Monday, December 28, 2015

A Savior to You

And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you; you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 
'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.'

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.'

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.


Luke 2:8-18 (NIV)

It's the Christmas story, all right.  Or, I guess for arguments sake, it is the Christian's story.  As discussed ad nauseum, much of the Western world recognizes the holiday that is Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa, but not everyone celebrates it.  Some tolerate the intrusion that the Savior has in the world; others are adamantly against it.  Some would say the story of Christ's birth is a blue time of year, that because something dreadful has happened in their lives, nothing can bring joy to the Yule.  With each passing year of the inculturation of Christmas and the excision of spiritual meaning from it, we find that the day becomes a gluttonous consumer orgy of shredding wrapping paper and overeating.  The blue part of Christmas, for me, is that the angel's message has been pruned of joy; instead of a proclamation that the Savior of the world has come for you (plural), we find an announcement of commercial frenzy.  Once the presents are unwrapped, we find an emptiness because God's presence is, unfortunately, left undiscovered.

Which is why I really, really, enjoy the shepherds' story.  They are, if you will, the first Christ-ian converts.  Think about it:

For centuries, the people of Israel had been bereft of hope and joy because they had been acclimatized to living in the bondage to foreign invaders.  Whether Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks or Romans, these middle eastern Semites had known only alien rule.  My guess is that all of the Israelites, young or old, would gladly have opened the gift of the Messiah that dark night.  He came when they least expected - the Romans, just like every other conquering country, gave them a small amount of control, in this case Herod and his family.  The Israelites would have dreamed of the day when the Messiah wandered in from the wilderness, like their contemporary version of Moses, overthrown the Philistines and set up rule in Jerusalem.  

These shepherds, and presumably Israelites, (we're not told how old they are, but in my mind they've always been young, but my guess is that's not necessarily true), were tediously doing their jobs minding their flocks. And it was nighttime which could have been boring and, at times, scary.  Any noise might have thrown them off; a lack of noise might have sent them off to sleep - certainly a fine line between alertness and asleepness.

Then suddenly an angel appears - from where they don't know, but it is definitely out of the ordinary to have a messenger from God show up in the meadows at night.  So the angel, the messenger, delivers the message of good news (the gospel) to the shepherds first: Not (and I hold up a finger to stress the point) the wealthy businessmen or doctors or lawyers or movie stars or pop stars or even pastors for that matter, but to those who held the lowliest of jobs; those who weren't even able to have a roof over their heads.

And the good news, the gospel preached to them from above their heads, from on high, from the radiant light and voice of God, good news that will bring joy from the chasm of misery, sorrow and hopelessness:  Today, in the town of David (somehow the shepherds already knew this was Bethlehem) a Savior has been born to you ----- and it's plural, which we don't read in English.  Usually, we read the soteriological, (salvation's) story from the the unique perspective of the individual, but the gospel is brought to the masses in the plural, or in the translated deep south "A Savior has been born to y'all y'alls."  

Far too often we believe that this salvation is a private, personal thing, that Jesus' life, death and resurrection was for me, that Jesus loves me this I know - but the very first message is that God has come for everyone.  The one born is the Messiah, the Lord.  The anointed one.  The King.  The Prince of Peace.  The Son of Righteousness.  You know the synonyms - For Us.  

The shepherds do not react with how, perhaps, the wealthy businessmen would have reacted:  "What will it cost?"
Or the doctors, "Certainly there is a logical, or psychological explanation, for an appearance by these 'messengers from God.'"
Or the lawyers, "Does the holy family need a court representative for the living conditions that they've been put in?  Do we need to talk to the carpenter's union?"
Or the movie stars, "There's only one star here - and that's me."
Or the pop stars, "Can we sing 'O Holy Night' one more time so I can hold the high note and you can be impressed?"
Or even the pastors, "There has to be some kind of theological explanation why God would not arrive to the learned brethren."

