velvet cape,
he smelled like a Herd of Reindeer.
I know this because I once stood in line behind him at the grocery store.
Even without his signs, you knew he was different.
You knew this was a prophet,
a man with a message.
Even if you could not see the words on his signs,
you could read his clothes
and know there was something he had to say.
It doesn’t take long to get noticed
when you stand on a street corner dressed in a
gold crown and a red velvet cape.
Soon people were pulling over to talk to King Love.
Students would linger on the corner and
strike up conversations with him.
The newspaper did a story on King Love.
Everyone wanted to know why a man would dress that way.
Once there was another prophet with wardrobe issues.
The Gospel lesson tells us John the Baptist also wore distinctive garb.
Like the prophet Elijah,
he wore a leather belt around camel hair clothes.
Can you imagine what he smelled like?
Mmm – wet camel.
Not only that, but his diet was locusts and honey.
A very unusual man.
People would have noticed John the Baptist.
It’s no wonder he attracted a following.
Those clothes said “prophet,”
but it was clear he was not just any prophet.
Those clothes said: “Elijah.”
That’s when you know it’s time to listen up –
a prophet like Elijah doesn’t come along every day.
The resemblance to Elijah was significant
because of the prophecy that Elijah would return
with the coming of the day of the Lord.
If he dressed like Elijah;
maybe he was Elijah.
The appearance of Elijah would be great news.
So the appearance of an Elijah-like prophet was big news.
Even before John said anything,
the people knew he had something to say.
They knew something big was happening.
They knew they had to hear John the Baptist,
And they wanted to know what he was all about.
His diet and wardrobe are hints that John
may have been part of the Essenes.
a Jewish sect with separatist tendencies.
That would explain why he was out there in the wilderness.
So there’s John out in the wilderness
preparing the way of the Lord.
And the people are coming to him, out there in the wilderness.
Coming to hear that they should repent and be baptized.
Now that’s a long way to go to get bad news.
But, John also brings good news, Mark tells us.
John brings news of the coming of the Lord.
John’s message was
“the one who is more powerful than I is coming.”
Imagine that – John is drawing crowds to himself and
proclaiming baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
That’s power, but John says,
“you aint seen nothing.”
“Wait ‘til you see what’s coming.”
“Wait ‘til you see who’s coming.”
The message from John the Baptist brought the past and
the future together in a strange intersection.
The intersection of urgency and waiting.
The intersection of prophecy and fulfillment.
The intersection of heaven and earth.
The intersection where the new creation is born.
The first verse of the Gospel of Mark is about that new creation –
“the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
This could be the title of the Gospel.
But notice how Mark 1:1 sounds a lot like Genesis 1:1.
Compare “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” to
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.”
Mark says that’s what God is up to – a new creation.
The good news of Jesus Christ is the news of the new creation.
The Baptist tells them to prepare for the coming of the Lord.
“Repent,” he says.
By that, he doesn’t mean, “say you’re sorry,”
or “say you won’t do it again.”
He means metanoia.
Metanoia, that beautiful Greek word for a complete change of heart.
When John preaches a baptism of repentance,
he is not offering a purification rite
for them to do whenever they felt guilty.
He is offering metanoia,
a complete change of heart,
a new creation.
He is inviting them to stand at the intersection
where the new creation is being born.
In Advent, we are standing in that intersection,
the intersection of ordinary time and the incarnation.
the intersection of heaven and earth.
the intersection of prophecy and fulfillment.
In Advent we wait with urgency and with patience
for the coming of the Lord and
for the coming again of the Lord.
While we stand at the intersection
of ordinary time and the incarnation,
we wait…and we prepare.
We stand at the intersection of heaven and earth
where God becomes one with us
that we might be made whole.
We stand at the intersection of prophecy and fulfillment
where we see the fulfillment and the not yet fulfilled.
And we wait.
The Gospel tells us what we are to do while we wait:
Pay Attention.
We are to be on the lookout.
We are to expect the coming of the Lord.
We are to prepare a way for the Lord.
Today’s Epistle lesson tells us how we are to live as we wait for the Lord.
We are to lead “lives of holiness and godliness.”
The holiness we are called to is not
the holiness of separation from the world.
We are called to be holy as God is holy.
This is the self-giving love we see in Christ Jesus.
This is the holiness that is our calling,
a face-to-face self-giving love.
We are to live in peace. The peace of Christ.
Yes, we are waiting, but this is not passive waiting,
It’s active waiting.
We are to strive.
We are to hasten the coming of the day of God.
As Isaiah tells us,
we are to join the proclamation,
“Here is your God.”
The prophet tells us
the word of God does not wither or fade.
While we wait, we can trust God.
The old is passing away and
“we wait for new heavens and a new earth,
where righteousness is at home.”
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment