Sermon for December 8, Second Sunday of Advent

Sermon for December 8, 2024 Second Sunday of Advent

Luke 3:1-6 John the Baptist

Last weekend my family went to see the new Gladiator 2 movie. We went as a family because 24 years ago we went and saw the original Gladiator in the theater as a family. Only 24 years ago “as-a-family” meant Odette was still in-utero. Sarah was 9 months pregnant, immense and sitting in the front row of the theater with all the intense gladiator fight scenes. Well, guess what happens to all that adrenaline? The mother shares all that adrenaline with the baby. And so Odette started pushing and shoving all through the movie. Sarah was yelping in pain as you could feel the kicking and elbowing through Sarah’s stomach as our own little gladiator was stabbing under Sarah’s ribcage. We joked as we watched the new movie last weekend that Odette should periodically jab Sarah in the ribs just to, y’know, recreate this special family memory. 

I share this story because this is exactly how John the Baptist is introduced to us in the New Testament. John is also in-utero, his mother Elizabeth is 6 months along in her pregnancy when Mary comes visiting. Mary has just received the news from the angel Gabriel that she too was pregnant with one to be called the Son of God. And as Mary entered the house in the hill country where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived, just as Mary greeted Elizabeth, what happened? Little baby John leapt in the womb. Something about being in the presence of this one who is the promised Messiah, this spark of energy, this transfer of pure joy, and the baby leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. Mothers, you can feel it, can’t you? If the baby decides to kick or in this case, jump for joy, you would feel it wouldn’t you? And so Elizabeth cries out, maybe even in a little pain with a foot jammed into her ribs, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb…that the mother of my Lord comes to me!”

All this week I’ve been pondering John the Baptist. I’ve been asking the most basic of questions, “Why?” Why John the Baptist? I mean, couldn’t have Jesus just appeared and started doing ministry? Why is the figure of John the Baptist even necessary at all? All the conventional answers came to me right away, “Well, he was there to prepare the way,” or, “He is the bridge between the age of the prophets and the age of the Messiah.” All those are fine and good, but one of my pastor friends wondered with me, “What if John’s singular purpose was to leap for joy at the presence of the savior?” That is, what if John’s introductory act, that leap for joy, is the lens through we make sense of John’s ministry? And that got me thinking, what if our role, our purpose as Christians, as believers in this one as the Son of God, is likewise simply that, to leap for joy in the presence of the one through whom we have our salvation?

Our Gospel text opens with this laundry list of unpronounceable names (right, Dorathea?); but notice these are all the most important and powerful men of the day: the Roman emperor Tiberius; the governor of Judea Pontius Pilate; ruler of Galilee King Herod; and of course the high priests at the Temple in Jerusalem Annas and Caiaphas. But what is the very next line? It says, “And the word of God came to…” And quite notably, the word of God did not come to any of these important and powerful men. Not the governor or the emperor, not even the most religious of men, the high priest in the Temple; the word of the Lord, rather, came to…John son of Zechariah, where? In the wilderness. You have all these important, powerful men, priests and politicians, living in palaces and at the Temple of the Lord itself, but the word of God came to none of them, rather, the Word of the Lord came to some weirdo dressed in animal skins preaching out in the wilderness. ‘The word of the Lord came to a nobody out in the middle of nowhere’ is what the text might as well be saying. Why does this matter? Because we get a glimpse of the whole kingdom of God and how it comes to us! Think about the Christmas story itself, the Christ-child not born in the palace to a rich and powerful Princess, but the Christ-child, born in a stable, laid in a manger, born to a poor blue-collar couple from Nazareth. And God could have sent the angel chorus to the Temple to make the announcement to the priests and the religious leaders, instead, they show up and serenade a group of shepherds out in the countryside of Bethlehem. Again, the word of the Lord came to a bunch of nobodies in the middle of nowhere. This is how the Word of the Lord comes! Do you see? And so what implications are there for you and me? What does it look like to be the bearers of the Word of the Lord today? Are we as the church called to consolidate political power? Create a religious test of our leaders to make sure they’ll wield power for us? To accumulate wealth and power and influence? Those are precisely the things that guarantee the Word of the Lord will pass right by us. Rather, we are called to be the nobodies sharing the word to other nobodies in the middle of nowhere. Amen?

What does it mean to be called “nobody”? I like how in our Old Testament reading the prophet Malachi begs the question, “Who can endure the day of the Lords coming? Who can stand when the Lord appears?” Well, that’s about as rhetorical as a rhetorical question can be, ‘cause the answer of course is…nobody. Who can endure the day of the Lord’s coming? Nobody. Who can stand? Nodbody. You think you can pile up all your good works and religious trophies and impress God on that day? St. Paul puts it best in Romans when he answers the question, “No one is righteous; no not one. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Who can endure at the Lord’s coming? Who can stand? Answer: nobody. And that is what makes us “nobodies.” And there is only one appropriate response, therefore, to the Lord’s coming, and that is exactly what John the Baptist leads us to…repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Since nobody can stand before the Lord’s coming, then the only appropriate response is repentance. We cannot forgive ourselves, and so it all becomes about God’s mercy. Amen?

The responsive reading we did this morning was not one of the Psalms (like we normally do) but is the song of Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, at the birth of John. There with baby John in his arms, his father describes this exact ministry of John, that he is to call the people to repentance and proclaim the forgiveness of God. Look at verse 76 as he holds high the baby John: And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge…of what? Knowledge of salvation. How? Salvation by…the forgiveness of their sins. How will this happen? By the tender compassion of our God. I like the translation: by the tender mercy of God. We hear in this text both the primary purpose of Christ and of John the Baptist. Jesus has come to reveal the tender-mercy of God as he forgives our sins. And John is sent to prepare the way calling the people to repentance, the only appropriate response to the Lord’s coming.

And through that lens, how can you not view every aspect of John’s ministry as his leaping for joy in the presence of Jesus our salvation? Calling the people to repentance on the banks of the Jordan River, there is John leaping for joy as the one thing he has been set aside for is about to take place. John baptizing the people and crying out as Christ enters the waters, again leaping for joy. Pointing out Christ to his own disciples, “Behold the Lamb of God, come to take away the sins of the world,” in the presence of the Savior again leaping for joy. Even as he himself is in prison awaiting his own execution, he begs the question of Jesus, “Are you the one or are we to await another?” And the answer comes, “Go tell John what you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive the Good News.” The word of the Lord is coming to a bunch of nobodies John, don’t you see? And John’s final earthly act, then, was the same as his first as he leapt for joy.

And that Good News has not changed. Here we are 2000 years later, and we are still proclaiming the tender-mercy of our God. How through the death and resurrection of Christ, your sins are forgiven. Not because you’re a somebody, rich or powerful or especially religious, but because you are a nobody – you are saved by the gift of grace alone as the word of the Lord comes to you. With John, therefore, we likewise have one singular purpose, one mission, and that is in the presence of our savior to leap for joy. Amen.