But even the pastors have to be impressed by the faith of the shepherds - they leave their livelihood, follow their Sunday School understanding of the scriptures, hurry to Bethlehem, all because they believe what they had heard.

The scriptures do not use any words like, "The shepherds were considered righteous in God's eyes so he came to them first," or "The shepherds went to church every week in order to be the first to be worthy of the words of grace," or "The shepherds invited Jesus into their hearts and then they were ready to run off and see this great thing that had happened."

That's the beauty of this story; the fact that it is all God's doing - the salvation is HIs and there is no scriptural evidence that the shepherds had to do anything at all which includes accepting Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior before the Savior actually did the saving.  God's grace was devoid of any prior holy rolling or acting by humankind.  None were worthy.

That's the good news at Christmas:  We believe because we hear.  So, we tell what we've been told.  And in doing so, Christmas (the arrival of Christ in enemy occupied territory) becomes a daily event.

A Savior has been born to you and you and you, and although it would be much easier to believe that somehow we have a hand in our own salvation, working towards being 'really good', that's not the way it happens.  

It's all God's doing.

This good news should cause great joy in you today, for a child has been born for you... A Savior.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Give it Back

Like a good Facebook fisherman, I've been trolling through the posts casting out my own nets, sifting through the digital detritus in an attempt to figure out what is important in the collective world psyche in the Year of Our Lord, 2015. 

We spend a lot of time re-posting funny videos of dogs and cats.
We spend a lot of time trying to decide how to view the Muslim religion.
We spend a lot of time attempting to look more beautiful.
We spend a lot of time putting people down.
We spend a lot of time deciding which politician is the worst.
By 'liking' things, we substitute social perusal for actual relationship.

Lastly, Christians spend an inordinate amount of time trying to 'reclaim' Christmas from the so-called 'secular' world.

It's the last one that I'd like to focus on for, probably, the last post of the year. 

If we were to put a token into a time machine and travel back to the arbitrary year of 300 (or even 600, 900 or 1,200) A. D., I think that we'd find a different understanding about Christmas.  According to scholars, the early Christian church had three main holidays.  They were, in order of occurrence in the year, not in significance: Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost.  Notice, in the large scheme of things, there was no importance placed on Christmas.  Why was that?

Christmas, as hopefully most Christians know, began as a pagan holiday, a festival for the longest day of the year and the return of the light, and then Christianity, in order to prove its superiority, subsumed the pagan festival and turned it into Christmas.  (They did the same with some of the pagan worship sites also.  They actually built the church over the pagan churches.)  In essence, Christmas swallowed the pagan festival.  The symbolism is obvious and it made sense at the time.  In order to teach the pagan culture and the traditions of the time about the Light that has come into the world, the Christian leadership wagged its finger at the pagans and said, 'Let us tell you about the true God that came as a baby.'  But as the years have gone on, even in the last century, that Christian message of Christmas has actually started to be swallowed by paganism again.  This time, the pagan god is called 'materialism' and it is a powerful idol seemingly imbuing the worshiper with strength to overcome any anxiety they encounter in life, especially the 'idea' of sin and the impending understanding of death.  This pagan 'god' is a tsunamic force in our 21st century culture and in some ways what I'm thinking, and about to propose, might cause some tension. 

But really, who am I but one more blogger in an ocean of blogsites.

As I reflect on the tidal wave of consumerism and advertising that destroys the irenic coastlines of our lives, I think to myself:  "Give it back."

Why not give Christmas back to the pagans?  Why not let them have the holiday for avarice and greed; of gluttony and pride?  Let them call it 'X-mas' or 'happy holidays' or whatever replacement that is out there in an attempt to not actually speak the name of Christ.  My thinking is this:  Is it really helping for Christians to batter their collective hands against the closed door of corporate greed?  Do we not actually turn people away because of our pietistic railing against something that most people really desire?  Why not the same righteous indignation over Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost? 

