Advent confronts us with stern and
frightening images as well as seemingly impossible hope while we prepare for the birthday that sets all others in its
orbit. This time of premature celebrating (Christmas parties in Advent?) brings
difficulty for many. One of the writers in Homily
Service in 2005 made note of that.
There are those who find this season to be
particularly painful or lonely or stressful. It can be a difficult holiday
road. As one person said, “Once Thanksgiving ends, I just want to get to New
Year's Day and be done with it.”
But the Advent road takes us on a different journey.
Not just preparations for Christmas, but a path leading to a life of integrity
and purpose.
When the Israelite people are living in exile and
filled with disappointment and despair, the prophet Isaiah announces hope to
them. He tells them to build a superhighway across the desert. This road will
lead them home. . . .
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill made low . . . Then the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed…” (Isaiah 40:3–5a).
An engineer who has firsthand experience with road
construction explained the process of “balancing the cut and fill.” If you're
able to take dirt from a hill and put it in a valley, you don't have to borrow
it from somewhere else. These are the best kinds of road projects—when the “cut
and fill” is balanced.
John the Baptist is our crew manager, bidding us to
do some baptismal road construction, that is, living our faith in the world.
The valleys of despair are to be filled in with hope. The mountains of
arrogance and the hills of selfishness need to be leveled. The uneven ground of
materialism, and the rough places of hatred and injustice need to be smoothed
over. Our baptism calls us to do this road work in our jobs, our families, our
communities. Through politics, through church, through giving of our resources.
– Craig M. Mueller
Mark 1:1-8
And, as befits this roadwork, the Gospel reading on
this Second Sunday of Advent gives us the Baptizer. John’s prophesies about the
one for whom the roads are leveled and valleys raised up.
Mark begins his gospel, the
good news of Jesus Christ, not with a birth narrative but with the preaching of
John the Baptist. By placing John the Baptist within the setting of the
prophecy of Isaiah (although the quote is actually a compilation of Isaiah
40:3, Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1) and giving him clothing and food like that
of Elijah, Mark places John the Baptist, and thereby the story of Jesus, in the
continuation of God's unfolding plan. That plan began at creation, continued
through the prophets, found its climax in Jesus and will continue after the
resurrection in the lives of the readers until the end of time when the Son of
Man will come again.
– Carrie Lewis La Plante
Isaiah 40:1-11
To people without hope, people living under the oppression
of terrorists, the prophet urges patience and hope. The end of exile is near.
Having lived under Babylonian rule for nearly sixty years,
the people need the promise that deliverance will come. The prophet does not
leave them with only the image of coming salvation but gives them an immediate
task: “Cry out!” From the highest mountain, the people are to shout to all the
cities that, transient as life is, God power is sure and certain to give them
their freedom, return them to their home, and establish their lives once again
in safety.
I leave you with a question meant to tie these readings
and our preparations throughout Advent into a whole that looks for and relishes
the assurance of God’s hand at work in our lives. Perhaps this question can
prompt your thinking on this day, dear preacher. God be with you.
As we step up into pulpit or ambo, or as we step out
into the midst of the assembly to preach, what God do we proclaim? When, with
Isaiah, we say “here is your God” to whom or to what do we point? How in
liturgy and architecture is this image of God expressed—at the font, table, and
cross? In stained glass or icon? In majesty or humbleness of space?
– E. Byron Anderson
Carrie Lewis La Plante is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in
Indianola, Iowa.
Craig M. Mueller is pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran
Church, Chicago, Illinois.
E. Byron Anderson is the Ernest and Bernice Styberg
Professor of Worship and the Director of the Nellie B. Ebersole Program in
Music Ministry at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston,
Illinois.
Homily Service 39,
no. 1 (2005): 3-14.
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