Advent 2, Year C: Into the Wilderness
LeAnn Blackert
Gather up the locusts. Break out the honey. This week’s lectionary readings are a feast from the wilderness.
Malachi sets the table for our feast. This community memory from a post-exilic time in the life of the Israelites foreshadows John’s role as prophet and messenger. For our appetizer the Psalm reading is the song of praise offered by Zechariah, father of our host, who reminds us that the promises and mercy of God are being fulfilled through the coming one. John serves up the main course, inviting us out of our comfortable homes and churches and into the wilderness, not only to celebrate, but also to prepare, to prepare the way for long awaited Holy One. And Paul brings out the dessert, served with a sprinkle of joy and a dash of love.
This week’s feast is a clarion call to action as all four texts this week speak to what it means to prepare the way, encouraging us to seek forgiveness, to repent and live in righteousness, and to love in community. All action verbs. All ask us to take a deeper look, something that can be hard to do in the midst of the hustle and bustle of this holiday season.
Commentary
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From the Hebrew word, מַלְאָכִי (Malʾaḵi), the name Malachi means “my messenger.” The real identity of this messenger is not entirely clear, but his directive is: repent! This book is written most likely to a post-exilic community of Jews returned to Judah. The text is a series of disputations, and chapter 3 speaks to the question that immediately precedes in chapter 2, verse 11: “Where is the God of justice?” Verse 13 admonishes to “pay attention.” Pay attention because God is sending a messenger to prepare the way, but there are some things the people must know – and do – before this Coming.
In Malachi 2:8, the prophet rebukes the people, saying “you turned aside from the path – you have caused many to stumble with your instructions! You have corrupted the covenant…” The prophet cries out against worship that is faulty, infidelity in marriage and in relationship with YHWH, and social injustices. Repentance is necessary, and it will come through the One who presides as a refiner and purifier until the children of Levi once again “make offerings to YHWH in righteousness.”
The cleansing comes through both the refiner’s fire and the harsh lye soap used in washing clothes. To find repentance will not be without pain. But the refiner’s fire will purify like gold and silver, until the reflection is pure and without fault. Cleanliness truly must come before godliness can be hosted.
It is important to note that the Coming One will come suddenly, so preparing must begin at once and continue until that day. Restoration and reconciliation will come in God’s time and God’s way, because this is the work of God. The work of the people is to prepare themselves by remembering the requirements of the covenant and living in righteousness. Righteousness (צְדָקָה – tsedaqah) is integral to the covenant relationship of YHWH and the people.
This text points back to the place of that covenant, the wilderness, the place where YHWH spoke to the people through Moses, and where the people witnessed the mercy and grace of YHWH to sustain their lives and their community.
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Zechariah’s song carries in it the hopes of generations. Luke tells this story to a people who believe they are living into exile after the crushing of the First Jewish Revolt by the occupying Roman army. Zechariah is a priest, serving in the temple. He is described as a righteous man. He receives a visit from the angel Gabriel, who tells him his wife will give birth to a son. Zechariah questions this news because his wife is too old to bear children. Because of his doubt, Gabriel strikes him mute until his son, who is to be called John, is born. After the birth, when the gathered community questions the name Elizabeth offers, they turn to the mute Zechariah for the name, and his voice is returned to him when he affirms the name is to be John. This week’s reading shares Zechariah’s song of praise for what is coming to be.
Zechariah’s name means “God remembered.” God has remembered God’s mercy and compassion and the covenant and is sending Zechariah’s son, John, to prepare the way for the Promised and Coming One. Once again preparing means seeking forgiveness and repenting.
Zechariah’s story offers living proof of the restoration possible with faithful living. Despite being described as a righteous man, Zechariah meets an angel in the temple and his only transgression is doubting the word of this messenger. He must then live nine months with the consequences of his actions, until after his son is born and the day of naming arrives.
This is the story of a man who does exactly what Malachi calls for – and what his son, John, will one day call for. Zechariah repents of the moment when he turned away from YHWH, whom he serves. It is not hard to imagine how many prayers of forgiveness he offered in his time of silence. His voice returns when he turns back to YHWH and gives the name John, as directed by the angel Gabriel.
Shades of the Malachi text emerge in this text, as Gabriel, messenger for the Holy One, appears “suddenly” and unexpectedly in the temple. Even though Zechariah is serving YHWH in the holy temple, the visitation takes him by surprise. He is not prepared. But he is prepared for the moment when his voice is restored and his song of praise rings out.
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This chapter begins with very specific details: in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God comes. The Word does not come in the hallowed halls of government, nor in the sacred spaces of the Temple. The Word of God comes to John in the wilderness. And the Word is placed solidly in the history of the world.
Luke cites words from Isaiah as prophetic to this moment: “A herald’s voice in the desert, crying, “Make ready the way of our God; clear a straight path. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled. The twisted paths will be made straight, and the rough road smooth – and all humankind will see the salvation of God.”