So, I see the collective, shrinking Christian community battling against something that really isn't that important.  What I mean by that is, the ancient Christian church put no large emphasis on the birth of Christ other than that of its miraculous nature.  Paul places significance on Jesus' birth; Peter does not speak of it; the epistle writers don't even mention it. 

All of the strength of ancient Christians' argument for Christ has nothing to do with his birth and everything to do with his death and resurrection, which makes me wonder why we are so bent out of shape about Christmas sinking into the consumeristic hole at the end of December.

I say, "Give it Back."

C. S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity writes this: 

"Enemy-occupied territory  -  that is what this world is.  Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.  When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going.  He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery."

How many times does this play out in our 21st century Christian culture?  We presume that recipe for the contemporary Christian life has significant portions of the ingredients of conceit (in the form of superiority over those 'unsaved' people) in laziness (if I just tell people that I will pray for them, that is all that God really needs me to do) and intellectual snobbery (Let me tell you why my understanding of Christ is unlimited in the way that it gives me power over you).  When we attempt to 'take back' Christmas, we actually reconstruct the wall that Christ tore down at his death and resurrection.  We tell people who, while becoming at least partially subservient to a culture of consumerism, that they are sinners if they don't recognize the Christ of Christmas. We attend church, the listening in to the secret wireless, for the second or third time during the year because it's socially acceptable to do so; and we build up, brick by brick, a barrier between 'us' and 'them,' which, in essence, is the biggest problem of all, because whether we admit it or not, we see the 'non-Christian' as the enemy, not the true enemy - as Luther puts it, the devil and all his empty promises.

We, as Christians, can give up the necessity to feel like we need to protect 'Christmas' and do what Lewis calls the 'campaign of sabotage' not by railing against misunderstandings of the meaning of Christmas, but by being enemy agents against Satan by reclaiming God's children through the love that came down at Christmas, the light that came into the world (Epiphany). 

I say, "Give it back."  Enjoy the festive celebrations, and if your own piety allows you to experience Christ at Christmas, you are truly blessed because the Light that came into the world illuminates everything.  Go to church on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day, or the Sunday after and listen in to God's plan for the world as he came to us in disguise. 

Enjoy listening to the battle plan for God's will in our lives.

Merry Christmas.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Advent IV - The Wishing

For the first decade or so of my life, Santa's list was quite important to me.  For the weeks before Christmas, I would scribble furiously, etch out, erase, copy from other lists - there was no wish too big, but quite a few too small.  Frankly, I think my list was lost somewhere in the U.S. postal system, or else the North Pole system, because Santa always mixed my list up with someone else; someone entirely bereft of underwear and socks. 

Oh well, part of Christmas is wishing for something different in life and it's not just about the materialistic cravings which we constantly feed, or at least the older I get it seems that way; it's the feeling the life can be different.  As I think about the things that I wish for this year, I ponder that first Christmas and imagine Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph and Mary having a discussion about the things that they wished for.  Here is a brief, made up dialogue which I have concocted in my own head regarding the first fifty-five verses of Luke.

(At Liz and Zech's house, the doorbell rings - I know, it is anachronistic to put a doorbell in, but it feels good to have it.)

