Preparing the Way – December 1, 2024, the First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 40:1-11, Matthew 3:1-12
December 1, 2024

So, here we are at the First Sunday of Advent, which, as you know by now, is the first Sunday of the liturgical year.  That means that today we begin the story of Jesus.  And of course, a lot of Advent has to do with what happened in the days before Jesus arrived on the scene.  Because the story of Jesus begins before he was born!

It’s been said that Jesus was born into obscurity.  And that’s true if you think about it.  And yes, as the Son of God, his birth was important!  In the next few weeks, we’ll revisit the events and the prophesies and the angel visitations that surrounded his birth.  And those things are all amazing and they are profound!  But after that, we know very little about his life until around the age of 30.

So as we start Advent, we begin with the story of John the Baptist, the one who came to “prepare the way.”  And at this point, all of those amazing things surrounding Jesus’ birth have already happened – the angels, the shepherds, and the wise men.  What also happened was the terrible story of Herod, and his attempt to eliminate “he who was born King of the Jews.”  By the angel’s warning, Joseph took the family to Egypt to escape that tragedy.  But after that, after they returned to Nazareth, we have only one story of Jesus’ childhood.  And that was the story of him being “left behind” in Jerusalem.

So now, some three decades have passed.  And as far as we know, things have been going along as they had been.  The Jewish people were under the occupation of Rome.  And we know that wasn’t an easy time.  Still, they had managed to keep their society and their religion intact, which was not always the case under Rome occupation.  They were living in the “Pax Romana.”  “The Roman Peace.”  And that meant that means things were relatively peaceful – as long as the people didn’t “step out of line!”  But nobody was happy about it.  And they longed for it to end!  They longed for a deliverer.  They longed for someone like Moses again.  His was one of their most important stories!

So, “In those days” – as Matthew introduces this – “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea.”  We know from Luke’s account that he was a kinsman of Jesus.  Their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, were related.  And here, some thirty years later this kinsman of Jesus played an important role in what was about to be the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

So, John’s part in this was important!  In fact, this is where Mark’s Gospel begins!  And his was probably the earliest of the Gospels to be written.  He starts his Gospel with this same story we just read from Matthew 3.  And both writers quote this passage from the prophecy of Isaiah.  “A voice cries in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  Then, as I’ve said before, Mark combines that with a quote from Malachi, “Behold I send my messenger before my face to prepare the way.” (Malachi 3:1)

Both Gospel writers see this man John as being that messenger!  They see his part as being that important!  And they both describe John’s ministry by saying that, “There went out to him all the country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem.”  Think about that!  All the people went to the wilderness to see and hear this man!  His message was that compelling.  But, they saw that something very important was happening!  They were thinking about Isaiah and Malachi!

John said, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  And it’s interesting that in the next chapter, Jesus would use those same exact words at the beginning of his ministry – which was not a bad strategy to use, if you think about it! (Matthew 4:17)  But I have to wonder what the people thought about that.  The kingdom of Heaven?  What did that mean?  And of course, we know, but they didn’t!  So, what were they thinking.

Later in his ministry, Jesus asked that.  He asked what the people thought about John.  “What did you go out to see, a reed shaken in the wind?”  Do you remember that?  He was asking, “Did you go to see someone stirring the people up?”  “Did you go because he was some kind of spectacle?”  “Or,” he asked, “did you go to see a prophet?”  And then he got serious!  He said, “Because there has been no greater prophet than John.”  “In fact,” he said, “he was the one prophesied in Malachi!”  And then he gives the quote again.  “Behold I send my messenger before my face, to prepare the way.”  And remember that Malachi would come to be seen as the bridge between the Old and the New Testament.  And of course, the New Testament wasn’t written yet!  Except that it was now being written before their eyes!

I believe those people saw John as a prophet.  And the Jewish people had a high regard for their prophets.  Although they did tend to stone them, as Jesus pointed out!  But in those days, they had only read about the prophets.  They had only studied them.  They had never actually seen one!  The days of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and even the days of Malachi, were long gone.  But now they believed they were seeing a prophet like them!  And they all went out to see and hear him.

But I want you to remember something about prophets!  A prophet was not primarily one who told the future!  Sometimes we think that.  But no.  A prophet was one who spoke for God, and often began, “This saith the Lord.”  And what he would say to the people was, “You had better change your ways, or such and such will happen to you in the future!”  That was the future part of it.  But it was the call for the people to change their ways that they had a hard time with.  And it’s why, as Jesus himself pointed out, they did tend to stone the prophets!

But John’s story was more than that.  Because the other part of this is that their tradition said that the prophet Elijah would return before their Messiah would come.  As I’ve said before, the Jewish people still set a place for Elijah at the Passover table.  And at one point during the meal, they ceremonially open the door to see if he’s there.  I confirmed that out with one of my Jewish friends this week!

The people knew that tradition about Elijah, and I think it had to have been on their minds, there in the wilderness, listening to John.  He was even similar in appearance to Elijah as he was described in their scriptures.  “He was a rough-hewn man who lived off of the land.  And sure enough, later in chapter 11, Jesus himself confirmed it.  He said, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”

That’s what we’re reading about today.  This story is about the return of one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament – if not the greatest.  (If we are willing to believe it!)  And what is his message, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  And notice, it wasn’t, “I have come to prepare the way of the Lord.” They might have expected that.  But no!  This statement is in the imperative.  Do you remember what the imperative is?  It’s the form of a command.  This was “You prepare the way of the Lord.”  That makes this different, doesn’t it?  They were not just to witness John and how he prepared the way for the Messiah.  They were to prepare the way.

And for John the sign of that preparation was what?  Baptism.  That was the sign!  But the action of their preparing was, what?  Repentance!  And repentance means not just being sorry for our sins, but changing our ways!  It means turning around 180º and seeking a new direction!  And there’s that prophetic message again.  “Change your ways!”  I wonder what they felt about that?

And how about us?  How about you?  Do you ever wonder about that?  Do you ever wonder about how you might need to “change your ways?”  Maybe you think you’ve done all the changing you need to.  Maybe you think that’s all in the past.  Or maybe you forget that part of it altogether, and you think that just the baptism – just the sign John was performing – is all that’s needed.  “Hey, my sins are forgiven, but that whole ‘changing of my ways,’ well, that’s another thing.”

We do a lot of preparing for Christmas, don’t we?  And I think that’s always symbolic of the Advent season.  It is a time of preparation.  And of course the other word we use at this time is the word “anticipation.”  Like any major upcoming event, excitement builds, expectancy grows.  We count down the days.  We used to count down the “shopping days” ‘til Christmas.  But that was in a time when all seven days of the week were not shopping days.  You had to do the math back then!  Not many of us remember those days.

But I was thinking this week that maybe we can think of this like John.  He had the outward symbol of his message of preparation, which was baptism.  But that was just the symbol.  The action of preparation he called for was repentance.  So maybe as we prepare for Christmas, as we decorate, as we bake, as we watch all the Christmas “specials,” maybe those things, too, can be the symbols of our preparation of Advent.  But then, as we do those things, maybe they can remind us of, and point us to, the action of preparation.  And that is, the preparation of our hearts, as we prepare to receive the Christ child once again.  May that be said of us this Advent season.

Prayer

Eternal God, we stand in awe of your great love for us, through which you sent your son into this world.  Help us, this Advent season, to see him in all of our preparations for Christmas.  Help us to remember your great love for us in all the celebrations we see all round us throughout this time.  For this we pray in the name of the holy child of Bethlehem, Amen.