A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on First Sunday in Advent 27 November 2021, by Hope Antone. The scripture readings that day Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6.
Shalom. The peace of Christ be with you. I purposely greeted you this way because PEACE is our keyword today, the second Sunday in Advent.
But why peace? Our scripture readings do not mention the word “peace”. Instead we heard from the book of Malachi about God’s messenger who would prepare the way of the Lord’s sudden coming. We don’t know whether the Hebrew word “mal’ak,” which means “my messenger”, is a name or a description of a person. Moreover, the book describes the coming of the Lord in images of a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap.
In the gospel reading according to Luke, John the Baptizer is described as announcing the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth…”
Both passages in the book of Malachi and the gospel according to Luke speak of a messenger to prepare the way for God. In those days, it was the custom of the king to send people ahead of his visit to prepare the way – which could mean filling in potholes, removing obstructions on the road, etc. Actually this is still true today in many places – when a VIP (Very Important Person) is visiting, the local people are informed ahead of time so they can prepare the way. Unfortunately, “preparing the way” could sometimes mean attending to aesthetics and cosmetics at the expense of human rights – such as clearing or hiding the so-called “eyesores” of society like the slum areas, the street children selling flowers/towels/snacks on the roads.
According to Malachi, preparing for God’s coming will be through the refiner’s fire and the launderer’s soap. People in biblical times could imagine a refiner melting metal over a hot fire. During the melting process, the pure metal settles at the bottom while the impurities float to the top, which the refiner would remove and discard. People in biblical times could also imagine a launderer washing cloth with a very strong detergent, stomping on the cloth, then spreading it out on the ground to be bleached by the sun. Such a process was hard on the cloth that it could not stand many such washings.
This dramatic language, likening the coming of the Lord/God (Yahweh) to the refiner’s fire or the launderer’s soap, conveys the promise of deliverance to the faithful and the threat of judgment for those who are not faithful. Hence, the messenger (mal’ak) asks, “who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”
Then comes John the baptizer, a messenger clearly identified as the one to prepare the way for the coming of Christ Jesus. Unlike the Emperor and other political and religious leaders cited in the introductory verses, John stands in the tradition of the prophets. Actually, John comes from a priestly ancestry on both sides of his parents, so he could have easily learned and taken over the work in the Temple. But instead of being in the Israelites’ holiest place, John chooses to live in the wilderness. And the word of God comes to John in the wilderness.
In Luke’s gospel, the wilderness is shown as a place of testing and hunger, danger or destruction. Yet it is in the wilderness that God appears. Somehow, it is in the state of vulnerability and uncertainty where God’s people learn to depend on God. If we recall, the story of the Exodus from Egypt depicted the wilderness as a place of vulnerability, desolation, and scarcity, but also of safety and divine provision.
As a messenger preparing the way of the Lord, John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance (Greek metanoias) means much more than feeling sorry for past misdeeds. It means an inner transformation; a change of mind and heart; a radical turning around to a new direction. Forgiveness follows repentance, and it is the release or unbinding from sin’s hold on the person – thereby opening the way for a new life, lived in service to God.
When John quoted the prophets Isaiah, he described the path toward peace in vivid and strange imagery:
“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Now I don’t think Isaiah and John were literally thinking of filling up the valleys and flattening mountains and hills. The poetic language is an imagery of the spiritual transformation that is needed to prepare for the coming of the Lord. And that is the very meaning of the baptism of repentance that John announced.
Why must every valley be filled and every mountain and hill be brought low? This must be so that God’s justice will be done – so that those who lack (represented by the valley) will be filled full; and those who have a lot (represented by the mountain and hill) will be humbled to share with and care for those who don’t have enough. This must be to let God humble anything that is proud and self-serving within us which makes us arrogant and self-satisfied. This must be to let God heal and lift up whatever is broken and beaten down within us so we can stand up and re-claim our being God’s children.
What are the crooked paths that need to be straightened? These must be the corrupt, unethical, hurtful and hateful ways that have rendered some people as the lost, the least and the last in society. These must be the obstacles that keep us from aligning our will to God’s will; those habits and choices that die hard, and make us withhold something of ourselves from obeying God.
So these words from the prophets Isaiah, John and Malachi are the paths toward peace which were spoken in their time, for their own people. But their messages still ring true today because of two reasons:
First, we are in a wilderness situation due to the lingering pandemic. All our experiences of isolation, separation, loneliness, restrictions that make life difficult are signs of being in a wilderness today. So let us learn from John and listen for the word of God in our wilderness today.
Second, just as messengers arise in various times and places, let us be open to the call to be a messenger of hope, peace, joy and love during this Advent season. There is always someone in need of such a message today.
To conclude, I’d like to share this quote from Anne Steward, an Old Testament scholar and the Vice President for External Relations of Princeton Theological Seminary:
“Our (Advent) preparations are often informed by pastoral images of sweet baby Jesus surrounded by choirs of angels and placid sheep around the manger. Jesus brings serenity, peace on earth goodwill to all. And while we can affirm that the coming of Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, is good news of great joy for all people, this does not mean that Christ’s presence demands nothing of us or leaves us unchanged. Like a refiner’s fire and cleansing soap, the arrival of Christ in our midst calls us to reverent obedience and faithful praise The good news is indeed that we will not be left unchanged but will be reformed and refined to become like Christ.”
Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, be born anew…with peace in us and among us. And help us to be bearers of peace to one another. Amen.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, December 05, 2021