Liz:  (wiping her hands on the dish towel)  Who is it?
Mary:  It's your cousin, Mary.  (they shriek with delight - Liz opens the door and embraces Mary.) 
Liz:  Oh, it's so good to see you (she raises Mary's arms out to the side) You're looking fit.  Been to the gym lately?
Mary:  (blushes) There's just no time.  With Joe at the shop all day, the washing to be done, the cabinets to be dusted - oh, that dust here in the Middle East!  (Joe is loitering behind her)  Come over here, Joseph, meet my cousin Liz.  (they smile awkwardly)
Liz (grabbing Mary by the arm and pulling her into the kitchen but speaks over her shoulder)  Joe, make yourself at home - I think my husband Zech is just back from Temple.  I hear the trumpeters were a little off today; some problems with this contemporary music.  Can you believe it?  They want to get rid of the drums, and have more chanting?  How ridiculous.  I'm going to go to the traditional service, the early one, where all the old people are.  (sits Mary down at the table and goes to make some tea)  Listen to me ramble, Mary.  Tell me how things are going?  You've got a new... (wiggles her eyebrows and smiles).
Mary:  Yes, our fathers picked us out for each other.  We're engaged, but... (she paused) that's not the end of it.
Liz:  (lowering her voice) Do tell.
Mary:  I... uh... I don't know how to tell this without sounding crazy, but...
Liz:  Joe doesn't have six fingers on each hand, does he?  (Mary laughs nervously)
Mary:  A few nights ago, while Joe was in the shop finishing some rocking chairs for the Roman counsel, an angel came to me...
Liz:  That's amazing!  What did it look like?
Mary:  It looked a lot like Fabious, the Roman gladiator, but much scarier.
Liz:  What did the angel say?
Mary:  (swallows)  He said "Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you!"
Liz:  Wow!
Mary:  I've always known that God is around the edges of my life; certain circumstances where life seemed different - thin, almost translucent - is the best way to describe it.  I've never experienced anything like this and then to be greeted with 'Highly favored one!" that's crazy, right?
Liz:  (Liz nods) Yes.  Crazy.
Mary:  There's nothing favorable about me.  I'm just a teenager, I haven't really done anything; my family is not necessarily poor, but we aren't wealthy.  I don't have many talents other than I'm a pretty good singer.
Liz:  Tell me about it.
Mary:  But then he says this, "Don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will have no end."
Liz:  (quiet for a moment, but then a smile spreads over her face.)  You're right, Mary, it sounds crazy.  But there is something welling up inside me, some strange emotion that I cannot put a finger on, something that is telling me to let go and sing!  You know, almost like one of those musicals they've been putting on down at the theatre. I think the newest one is called Les Happy Ones.  God does miracles even today!  For all these years, I've wished to have a child.  Now I've got one! A wish is a dangerous thing, don't you think?
Mary:  But I never wished for this!  It's like I'm setting myself up for a death sentence.  When people find out, they'll stone me, or at the very least, shame me until I have no part of the community.  What will Joseph say?  What will my parents say?
Liz:  You haven't told Joe yet?
Mary:  I couldn't.  I don't know how to bring it up.   He's caring and considerate, he treats me with gentleness, but we hardly know each other.  How do you tell someone you're engaged to:  Honey, can we sit down and have a little chat?  I know that we're new to this relationship and all, but something's come up in my life that will change things a little bit.
Liz:  Yes, and then throw in an angel, an overshadowing by the Spirit and a pregnancy... Oooh (she grabs her belly) my child just leapt within me! It must be a sign!  (starts singing a la operatic style)  "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored the mother of my Lord should come to me?"
Mary:  What are you doing?
Liz:  Singing!  I can't help it!
Mary:  Let me try.  My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
Liz:  That was magnificent!
Mary:  Thank you, but my one wish this Hanukah is to have Joe believe me.
Liz:  When you open yourself to God's will, God always makes a way.  (She smiles)  How wonderful to see you...

People don't talk this way anymore, I know.  This partially made up dialogue interspersed with twenty-first century fears and doubts is, by and large, an example of how dreams are often expressed.  Wishes are couched in terms of anxiety about what we may miss out if our wishes are actually granted.  For instance, if I wish for a car for Christmas, will I miss out on a sleeping bag?  When we wish for the savior to be born, we automatically think about the things that might have to be sacrificed:  if I encounter Jesus as Savior, I will have to give up a lifestyle, perhaps decadent, perhaps prudish and not centered on love; perhaps I will have to give up those things that distract from the greater good of the people around me. 

