The
prophets cry out to us today on the 2nd Sunday of Advent. Yet,
we have to make space for the voices of John the Baptist and Isaiah in our
lives in order to truly hear their call. In the
midst of all the cell phone calls and text messages and emails we get each day,
in the midst of the noise of the televisions and radios that are blaring
everywhere, in the midst of the thoughts and ideas that are fillings our minds,
we need to make space for this Advent message that the prophets bring. Our
modern world is full of many voices, many messages, a lot of noise. There are many prophets out there, there
are many messages. We
choose what message we are going to hear and believe.
The
voice of John the Baptist cries out each year crying during our Advent journey. Today, his cry comes from the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark. John
is considered the last of the great prophets of the nation of Israel. As God’s messenger, he foreshadows the
coming of Jesus into the world. He
cries out to us in the middle of the desert wilderness, a strange figure
wearing clothing made out of camels hair, eating locusts and wild honey. John
calls out to the people to repent, to be baptized in the river Jordan in
acknowledgement of their sinful ways. If we met John the Baptist coming down Gloster
Street here in Tupelo, we would probably label him a crazy person. We
probably wouldn’t want to listen to his message at all.
Yes,
as we hear John the Baptist, we recognize that Advent is a time of the year
that is very different for us. The
purple/blue color that characterizes this season tells us that it is a time of
repentance and renewal, that we are no longer in Ordinary Time. While
we hear Christmas carols on the radio already this time of the year, while we
see the glimmer of garland and tinsel and Christmas lights all over the place,
we don’t see a lot of decorations up yet in our church. Our
Advent journey recalls the very real encounter that the Israelites had with God
as they journeyed through the wilderness to the promised land. The
wilderness recalls the brokenness and the lack of faith that the Israelites had
along their journey. But John the Baptist is not trying to lead us
into a place that will cause fear to grow in our hearts, that will break us or
destroy us. It’s quite
the opposite. We
are being led into our Advent journey as a place of renewal, hope, and joy, as
a cleansing place where reflection and conversion can take place. As Isaiah tells us, God sends out to us is
a message of comfort. Isaiah announces: “Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.” We
are to be comforted in the midst of any struggles or confusion or frustration
we have in our lives.
Yes,
there are a lot of hollow words and false prophets crying out in our world
today. However, God is still here in our land as
well. Christ is still alive. The true
prophets of God are still trying to get God’s message across to us. Many in
our world are not hearing the message of the prophets, the message of Advent, so
we need to bring that message to them. We need
to testify to the world that we are preparing our hearts, that we are preparing
a path to the Lord in the midst of the all the commercialism and materialism
that has taken over the Advent message.
As we
listen to the voices of the prophets John the Baptist and Isaiah this morning,
we need to listen to the voices of the prophets that God sends to our modern
world. I recently read an article I had gotten out of
the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago telling the story of a nun in the
country of India named Sister Valsa John. She
had been working in a small community in India where a coal mining company
forced the poor off their land and gave them very little compensation in
return. The
government was so eager to have jobs and income that it gave little heed to
rights of the people who were trampled in this process. This
sister in fact helped fight for compensation for the poor who were fighting for
the rights, but the company failed to adhere to the agreement that was reached. She
removed herself from this community for several years due to death threats that
were made against her, and when she finally went to visit this village again,
she was beaten and hacked to death by a group of men who invaded the place
where she was staying. For me, Sister Valsa John is a true prophet in
our time, someone who proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ with her life and
her work, making a path for the Lord in the world. We
are called to listen to the prophets that God sends to the world, to heed their
call for justice and peace, to practice the values that they teach us in our
own lives.
Just how are we making a path for the
Lord in our own lives, in the midst of this busy season of preparation? How and we listening to the prophets? And how are we being prophets ourselves?
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