Preparing a way for all

“…and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6)

Baruch 5:1-9

Benedictus

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

 Year C: Second Sunday of Advent, 5 December 2021

Last week I highlighted, based on the readings of the first Sunday of Advent, three key points:

1. The need to stay calm
2. The need to remain steadfast in love
3. And the need to keep moving towards our ultimate destination.

This Sunday the focus is on preparation and inclusion.

We live in a radically different culture to the one in which the gospel writer, Luke, lived.  However, as with all four evangelists who wrote for the first or even second generation of early Christians and who faced enormous trials in the first century we also face a world that is often indifferent if not openly hostile.  The sacred writings and stories that later became part of the Canon of Scripture drew on the deep traditions and memories of the Jewish people – forsaken, held in captivity, restored and led forward. 

The prophet Baruch writes of a period of captivity and destruction some 6 centuries before Christ. He tells of a great and glorious future for the chosen people (5:5):

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look towards the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.

Baruch echoes the prophet Isaiah who foresees a time of liberation and a time when the nations will be gathered and saved.  This links to the arrival of John the Baptist in the desert.  Luke quotes from the prophet Isaiah 40:3-5:

A voice cries out: ‘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 be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’. This is important because the gospel of Luke was, apparently, written for pagans in Greece (that’s us, so to speak).  All flesh – all races, all genders, born or unborn, left or right, straight or gay, ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’, high-church and low-church, broad church or narrow church, liberal church or conservative-traditional church, all peoples – are called today ‘to see the salvation of God’. The writers of the Biblical books were hung up on the idea of ‘all’.  All are called to salvation. Inspired by John Wesley, many Christians attach special importance to four cornerstones or four great ‘Alls’ of our belonging to Christ:

1. All people need to be saved.
2. All people can be saved.
3. All people can know they are saved.
4. All people can be saved to the uttermost

Are we up to the challenge? Are we ready? Do we care? We can only start with ourselves.  Even if we feel or think that we are not up to the challenge; are not ready and do not care; there is a power and a love bigger than each one of us that is preparing a way through our hearts to joy and a peace and a freedom in the midst of this personal and social wilderness.

As it says in the Benedictus: ‘By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

That call and promise is extended once again, through Jesus, to us this morning, in the words of Saint Paul:

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.  (Philippians 1:9-11).

Let this time of waiting and hope which we call Advent mark a new beginning for each one of us!

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Further reading: notes and questions, verse by verse (Luke 3:1-16)

Preliminaries

Whereas, in Mark, the opening proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ and directly quotes Isaiah,  here in Luke there is a long and gradual warm up with the various stories of Jesus’s conception, birth and childhood. Chapter 3 of Luke is a turning point. This is where the prophecy of Isaiah is proclaimed once again and the baton is passed from John the Baptist to Jesus.

v.1-2:  The political context

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 

What a formidable opening to chapter 3 and prelude to the declaration of John the Baptist! Then, as now, the region in which our saviour and Lord was born was deeply troubled and politically torn. It resembled some well known war-torn region ready to be tipped over into all-out violence at any moment as the ruling colonial authorities dealt cruelly with any uprising. At the same time, there was an air of excitement among the oppressed Jewish people that a Messiah would come before long.  As usual, the religious authorities ducked and manoeuvred to curry favour with the imperial overlords while seeking to maintain control over their own flock. Has much changed?

Note that ‘the word of God’ came to John the son of Zechariah just as it comes to us today through others and in us. Where did John receive the word? Verse two tells us: ‘in the wilderness’.

v.3:  The response of John

He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins..

In every age and place many are called up to go out from where they are and to give witness. John did it his way. His message was very much a preview – like in a film trailer – of what was to follow when his cousin would enter the scene.  The key message is the same – all must turn away from their wrong-doing and experience an inner turning around. It is the same as repentance or conversation. And, it is the call each of us needs to hear again today.

v.4-6:   The witness of the Prophets of old

as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight,and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’

Prophecy has more or less ceased since the sixth century before the coming of the Baptist. No wonder many confused John the Baptist with the Messiah or though that Jesus was John come back to life (e.g. see Matthew 14:2).