But the reality of the Christ wish is not that it we who are sacrificing, but it is God who is sacrificing.  In our wishing, we actually are imagining that we receive something that is missing.  When we wish for Christ's peace this Christmas, it does not mean that we lose out on everything else, it only means that we are transformed, like Mary, from an instrument of waiting to an instrument of God's song in Christ. 

Both Elizabeth and Mary could not help singing, something which doesn't happen as much nowadays.  We listen to the 'stars' of music; we plug our earphones in and are captured by digitally enhanced sound waves, but there is a certain beauty to the un-amplified human voice that makes the darkest soul tremble, even if it is not professional quality.  I have no idea what either Elizabeth's or Mary's voices were like, whether they were like Taylor Swift's or Taylor Slow's.  In this case it doesn't matter, because it is in the lyric of the Magnificat that we find all the joy that the world will need.  No matter how long we have been waiting, or for what we've been waiting, here has come our Immanuel.  God with us. 

This Christmas, as you write out your Christmas list, whether to Santa or some other professional gift buyer in your family, think about what you wish that God would do in your life this year.  How will God unwrap your heart?  How will the Christ child enter in?

What will you wish for?

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Advent III - The Watching

It must be almost ten years since my Grandpa Matthias made the Christmas crèche for us.  Made out of rough timber, about two feet wide and a foot tall, the crèche always sits in a place of prominence in our home during Advent.  My grandma painted all of the figurines.  Of course there is the holy family; Jesus an only child lying in a bed of painted straw, mostly naked except for a modestly wrapped cloth diaper around his waist.  I guess Mary was washing the swaddling clothes at the time.  Joseph, Mary, the shepherds and especially the wise men, are wearing incredible amounts of linen.  The magi must have come from a place of warmth because they look really cold shivering beside their cows.

Oh, yes, the camels are parked in the back.  The shepherds take care of them as well as a few of the frolicking sheep, but the cows seem content to be leading the Ancient Stargazers to the place where Jesus lay.  There is an angel, a beautiful cherub in a blue dress, pinioned to front of the wooden stable, affixed by a single nail in its back.  I'm sure she loves to hang their, suspended by the spike singing songs of great joy about how her back is killing her.  Sometimes, though, the angel flutters down on translucent wings to rest ever so gently on the back of the donkey which has its legs folded under it just trying to get any sleep.  So much racket going on with all these heavily dressed people, an infant baby, Magi-bearing cows and snorting camels.

Silent night, my ass.  (donkey speaking here)

It's the beauty of the crèche, though, that we can manipulate the characters to play whatever role we want.  Sometimes one of the shepherds fills in to babysit the infant savior while Joseph and Mary go on their first date as parents.  The camels, permanently reposed, have angel dust (not the hallucinogenic drug) sprinkled on them so they can fly to Never Never Land.  Sometimes the wise men have to leave for a Professional Development class, i.e. go outside to gaze at the stars and see what they're going to have for dinner.  It's all part of the wonder of what we used to do as kids, to place ourselves in dolls, or toys, or imaginations and make believe...

To make us believe.  To make us believe the Advent message we sometimes manipulate the characters of the Christmas story to fit our own ideas of what faith should be like.  We watch, or stand guard over the figures of the Advent story, or our version of it, so that Jesus sleeps peacefully - he would never cry, he's perfect.  His mother is perpetually watching him because she's not tired at all.  After giving birth to the baby (which in our crèche makes the baby look like he is thirty-eight pounds), Mary assumes the holy position, hands pushed tightly together in front of her, head bowed treasuring the beauty of childbirth in a stable. 

Yeah, right.

The wise men are really intelligent men who have watched the stars and yet have somehow have been unable to watch the one, great big moving star that settled over Bethlehem.  They, in all their intelligence, go to ask the king where the newborn king has been brought into the world.  The shepherds, watching their flocks by night, (who knows what they were actually doing at that time of day) have been permanently transposed into joyous young boys capably adept at jumping and springing for joy at being released from their full time job of keeping their sheep safe. 

I wonder if the sheep were alive when they returned?

