The Reverend Donald L. Hamer
December 7, 2008
The Second Sunday of Advent, Year B

Isaiah 40:1-11

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

The prophet Isaiah was writing to exiled Jews of the 7th century before Christ was born.  His people had seen the defeat of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the impending threats to their own kingdom which ultimately prevailed over the Kingdom of Judah, despite years of political and military maneuvering.  Their world was turned upside down, and the way forward was anything but clear, never mind promising.  The Jewish nation believed that it was paying the price for infidelity to her God.  And the next sixteen or so chapters in the Book of Isaiah are devoted to preparing the people of God for the return trip home.

It is in such circumstances that the prophet speaks words of hope to his people, instructed and encouraged by God.  Comfort, O comfort my people; speak tenderly to Jerusalem that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid. . .

Defeat is never a comfortable place to be.  Isaiah’s people had lost a war, and their very homeland; any sense of security, any promise for the future was beyond comprehension or expectation.  They were truly in a wilderness time – maybe not the way we think of a wilderness, as a desolate, barren place where there is a vast expanse of nothingness.  It could have been in a city, or in a small village.  But it was not THEIR city, or THEIR village.  They were strangers in a foreign land not of their choosing, and they had no clue about how they would get out, or move on.

Isaiah gives us pause to consider what it means to be “in the wilderness.”  We usually think of it as a place.  But as we reflect on the situation of the people of Judah in this morning’s lesson, we see that wilderness can more properly be understood as a state of being, a state of mind, a condition of the heart and spirit.  It might be driving your car in an unfamiliar area without a GPS system, MapQuest or Yahoo Maps.  It may involve being stricken with a sudden illness which defies immediate diagnosis or cure.  It might involve a sudden change in job or family situation that requires you to rethink long-held plans that you thought were certain.  Perhaps you are struggling with a relationship with a child, or a parent, or even an old friend.  Maybe you are struggling with your faith, wondering why God is not providing a clearer or more certain direction.  Any of these scenarios – or a thousand others like them – can present wilderness conditions to us.

But we fool ourselves if we think that wilderness experiences happen only in times of tragedy or loss.  Wilderness doesn’t necessarily have to be in an unhappy or threatening environment.  Have you ever had a time in your life when things seemed to be going really well, but there is some inner disquietude or something within you that says things are just not right?  Consider the circumstances of Isaiah’s people in this morning’s lesson.  They are on the upside of their wilderness experience; their punishment is behind them, and now they have a rebound to look forward to.

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.

It’s practically a done deal – The Lord has spoken!  Isaiah is telling the people that help is on the way – the Lord has spoken, their time in exile is approaching an end, and a new day is beginning.  But even this new beginning poses a dilemma:  the world is still turned upside down – mountains are made low and valleys are lifted up.  The glory of the Lord, they are told, is going to be revealed – but what will that look like?  What will the world be like when the rough places are plain, the valleys are lifted up and the mountains are made low?  And what will be expected of them?  What will their new surroundings be like?  They want to trust the Lord, but they are anxious about both the promise and the demands of this new reality.  And, they wonder, what will it require of us to prepare a way for the Lord?

And so it is that when a voice proclaims, “Cry out!”, the immediate response is, “What shall I cry?”  Even the promise of an improved situation can present questions, and our questions can lead to anxieties, and our anxieties can lead us into fears, and fears can thrust us into a situation of hopelessness just as easily as the reality of actual tragedy and loss.

Whenever we feel we are left without a clue, whenever the horizon seems beyond our sight, whenever the road ahead is uncertain, that is a wilderness time.  And wilderness times are exactly the times when our sense of hope in God’s faithfulness is most needed in our lives.  Now, that may seem self-evident, but I think the late journalist and novelist G.K. Chesterton hit the nail on the head when he said this about hope:  Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength. 

As with the nation that Isaiah was addressing, we in the closing days of 2008 are living in a wilderness environment.  So much of everything that we have put our faith in – our governments, our economy, our system of free enterprise – isn’t working the way it is supposed to – or at least the way we have been told it is supposed to.  The leaders whose wisdom has seemed beyond question suddenly seem fallible, and they themselves seem clueless about what to do.  For those who had some sense of economic security, that has been greatly compromised if not destroyed, and like the foolish farmer who thought he was secure when he built larger grain silos for himself, we find that even that which we have stored up for ourselves can be taken from us.  And those are the people who had a lot to lose.  For those who were starting with less, the situation seems even more dire.  Again the words of Isaiah are reminders to us:  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 

But Isaiah also gives us a word of hope.  He repeats the earlier lament:  The grass withers, the flower fades but adds but the word of our God will stand forever.  For the people of Isaiah’s time, this meant the Law, and the words of the prophets.  In times of doubt, when our world is turned upside down, it is the word of the Lord which grounds us and to which we bind our future.

For Christians, we are not left simply with words, but with THE Word – The Word of God Incarnate – Jesus Christ.  We can think that Advent is the time for us to shape up, straighten up, and get rid of our ways to make a place for Jesus.  After all, John the Baptist came preaching a baptism of repentance, Mark tells us.  But we should remember that “repentance” is more than being sorry for what we have done, and it is even more than deciding that we are going to do better in the future.  “Repentance” involves changing our mindset, changing the way we look at the world, changing the way we look at ourselves and our relationships – with each other and with God.  The prophet Isaiah assures us that God will do the straightening for us; our job is to be open to what it is God is saying to us and to be open to understanding the new world that Jesus is opening up for us.
      
The people who came to John the Baptist for baptism came for cleansing according to their Jewish tradition.  John calls to them about something new.  We know, because Mark has told us, exactly what’s so new.  The New is the awaited-for Messiah and He will baptize – or cleanse – not only with water, but with a divine gift – the Holy Spirit who will tenderly, gently, straighten the highways.  It is God in Jesus Christ who alone makes both the mountains and the valleys level.  The “gospel” is the “Good News” that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit of God have embraced our human condition, giving it meaning beyond what we can experience in the here and now, and giving it purpose far beyond our own lives.  And this is part of our Christian hope:  We do not, all by ourselves, have to clean up our acts so that God will free us and tenderly bring us back.  We do need to be open to what Jesus taught – in word and in action – that provides us with the direction we need to come out of our sense of confusion, anxiety and fear.
      
The Jewish nation of Isaiah’s time waited in hope for the return to their homeland.  Christian Advent is more than waiting for Christmas.  Advent is our time to change our mindset, looking at our world through Jesus’ eyes.  It should be a time we give to letting Jesus come closer and closer to us and our unstraightened pathways and our rough places.  The wider we open our heart for Jesus to be born once again in us, the straighter and smoother our ways become, and the clearer the pathway home.  It is all, indeed, very good news.  AMEN.

© Copyright 2008 by the Reverend Donald L. Hamer