11-30-08

Ask anyone in the New Testament how you get to Bethlehem, they'll say the same thing: "It begins with the Baptist." All four gospels tell it the same way. If you want to go to Bethlehem, you start with John the Baptist. There is no other way.

Listen to the very first words in the gospel of Mark, oldest of the four gospels: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Behold, I send my messenger, John the Baptizer."

And bingo - the story begins. It begins with the Baptist. Of course, Mark's version doesn't say anything about Bethlehem. Mark doesn't cover the Christmas story. He leaves that to Matthew and to Luke, the latter of whom even tells the story of John the Baptist's birth, a portion of which you heard read this morning.

You see, the four gospels are different. But in one way they are alike. They all agree, the story of Jesus begins with the Baptist. We can't get around him.

So I'm warning you, if you turn to the Bible to find out what Christmas is about, instead of relying on shopping malls, television commercials and e-bay, you will encounter the "bad news" Baptist before you embrace the "good news" baby of Bethlehem. It's just the way it is.

John is there in the wilderness the beginning of every Advent, barking directions to Bethlehem. They are the same directions every year, like a broken record, the Baptist bleating his one point sermon: "Repent!"

No wonder he was banished to the wilderness. Here we are, still eating turkey sandwiches and we open the Bible to prepare for our next holiday, our favorite, the tenderness and warmth of Christmas, and instead bump into the Baptist, bellowing, "Repent!"

Who wants to hear this? John doesn't lighten it up with humor. He doesn't butter it up with poetry. He doesn't sweeten it up with Christmas carols. He just rears back and roars like a lion in the wilderness, "Repent!"

It's rude, I tell you. Rude. Enough to ruin Christmas. John the Baptist is the original Grinch trying to steal Christmas before it is sealed. It's no wonder you never see John on any Christmas cards.

You see, John is a prophet in the Old Testament tradition of Elijah. In fact, some people mistake John for Elijah, the first of the Old Testament prophets, what with his hair suit, locust diet, and all. Indeed, some consider John to be the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Now, most of us think a prophet is a person who foretells the future, which is partly right. And which is the easier part of prophecy to take. In fact, we eat it up. We are suckers for it.

What is harder to take is what prophets say about the present, which is what they are mostly about. What the prophets say about the present, every one of them, in a word, is "repent!" Which means stop doing what you are doing, and start doing what is right.

They don't tend to go on about it, like modern day preachers, though certainly some prophets are more descriptive than others, but in general they are brief, like John, because they know we know what is right.

Their purpose is to be redundant, redundant, redundant, reminding us who we are and in whose image we are created.

Really, prophets rarely say anything new, or disclose anything revelatory. They simply tell us to start living in the image of God in which we are created, and have apparently forgotten, either out of neglect or for convenience sake.

Prophets don't say the right thing. That is, prophets don't say what the right people want to hear. Prophets go to the right people and say the wrong thing, or that which the right people don't want to hear. And they suffer the consequences because of it.

For instance, John the Baptist goes to Herod the King, who like so many kings and queens, and other people of power, thought himself to be above common courtesy. I mean, come on, King Herod had committed adultery, incest, murder, and God knows what else, and in his mind he thought this was quite all right.

John the Baptist goes to Herod and informs him, "This is not all right." John reminds Herod, king or not, he is still a part of the human species, and therefore has responsibilities beyond his own desires. "Repent!" was John's warning to Herod, "For your lifestyle is going to bring down not only your own sorry life, but our whole nation."

Which is another thing. You see, the Jews had this crazy notion that morality matters. What's more, morality is not private business, it is public business. For what you do in private, especially if you are a king, queen or otherwise beautiful person, will either bless other persons or hurt other persons.

For the Jew life was not a circus filled with prima donnas, each a moral virtuoso doing his or her own thing at center ring. No, for the Jew life was community, where each person is related to the other and every person matters.

Life is like an expedition ascending a mountain, where each climber is bound together. If one falls the whole line quivers and stresses, until the one is saved or they all go down.