But my own watching over the Christmas crèche and my own vision of its story is skewed a little bit, I think I like to manipulate the Christmas figures to bend to my will.  Joseph and Mary will never suffer hardship, the baby Jesus no crying he makes, the angel sings praises to God and hangs delightedly above the stable and the animals.  The manger is filled with fresh, fragrant straw and always will be and the wise men are perpetually wise and love to drop their Christmas gifts and run.

I'm almost positive that's not the way it happened, but one figure who gets changed in my own brain most of the time is John the Baptist.  We talk about him every Advent, the one who brings the good news of peace on earth and goodwill to men.  His message, as I manipulate it, is one of tolerance and good wishes at Christmas time, never mind the fact that in his preparation for the Christ, his first words out of his mouth are:

You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our Father."  (Luke 3:7)

In other words, to the crowds who flock to the Baptist, he does not promote tolerance for sin and selfish acts; he does not cozy up to the adoration of the multitudes, he offends them, as the gospel always seems to do.  It does no good to make people feel good about themselves, when in themselves there is nothing good.  They have made themselves righteous by claiming Abraham as their father, that somehow his inherent faithfulness is passed on in the righteous gene, and somehow have been deluded that faith comes through birth and is not deceived through disbelieving actions.  John speaks to a crowd of people who could have been his biggest supporters, could have made him a big deal in the temple just like his father, but he cuts right through it to the very heart of his message:

Repent.  Turn around, quickly!  The kingdom of God is at hand!  If you don't look up from yourselves and your addiction to ego, you'll miss him!  He is not saying this to anger them, although it probably did, but he cares about the efficacy of the Good News and how hard hearts tend to be a difficult barrier for the Gospel to break through.

What should we do, then?  It's interesting the crowd that asks this, because I often place myself in the crowds in biblical stories.  Included in the mob are faithful Israelites, tax collectors and soldiers, the latter to groups often looked upon with disdain, but John doesn't turn them away and he doesn't change the message in order to get them to 'come to Jesus.'  The message is the same; the only difference is the depth of the ears and hearts receiving them, and for tax collectors and soldiers, it's a miracle that they even listen at all because John's message basically is this -

Erase what you've learned about gathering 'stuff' and its importance in your life.  To the crowd he says, Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.  To the tax collectors who call him 'Teacher,' Don't collect anymore than your job requires you.  You don't need any more to make it through life, especially if it means robbing others.  To the soldiers, Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely - be content with your pay.

For some reason, John's preparation of the way for Christ taps into the very materialistic nature of 21st century society also.  If you have more than you need, share.  If you think you need more, you're probably wrong.  If you've been doing something you feel ashamed of doing with regards to money, you should probably be ashamed and change it because Mammon has become your god and there is no serving two masters.

So the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.  (Luke 3:15)  They still didn't get it, but they understood that the message he was preaching, even if it meant giving up the very thing they idolized, was new and revolutionary and could, perhaps, put them in line for the coming of the Messiah.

So, watching and waiting expectantly, how do we, as faithful Christians, watch over John's preparation in the wilderness speech and not manipulate to a lukewarm, half-baked, cheap grace covers all message, and prepare our lives for the coming Messiah?  Does it include financial dis-ease to see the healer of all ills?  Does it include exiting our palaces of prosperity to encounter the Christ on his own terms?  Do we cease and desist keeping up with Mr. and Mrs. Jones so that the love of Christ can settle into the mangers of our own hearts this Christmas?

Watch and see.

Friday, December 4, 2015

Advent II - The Wandering

In the book of Mark, he is described this way:

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.  Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the River Jordan.  John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: 'After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

For some reason, my brain connects so much more with the visual of this Grizzly Adams type mountain man wearing a tunic of camel's hair and eating grasshoppers dipped in a bowlful of honey.  Imagine one of John's after hours party - all the countryside and all the people of Jerusalem out to hang out with him, the celebrity, and he says, "Hey, can someone pass the crickets?  I've got the munchies."

