( I apologize that I am so behind. I had to transcribe this from handwritten notes and memory. Sorry John.)
So what is John the Baptist doing in the Advent cycle anyway? On first glance, aren't we anticipating the birth of Jesus? I can see talking about mothers at this time; in the time before my children were born, it was all about me. Well, I am not going to talk about me at all, and I will get to John in a little bit. Because of the meditative theme of Advent, I want to draw our attention for a moment into the past, back before Christians, back before Jews, back before pagans, right at the point where all we knew was that there was something bigger than us, and that summer follows winter. What we are left with is cold, and hunger and darkness. Everyone, at some time, is overwhelmed by this both physically and spiritually.
Now, in the 21st century we have electricity to chase away the dark, and cars to take us to sunnier locales, but we still experience that visceral fear that summer may not follow winter. The other day I was checking the weather forecast for snow and made the mistake of noting the sunrise and sunset times. 7:30 am and 4:30 pm. And overcast. And raining. And 40 degrees. Didn't someone tell me that the Willamette Valley had a temperate climate? Contemplating that tiny window of light, not even sunshine, just visibility really, caused a despair to well up in me that the dark and cold would ever end. It felt like it would be dark forever. Why get out of bed? Intellectually, I know, and you know, that the earth is going to swing back around and soon enough it will be hot and we will commiserate with each other about the sweat inducing heat of this building but before then, we are going to need something to get us through.
For a little while longer, the greater culture will say Merry Christmas, but most people don't actually know what they are saying when they use these words. Most have turned the holiday from the ANSWER to the season of winter(in nature and our lives) to just another reason to fear. People, ourselves included, will prepare food, light candles, purchase gifts and gather in close to each other in hopes that the darkness won't be visible from their vantage point.
We celebrate something other that the denial of fear. That specific improbable impossible life, that of God born a baby. There aren't any reputable scholars left that think Jesus was born in December. So why do we celebrate this miracle in December, rather than in the more likely time of August, when tax rolls were actually compelled?
Because we are celebrating something more than facts. Faith is a belief that is beyond factual knowledge and speaks to truth. We are much removed from first century Palestine, we are more likely the oppressor than the oppressed – but we are still a people affected by the natural world. This time of year connects us to the more frightened aspects of our humanity, the cold, hungry and wet that we spend so many resources avoiding cannot be completely displaced, because it is not nature itself that is cold, wet and hungry, it is our souls. At this time of year, the depths of winter, we are the same as people who lived a thousand years ago, and people who live a thousand miles away, and people whose lives are a thousand times more desperate than our own. Our fears may even seem greater because we have so much farther to fall.
Do you remember John the Baptist? Are you wondering even more what he has to do with anything here? He does. He is hope. That hope that we cling to in the darkness. A clarion calling through the darkness of despair. We are lost, we are cold, we are hungry and we are wet. Surely, God has forsaken us. But John say hope, hope, for he is coming. John in his hair shirt, a figure I can only imagine in the heat of summer, lived through the winter as well as we, and he says to all people, at every time and every place - hope.
We are reminded of John the Baptist here, now, because we are called to pick up his work and carry on. We are called to be a steady beacon of hope in this time of fear. When someone wants to know why you aren't caught up in the frantic pace of “the holidays” tell them that you have not misplaced your hope. Maybe they will look at you funny, maybe they won't hear you at all, but maybe they will ask you what you mean. After all, it is a strange answer.
What does it mean to say we have not misplaced our hope? It means we know there is no hope in things. Stuff will not fill the empty places within us. Food will not make us full, new kitchen appliances will not make us happy, and even the joy on Aunt Agnes' face when she opens here favorite cologne will not get us through the next two months. It is going to be just as cold and wet and dark in January and February and March as it was in November and December. There is no hope in any of these things.
But there is hope in each other. We are a people made for community. All people are made for community. The only thing that makes people truly happy is other people. The perfection of the message of Christ is that is places people first. The wonder of the message of Christ is its absurdity. God couldn't get through to us that people are more important than sacrifices in temples on special holidays. The only thing he could do was be human and guide by example. And the only way to do that was to be born a baby. Have any of you seen a baby lately? In and of itself, it is bear food. And not much of a meal at that. But in community, a baby is the center of everything, displacing the importance of location, socio-economic standing, and nature itself. In the course of your life, you have perhaps never been so important to so many people as when you were born.
And before you get sad that you are no longer important, think. Are you still out there, both vulnerable and vocal about what is important like you were when you were a baby? Are you closed up in the cocoon of your life where everyone knows you and agrees with you? Or are you exposed and vocal about the most important things, like the fact that people are what are important to God. Are you spreading hope now, like you did when you were born?
Be John this week. Shake people up with the steadfastness of your hope. Confuse people with your vulnerability to others. Engage people with the crazy idea that people are so important to God that he came to show us what to do from the perspective of a baby and not a king. Be hope.