If one lags, or steps out of line, or marches to his/her own drummer, they all suffer, until he/she gets it together, or they all have a lousy expedition.

Prophets are always reminding people of this. You'll never hear a prophet shout, "Do your own thing." Instead prophets shout, "Do the right thing." Prophets never say, "What you do doesn't matter." Prophets say, "What you do and who you are does matter. So act like it!"

Which is when prophets get in trouble, because nobody likes hearing this. John the Baptist says to King Herod, "Change your ways. You are head of the kingdom, and you are heading us in the wrong direction." Instead, Herod changes John's way - he serves up his head on a platter.

But ol' John was around for a little while. He was. Long enough that if we want to get to Christmas, if we want to go to Bethlehem and see for ourselves that which has come to pass, we have to begin with the Baptist. All four gospels tell us this. We have to see John first, for John is the one who "prepares ye the way."

So, quickly now, let's swallow our medicine, and be done with it.

Sure enough, there is John on this first Sunday of Advent standing knee deep in the Jordan, his legs looking like prunes he has been in the water so long. And, you guessed it, he is barking so loud we can hear his voice reverberating off the wilderness walls miles before we get there, "Repent!"

As in every Christmas since Christ, the same one word Advent anthem, "Repent!" Which, by the way, does not mean to go through life with your head cast down, dragging chains of guilt of Christmases past. No, repent means change. It means, let go of the chains that burden your person, and free yourself to be all that you can be, and all God intends you to be.

John wants us to get in touch with ourselves, our very best selves, God's image in us, so we won't miss the message of Christmas. For if John were to tell us the meaning of Christmas, in uncharacteristic loquacity, he would say:

"What happened in Bethlehem was nothing less than an invasion. Not a violent one with armies, the way we do war, but a quiet one with love, the way God heals and overcomes. You see, in Bethlehem a beachhead for the Kingdom of God began."

Oh, not the way the people expected it or wanted it. They expected the Messiah to come as a new King David, in brute force and military might, a conquering Hebrew hero to overthrow the Roman oppressors. Instead the Messiah came as simple and vulnerable, as ordinary, and yet miraculous, as a baby. And, frankly, most everyone missed it, except for a few folk out back.

But this is the way it began. And because of the baby born in Bethlehem, the Kingdom of God is now set against the kingdoms of the world. And we've got to choose. Advent, the beginning of the Christian year, begins with choice. Which we don't like, because it's hard, and we want it all.

Nevertheless, we've got to choose each Advent whom we will serve. Will we pledge our loyalty to the Herods and the Jezebels of the world, or will we bend and bow at the baby's bed? When we have made our choice, then, and only then, are we prepared to celebrate Christmas, or not.

You see, the disturbing fact about Christmas is God came into the world through Christ because there was something wrong with God's world, and God intended to change it. The change begins with us, which is why every year John the Baptist starts it off with, "Repent," that God through Christ might make things right in us and through us make things right in the world.

Stephen Vincent Benet wrote a Christmas play in which the wife of the innkeeper is in the background of the drama, and she is the only one who truly grasps the momentous event which comes to pass out back in the barn. She says in summary of the birth, "Something is loosed to change the shaken world, and with it we must change."

You see, Christmas is more than warm, fuzzy feelings. Which it is, and which is wonderful. I love Christmas! But Christmas is also hard choices. In fact, the hard choices precede the warm, fuzzy feelings.

So choose this season whom you will serve:

the kingdom of Babylon or the kingdom of Bethlehem;

the kingdom of greed or the kingdom of giving;

the kingdom of gotcha or the kingdom of grace;

the kingdom of egos or the Kingdom of God.

Choose this day, on this first day of the Christian new year, in this season of preparation for the Coming of the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve.

For it's that time of year every year when John shows up like clockwork to remind us the story which began in Bethlehem so many years ago is intended to make a difference in how we lead our lives now. "Repent," John the Baptist says, "for the Kingdom of God is coming." Maybe, just maybe, this might be the year.

May God bless you in your preparations this holy season. You've got four weeks. Use them!

AMEN.