But he is a celebrity, it seems.  He wanders in the wilderness preparing an opportunity for one who is greater than he is, one more powerful, one who can do much more than baptize with what little water can be found in the wilderness. 

He is coming.

And we believe, because they inhabit our minds through a screen.

Celebrity is as celebrity does, as Forrest Gump should have said.

John the Baptist can't escape the celebrity status that he has gathered but with it comes great responsibility, and unlike present day stardom, he is not drawing the light to himself.  There is no self-aggrandizement, no braggadocio. no false sense that he thinks to himself, "Maybe I should think a little closer about my own sense of power." 

He recognizes that there is someone greater than he is and his job, as foretold by his own father, Zechariah, in Luke 1:77-79,

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high; for you will go on before the LORD to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.

What incredible poetry (this is entitled Zechariah's Song)!  He is singing about his child's future right after he is born and with the vivid understanding that his son has a role in showing God's mercy whose light shines down from heaven...

And guides our feet into the path of peace.

Isn't that what we all want this Christmas?  It seems like every Christmas I profess peace with my mouth, but it is still far from my heart.  I wander around in a trance-like state thinking about 'Christmassy' things and yet the gift that I truly want is one which John brings to us first and foremost.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all people.

We're not told much about John's early life only what Luke recalls after Zechariah's song:  And the child grew and became strong in the Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

Can you imagine the frustration of both Elizabeth and Zechariah at mealtime every night?

Elizabeth:  Zechy, have you seen John?  He's supposed to be washing up for supper.
Zechariah:  (shaking his head)  Last time I saw him he was by himself, heading out into the hills.
Elizabeth:  What does he do out there anyway?
Zecheriah:  Who knows?  I tried to find him once, follow his tracks, but they always lead to beehives.
Elizabeth:  What?
Zechariah:  I have no idea.  My guess is he likes honey.  Good thing his metabolism is still working.  Wait until he gets our age.  He'll have to hit the YMJA  (Young Men's Judean Association) and work off some of that desert fat.
Elizabeth:  Well, I suppose it's true.  He never seems to be hungry when he gets home.  I just hope he is getting enough protein.

I would have loved to see what Elizabeth and Zechariah would have said when he showed up with grasshopper wings stuck in his teeth.

But the scripture says that he lived in the wilderness.  He wandered and waited for something.  Perhaps he really didn't know what that would be or what that would look like.  Maybe John just assumed that he was destined for nomadicism and after his parents passed on it was only natural to think, just like the rest of the Jews living under Roman thumb, that God had forgotten them.

(Luke 3:2-6)  During the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.  He went into all the country around the Jordan preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John went from place to place and talked about that which would set the people's feet on the path of peace.  Forgiveness of sins.  Here is the place which in our spiritual lives we find crooked paths of jealousy, rough roads of hatred and soaring mountains of pride.  When baptism occurs, those potholes are filled in, and sin ceases to have power over our salvation (or damnation, as it were), because the power of Christ allows us to be 'baptized into a death like his' which gives us life with him.  It was in this wandering that John encountered the word of God at long last.  Perhaps in a quiet morning when he least expected it, just finishing a morning stroll, and at the perfect time, God beckoned in his own way to this rugged man of the wilderness, who would soon be a celebrity in his own right, and said, 'Dearest John, I've got a plan and I need you near the front and center for a while.'

For this man who wandered, who probably was not unfamiliar with hardship, life would never be the same and for one who wandered by himself, great crowds would probably have caused him great stress.

But it is in the wandering that perhaps all of us can encounter God and the call to something bigger than ourselves - to allow the light of Christ to reflect off of us to show others one who is greater than us.  In this way, even in the midst of the struggle of making the path straight for God this Christmas, we might encounter the path into peace.

The Pit

In the beginning was the pit. Yesterday, I did something I hadn't done in a quarter century. To be entirely frank, that quarter century ...