All for You

Advent 2

Fr. Tim Nunez

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Times were hard for the prophet Elijah. For much of his ministry, he had to deal with King Ahab, who scripture describes this way, “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30) “He did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, than all the kings before him.” He married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess from Sidon who was really bad too, and built altars to the false god Baal.

It’s a fascinating story which you can read in 1 Kings, but to summarize, Elijah bravely and resolutely confronted Ahab and Jezebel and their awful blasphemy of encouraging false prophets and false gods in Israel. That’s a big no-no, by the way. Those confrontations are alongside demonstrations of God’s extraordinary provision and mercy, sending rain and feeding, even raising the dead.

At the end of his ministry, Elijah was described this way, “a garment of hair and a belt of leather around his waist.” (2 Kings 1:10.) He went on with his protégé Elishah to the Jordan river just to the east of Jericho, at the very spot where God had held the waters back so Joshua could lead Israel across the Jordan. For Israel in Joshua’s time, that spot was a place where God’s promise began to be fulfilled as they crossed from the wilderness into the Promised Land.

In that very spot, Elijah touched the water with his cloak and they passed across the Jordan on dry ground. Elijah laid his cloak and his ministry on Elisha. Then, after his very long, difficult, dangerous and lonely ministry, Elijah was caught up by God and ascended into heaven.

It is in that very spot that we encounter John the Baptist this morning, in his hair shirt and leather belt, trusting God’s provision as Elijah did, and calling people to repent as Elijah did. He looks and speaks as a true prophet. You can tell he’s speaking the Word of God because his message is entirely consistent with what the Lord said through Elijah and the other prophets of old. He is enacting Isaiah’s prophecy of “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”

Prophets always call people to repent, whether to turn away from the false idols the world and other peoples may show us, or to turn away from the ever-present idolatry of ourselves, we are, all of us, in constant need of correction and redirection back toward the Lord. We don’t seem to run into Baal worshippers, at least not by name. But he was a fertility god and we do see a lot of idolatry about sex as a means of self-expression. He was also a god of nature, which people can tend to idolize for its own sake rather than recognizing it as God’s creation which are to appreciate and steward.

We can idolize sports teams, political views, fashion, finances, hunting, fishing, TikTok reels, our image, our looks. (I’m trying to poke at everyone.) There is always that necessity of conviction, reminding us of our imperfection and need of God’s grace. Always.

But note they key word is prepare. We think about God in lots of ways, as ultimate love, ultimate truth, ultimate authority, ultimate power, ultimate freedom, ultimate beauty and the ultimate Spirit, the Holy Spirit. With all of that, he holds a promise, that through Abraham he will bless all peoples.

In his moment, at that very spot, at the historic boundary between the wilderness and the Promised Land, between earth and heaven. John the Baptist stands at the biggest hinge moment in history. He is calling God’s people to prepare, to divest themselves of their sinful ways, repent from them, to cut the chains from our hearts, because they are on the cusp of God moving from promise to fulfillment.

It is very tempting, but I think a mistake, to try and put ourselves into this moment as though we are approaching John the Baptist yet again, in need of salvation again. If you are baptized by water and the Holy Spirit, that is done. We all have work to do, repairing and self-examining, and renewing all the time, because of the great gift we have already been given. What we have in Jesus is secured, yet there is more to come.

If you were not baptized by water and the Holy Spirit, I have good news for you! The Lord is calling you to engage repentance and submit yourself to baptism to wash away your sin and anoint you with the Holy Spirit to join in this eternal blessing of life with Christ.

That is where we live, all of us. We live with the promise burning in our own hearts because we know we are not complete. We know that there is more to pare away, washed in baptism but we know there is more to cleanse, more for the Holy Spirit to burn away with his fire. That unquenchable fire sounds scary until you realize how badly you need God to send that Holy Spirit upon you to burn away the chaff that is weighing you down and holding you back.

I say “we” because I believe that everyone who is physically here, everyone joining us online today or whenever they may, and those who would be here but for circumstances, are called by God into this sacred space of promise and fulfillment. Even if you are curious yet doubtful. Doubt is truth knocking at your soul.

And Jesus has come. He is with us always, to the end of the age and beyond. The connections to John the Baptist, Elijah and Isaiah remind us that Jesus didn’t just show up and say, “Forget everything you thought you knew, I’m the real deal.”  No. He is the inevitable answer from before the dawn of creation, as the prophets have witnessed for centuries. He came to fulfill all of God’s promises and declarations.

The constant call for those drawn to the faith, whether just a toe in the water or approaching full immersion, is to recognize the danger of complacency and distraction, the tyranny of all the urgencies that seem so demanding yet won’t matter in a week, a month or a year.

I had a roommate in college we called Bill the Cat, who used to say, “If it’s not going to matter in 100 years, don’t worry too much about it.” He was a cool cat. And that really helped me put a lot of my concerns in perspective.

But the other side of that argument is, if it’s going to matter for all eternity, we had better give it attention today.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Bear fruits worthy of repentance and embrace the unquenchable fire.

AMEN!