Third Sunday of Advent, Year B, 2011

John 1: 6-8, 19-28

The Rev. Ronald N. Johnson

“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” In some ways, the gospel reading that we have for this Third Sunday in Advent sounds pretty much like the one we had last Sunday.  Last week, we read from the first lines of the Evangelist Mark’s gospel: “As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,” Mark said, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; [he is] the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” 

The enjoinder that we heard last week, which is repeated for us in the Gospel today, is to prepare for the Messiah by repenting and turning from the way of sin.  But today’s version comes from a different source; it is from John’s Gospel, and it has a different and important twist.  That twist is not the easiest thing to discern because the Evangelist John is indirect.  Indirectly, but very significantly, John asks his readers a most important question.  The question is, “Who is the Christ that will come?”

Now we don’t want to confuse our Johns, here, and confusion is easy, because we are dealing with two different Johns.  There is the Evangelist, known as John, who gave us the Fourth Gospel, and John the Evangelist is telling us about John the Baptist, the New Testament prophet who prepared the way for Jesus.  John the Baptist understood that there was a great deal of confusion, even delusion in the Jewish hope for a Messiah.  Some people thought that the Messiah would be the reincarnation of one of the Old Testament prophets, probably Elijah.  Others were insistent that John the Baptist, himself, had to be the Messiah.  John’s rapidly spreading popularity and strange, even weird, appearance certainly added to this misunderstanding of John the Baptist and his role. Whatever the expectations, none of them were what God intended.  This alone tells us something.  The danger, then and now, is that when you have a fixed expectation about how something ought to be, you run the risk of not seeing the reality in front of you.  John the Baptist knew this and he wanted to make very clear not only who he was but also who he was not.  John said, “I am not the Messiah.  I am simply the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.”

Today, with our creeds, with our post-resurrection knowledge, with our reading, our study and our experiences in faith, we think that we know all about Jesus, and sometimes we tend to look back with amusement on the beliefs of earlier times.  We know, for instance, that the Messiah was not a warrior king, although that was largely the Jewish expectation at the time of Christ.  You see, the Jewish hope was that the Messiah would deliver them from Roman occupation. That was what they wanted and essentially that was as far as their thinking and hoping could go.  It simply was not a part of their mind-set that God’s deliverance would be deliverance from human brokenness, human sin - from the evil that possessed them, not as Jews but as human beings, for it is human nature to be self-centered and self-focused, and self-focus, also known as pride, is the root cause of all sin.  They were blind to this, just as we often are.  In a nutshell, John the Baptist set out to open the eyes of humanity.   

Because we are Christians and steeped in Christian doctrine, we believe that the Messiah was the Son of God, the Incarnate, in-fleshed Word of God, or, in other words, God himself in human form.  We believe that God took on human flesh in order to share our human nature, to share our human condition.  And we believe that ultimately he willingly died for our salvation, so that through faith and acceptance of the Messiah we are reckoned righteous before a just God.  God sent his Messiah to become one of us and one with us.  By his sacrifice, our sin and brokenness is set aside and we are redeemed. 

John the Baptist wanted the people to understand what was about to take place, so that they could be prepared to accept God’s perfect love expressed in the humanity of Jesus.  It is to this preparation, preparation to receive the Messiah, that we are called today.  Jesus stands, as always, at the threshold of every person’s heart, mind and soul, waiting to be received as the Savior.  God wants but one thing of us and that is that we should all know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  When that day comes, God’s intent, in Creation, will be complete. This is the abiding message of Advent.  Amen.