Sermon for Second Sunday of Advent

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 4, 2011
Delivered at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Oakland, California (my internship site)

My husband, Karl, and I were riding our bikes out in rural Ireland in 2004 for our honeymoon. We were going to undertake a pretty big trip by cycling up part of the western coast of Ireland. If you could have seen us on that first day; we were just giddy with excitement. We were going to start our lives together just being with each other, riding our bicycles in the idyllic Irish countryside. Never mind we’d only been married a week and a half, but marriage (and life, for that matter) is an adventure, right? Unfortunately, the first day of our bicycling adventure, after all the giddiness and excitement, did not go over so well. We both had a map that was highlighted for us by a local, but for some reason, the road we were on was not quite lining up with our map. We were supposed to turn onto another road, but the road that was on our map was nowhere to be seen. We were pedaling up and down this road, looking for this new road to materialize so we could get to our destination. But that road never showed itself.

We were lost. We were very, very lost.

We weren’t just lost anywhere. We were lost in an entirely different country, in the Irish countryside. Nothing but green fields, baa-ing sheep, and an occasional moo-ing cow. Sure, we could speak English, we had that much going for us, but that’s really not helpful when there’s not a whole lot of civilization around… we couldn’t just stop by a shop or someone’s house to ask for directions... We were in a place we had never visited before, so we didn’t have any familiar landmarks to help us get to where we were going. We didn’t know anyone. We didn’t have a cell phone with us. These were they days before affordable fancy GPS systems. All we had was a map. Karl and I were frustrated that we didn’t know where we were, and to top it all off, we were frustrated that we didn’t know quite where we were going. In our first week of marriage, this wasn’t exactly the best place to be, both physically and metaphorically. We were frustrated with our situation, but we tried really, really hard not to be frustrated with one another. We were out in the wilderness, alone and scared and wondering if we’d ever find our way out of the Irish countryside.

We did find our way back; otherwise Karl and I wouldn’t be in church today. But wandering out in the wilderness, being alone and scared, made me think of the prophet Isaiah’s words in this week’s lesson. This passage from Isaiah was written during a crazy time in Israel’s history. Israel had repeatedly turned away from their God; the prophets were trying to warn the people to turn from their selfish ways and turn back to God. The prophets stated that if the Israelites didn’t turn back to God, something bad was going to happen. That something bad was the Babylonians. The Babylonians not only conquered Jerusalem; they destroyed it. The Babylonians then carted the Israelites away from their home, marching them to Babylon. The Israelites were whisked away from a land that they loved and knew as home. The Israelites were in an awful wilderness in a foreign country being held against their will in a place they knew nothing about, in a land that wasn’t theirs. They turned away from God, and they found themselves out in the wilderness.

There’s something scary about being in the wilderness. There’s the physical wilderness, the middle of nowhere places that seem empty, desolate, and lacking life. Then there’s the theoretical wilderness in our spiritual, emotional, and psychological existence… times when we’re alone, destitute, feeling like we’ve royally screwed everything up and there’s nothing that can be done. The internal wilderness of despondency, isolation, and wondering, where, oh where, is God in the midst of all this mess? Have you been in a wilderness of doubt, of fear, or of anger wondering, “where in the heck is God in the midst of all this mess?”

God, it seems, is in the wilderness. But here’s another question: WHY is God out in the wilderness? The reading from Isaiah and the Gospel are filled with wilderness talk, and God is out in the midst of that middle-of-nowhere place.

Why the wilderness? I mean, even Judas questions the placement of proclamation in the wilderness in “Jesus Christ Superstar” when he asks Jesus, “Why'd you choose such a backwards time in such a strange land? If you'd come today you would've reached a whole nation! Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication…”

In the midst of being in an unknown, unfamiliar, and scary wilderness, God came to the Israelites with words of comfort. God comes to meet them many times in the wilderness… There’s the Exodus, when the Israelites are fleeing Egypt. God definitely clears a path for the Israelites out of Egypt in the dramatic parting of the Red Sea. Even in the midst of their complaining, God travels with the Israelites to the Promised Land. The Israelites turned away from God and did not heed the warnings of the prophets. The Israelites turned away from God, then were carted off to Babylonia, with Jerusalem in ruins. Yet God clears a way AGAIN for the Israelites to return to their land when they’re carted off to Babylon. Yes, the Israelites may have turned away from their God before the Babylonian exile, but GOD DID NOT ABANDON THEM EVEN THOUGH THEY SCREWED UP. God clears a way out of the wilderness for them. There’s something interesting about Isaiah’s words and the words of the Gospel… God is found in the most unexpected of places; God’s out in the wilderness. And even if God’s people have royally screwed up, God clears a way home for them.

The voice that cries out, proclaims, is God announcing the good news. We may think God’s out in the middle of nowhere. But when we think we know God, God has this nifty way of surprising God’s people time and time again. God being out in the wilderness can be thought of as weird and confusing. Sure, it seems backward and strange, lacking mass communication… But God is in the wilderness, experiencing the wilderness of human life with us. The Incarnation. This is what we’re waiting for in this Advent season; we’re waiting for God to come be with us. The amazing thing about God is that God is present in our past, in our present, and in our future. God reaching out to us in this amazing, crazy-loving way. God becoming human, to know of our lived experiences. The good, the bad, the clean, the outright messy. The Incarnation puts Christ in the middle of all of that, The feelings of anguish, of isolation, of our personal wilderness? Christ was there. Out being tempted in the wilderness. Feeling emotions of joy, anger, gladness, sorrow. And the cross. God being in the most unexpected of places, the worst kind of anguish up on that cross.

God knows our wilderness. God’s not just some entity out there, but God, CHRIST, knows our wilderness experiences because God’s been there too. And even in the middle of our wildernesses, we may have done something wrong. We may have turned away from God.

This is a time, even if we’ve committed sins, if we’ve done things we’re not proud of, that even in our broken humanness, valleys are lifted, mountains are made low, the ground becomes level, and the rough places are smoothed out. In stating, “The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” we’re told, “Look, here’s God!” With us, among us, knowing us and our experiences! Frank Honeycutt, a pastor in South Carolina, said, “God is building a highway home for people who have screwed up their lives.” And we’ve all screwed up somewhere along the way. But God’s good news welcomes those who’ve been lost along the way. Isaiah writes that all earthly things will pass; especially with the changing of seasons, we’ve seen grass wither, flowers fade… but God’s word? God’s word is the word incarnate, Jesus Christ, who comes to be with us. To forgive us our sins. To lead us back to God. To lead us back home. It’s an announcement to people who have screwed up along the way that God welcomes each and every one of us home.

Come home.