Once again preparing/making ready the way requires repentance. The Greek word used, metanoia, means to change one’s mind, to turn around, to reorient oneself. John’s invitation is to a new way. He is the last of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible style. He calls people out to the wilderness, to the place where their covenantal journey with YHWH begins and calls them to baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The Greek word translated as “forgiveness” is ἄφεσις (aphesis), which means to let go of or to release. John is the harbinger of the new way, the new covenant, coming with the Promised One. He looks to the past to point to the future, and in doing so, echoes his father’s canticle of praise reminding the people of God’s faithfulness, grace and mercy.
The wilderness plays a key role here in this text. The Greek word, ἔρημος (erémos), refers to both physical locations that are barren and desolate as well as spiritual desolation or solitude. It is a place outside tame, domesticated life. The ancient Hebrews traveled through the wilderness to reach the Promised Land, a new home and new way of being. John invites the people into the wilderness to prepare for the Promised One, who offers a new home and a new way of being.
The wilderness will also play a role in Jesus’s life and ministry. He is led into the wilderness by the Spirit (Luke 4:1), where he will be tempted. After 40 days in the wilderness he embarks on his public ministry. Jesus withdraws to the wilderness when he needs time alone (4:42). It becomes a place of prayer, healing and miracles. (8:29, 9:12).
John lived in the wilderness (1:80) until we meet him again in this text. The wilderness becomes a place where people separate themselves from the world and can hear the voice of God. The wilderness requires reorienting to be able to find and stay on the way.
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This text seems out of place among the calls for forgiveness and repentance, but in this epistle, the apostle Paul celebrates the church of Philippi, noting that it is God who is at work in them, reminding us of the Malachi text where it is God who works to keep covenant. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is that they will experience the fullness of metanoia, “so that with a clear conscience and blameless conduct, you may learn to value the things that really matter, up to the very day of Christ.”
In a time when believers now await the Second Coming of the One, Paul’s exhortation reminds his audience that it is God who has begun the work and who will continue to work in them and in us. Paul opens with these words: “I thank my God every time I remember you.” And in the remembering, he
re-members this community. It is the remembering, the memory, that ties all four texts together. Memory is that place where what has been points to what is to come. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus becomes the Christ, the eternal presence of God which draws Paul’s community (them and us) into a future that is already transforming the present. It is the mysterious now but not yet of all Gospel people.
How do we attain that fulness? “My prayer is that your love may abound more and more…” To love in the way of the Holy One is what leads to the clear conscience and blameless conduct. To love in the way of the Holy One is to learn the value of things that really matter. To love in the way of the Holy One is to be pulled into fullness. To love in the way of the Holy One is to fulfill the new covenant.
Teaching and Preaching Ideas
Repentance/righteousness/reconciliation/metanoia
Where are those places in our lives and in our communities where we have turned from God’s way to live our own desires? If we love in the way of the Holy One (Philippians) how do our actions change? If repentance means turning back to God’s way, what are we being called to turn from? Not only as individuals, but also as communities of faith?
In her book, The Emergent Christ, Ilia Delio defines the salvation which our texts point to in this way: The healing of self for the healing of creation is the essential meaning of salvation. To be a healer is to be an evolver, a participant in the new future that is breaking into our midst through the power of love. There is no healing or reconciling, however, without suffering and death. Unless we first understand our hurt, we cannot know our healing. As Ken Wilber notes, death to the separate self is the very thing we resist, because it calls for radical trust in the power of the future and the power of the New claiming our lives.
How do we repent in a way that brings healing both to ourselves and to this earth?
Prepare the way
In this season of Advent, we are surrounded by a world intent on turning a bigger profit than last year and pushing consumerism to the max through the month of December, what do we find ourselves preparing for? Have we become part of the maddening crowd? Or are we stepping off into the wilderness to spend time seeking connection with holiness? Are we standing in line for the latest greatest gadgets or tickets to THAT concert or are we standing in line beside those who are looking for their daily bread?
Wilderness walking
Because I lead a Wild Church community, I can speak to the power of gathering in the “wilderness.” What might happen if we invite our communities to practice a wilderness way and spend time out in the natural world, Creation, seeking the wisdom of Creator? Even if that means sitting by a window or beside a favourite house plant? What happens when we let our focus move from this world to the natural world?
In her poem, “At the River Clarion,” Mary Oliver says this:
I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.
Where do we meet holiness in our world today?
Sources & Resources
Strong’s Lexicon found at biblehub.com
Ilia Delio, The Emergent Christ, 2011
The Inclusive Bible, 2007
David L Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol 1, 2009
Bio
LeAnn Blackert is in ministry with Wild Church BC, and with the United Church of Canada. She enjoys spending as much time as possible in the “wilderness.” She lives on the currently occupied lands of the Treaty 7 Nations in Okotoks, Alberta. Her call to a Wild Church ministry rose from a hole in the earth. She is a graduate of the Seminary of the Wild and spends as much time as possible in the natural world seeking the Wild Christ.
Image Description
Image is a landscape of a red sand desert with tall jagged, rocky features behind an expanse of red sand. The scene is a bit hazy. The sky is partially cloudy, pale blue dotted with cumulus clouds.