Year B
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

May the words of my mouth…  O God…  speak your Truth…

It’s Advent 5… and we wait…  and one of the things we wait for…  is on our bulletin cover…  and in the O Antiphon which is read before and after today’s portion of the Psalm…  it asks the Key of David…  to come…  and to free prisoners…  and those who dwell in darkness…  and in the shadow of death…  and just in case we think otherwise…  we are those prisoners when we are captive to sin…  when we see through a mirror dimly…  when we are not fully alive…  but at the same time…  the prophet Isaiah affirms that God’s arm isn’t raised to inflict punishment…  it’s raised because God’s arm has the strength to gather up us lambs…   and hold us to God’s breast…  and lead us home…

When I was a child…  and I misbehaved…  not that any of you can imagine me ever misbehaving…  or if I did what I was told to not do…  my mother would say…  you just wait ’til your father gets home…  or if my father was already home…  he’d sometimes say…  you’ll be a happier little boy if you do as you’re told…  I never got a satisfactory explanation about why that was…  if I got one at all…  but over time…  I did come to understand that there was some wisdom in what my father said…  and I did find some comfort when I repented…  that is…  when I turned away from what I thought was OK to do…  and turned towards my father’s guidelines…

In today’s Gospel from Mark…  we’re told that the beginning of the Good News of Jesus…  was foretold by the prophet… by someone who knew that while God’s justice could be resisted…  it could not be prevented…  almost like a flower that pushes up through a crack in a concrete sidewalk…  and that the Good News was later proclaimed by a truth teller who rejected social conventions…  and who was wild…  

Pastor Julia Seymour…  from Big Timber Lutheran Church in Montana…  writes…  we’ve got a rogue truth teller in John the Baptizer…  his wildness is symbolized by his untamed diet…  and his untanned clothing… his appearance prepares us for the spiritual truth he brings…  which is undomesticated and lush with potential…  and the truth teller speaks of another…  fiercer one…  who will follow…  

In preparation…  the truth teller moves the cleansing ritual from indoors –– a controlled space…  to a river –– an uncontrolled space…  the truth teller reshapes the washing act…  to be one of reorientation…  and those who participate in this ritual are reoriented to the priorities and commands of creation’s life force…  so when they give themselves fully into the power which seeks to shape them…  their whole lives will change…  because the basic purpose of Christian mythology…  is the formation of the beloved community…  and the stories of our faith are not our history…  they are our present…  and as such…  they affect the reality of creation here and now…

So here’s a story…  there was a fourth grade Sunday School class…  and on the last Sunday in Lent…  they were asked to write their sins on sheets of paper…  and then they went out to a nearby pond to drop their papers in the water…  but what they had written…  was written in water soluble ink…  and when their papers got wet…  their sins disappeared…  and one of the children said…  it’s like baptism…  my sins were washed away…  

John the Baptizer proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…  but even some adults have a hard time believing that God really does forgive them… because they can’t always forgive others… 

And as Protestants…  we dislike the idea of confessing our sins…  we’re much better at pointing out someone else’s…  and for many Protestants…  calls to repent point to a creation that’s inherently evil and not one that’s inherently blessed…  but repentance is simply letting go of what’s not working…  of letting go of whatever’s keeping God’s plan from being implemented…  but not letting go of our status as beloved children of God… and acknowledging our sin…  is no more than acknowledging our imperfection…  and if we could all acknowledge it…  if only all of our elected and other leaders could publicly acknowledge our collective imperfections…  and how we resist God’s justice… . then together…  we could push through the concrete of our corporate willfulness…  so that the fruit of God’s justice…  for all people…  could ripen on the vine…

But this is difficult work…  and it’s slow work… but slowness is about mercy…  you have to know what’s wrong before you can fix it…  and so judgement is really Good News that comes from God…  it helps us become the people God is calling us to be…  like my father helped me… and we need to accept that we will not fix everything in our lifetime…

The reality of this time may feel biblical…  many of us are wandering around in our own wildernesses…  with interrupted routines…  and unemployment…  not being able to attend holidays or social gatherings with family or friends…  maybe not knowing who to believe…  about masks…  or vaccines…  or the election…  separated from familiar patterns of activity…  we can’t meet God where we usually do…  here in this sanctuary…  we can’t attend a real coffee hour…  committee and leadership meetings…  we can’t even share comforting touch at The Peace… 

But in the midst of fewer activities…  fewer distractions…  we also have the chance to see what really matters more clearly… while the harshness of wilderness may be felt more deeply this year…  the same ageless truths remain constant…  that in our wilderness seasons…  we are waiting on an imperfect and broken world to pass…  the season of Advent reminds us that no matter who we are…  or where we are in time or space…  all earthly things will come to an end…  but in the mean time…  we still have choices to make… and things to do…

Michael Toy…  an alumnus of Princeton Theological Seminary writes…  it is certainly our job as the church to proclaim peace on earth…  goodwill towards all… and joy to the world…  but it’s just as much our job to be visible in the wilderness… naming injustice…  oppression…  and apathy…  and calling out those whose silence are sins of omission…  and we name these things as sin not to cast judgment…  or humiliate…  or ridicule…  and we do not name sin so that we can exclude others…  we name sin to make way for God’s justice so that no one is excluded from Table…

Yvette Flunder…  of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries…  writes…  we are obligated to hope…  hope is not wishful thinking…  but an assurance that God is constant even when people are not…  most days…  our Christian faith leads to hope…  but Isaiah understood…  as many of us do…  that hope can only proceed from God’s comfort… 

And God’s comfort comes…  because we are not alone…  with the appearance of Jesus…  we have the assurance that this life…  even with its suffering and sorrow…  has meaning…  and that its meaning can be found as we learn to love…  from our suffering and sorrows…  we are called to comfort one another…  simply by accompanying each another on the journey…  we cannot do much to escape the sorrow of this world…  we can only walk through it knowing that Jesus walked through it too…  this life is not about greatness…  but about love… and the Good News…  is that God is here… and has turned our sins… into water soluble ink…