St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
The Third Sunday of Advent/Year B ▪ December 13, 2020
John 1:6-8, 19-28
You may have noticed the nativity scene creches placed in the narthex as you entered the church this morning and here placed below the altar. The hand-made creche below the altar has been loaned to us by the artist in celebration of St. Paul’s first Christmas. The figures inside do not move—the only figure that is removable is the baby in the manger. Today the baby in the manger is not visible, but we know that the figure will be placed in its rightful position on Christmas Eve when the figures, all currently turned toward one focal point and gazing upon a sight unseen, will make sense.
The creche at the entrance of the church has also been loaned to us by the Groomes family. Unlike the creche below the altar, the figures must be individually placed. As I set up the creche figures, I was reminded to position them so that all are turned toward one focal point, so that when the baby in the manger is placed on Christmas Eve, the figures will gaze upon the child, and the nativity scene will visually make sense.
This three-dimensional image of the temporal world waiting for the inbreaking of the divine, intentionally points all viewers—both living spectators and the inanimate figures within the scene itself—to the Christ child in the manger which is glaringly absent from the scene today.
In our gospel passage in John, the narrator in three sentences, identifies John, whom we know as John the Baptist, as a man sent from God who came as a witness to testify to the light, and who was not himself the light. In other gospels John the Baptist is identified as such, the baptizer, and is referred to as Jesus’ forerunner. No such detail is found here. John’s identity, here, is shaped by who he was not, according to the narrator and to John himself.
When we think about John the Baptist, for many of us, an image comes to mind of an eccentric man crying out in the wilderness, dressed in camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and wild honey. It is quite an image, but it is not the image of John found in this gospel as found in both Matthew and Mark. Such attention to the detail of John the Baptist’s appearance distracts the reader from gospel writer’s focus—and that focus is Christ.
John’s identity was inseparable from his function—his sole purpose. John’s only function in this passage was to testify to the light so that his human testimony became the means by which all people would come to believe in Jesus Christ. We, the readers, gaze upon this scene in which John is confronted by leaders of the Jewish religious community, the priests and Levites, about his identity and his purpose. Several times John denied their guesses about who he was. John only moves from one-word or three-word responses when he is asked, “What do you say about yourself?”
John identifies himself as the voice purposed to cry out in the wilderness for all to, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” (a quote from the prophet Isaiah), scripture which they would have known.
Yet, what John was communicating was not making sense to them. In this persistence of the priests to have definitive answers about who John was and why he was baptizing, if he was not in fact the Messiah or Elijah or a prophet, I wonder if the wilderness, into which John was compelled to cry, might have been the priests and the Levites themselves. I wonder if that same treacherous terrain of the wilderness might just include the Jews who sent the priests and Levites to interrogate John. Might the wilderness be literal and symbolic?
There are many people who find joy in hiking or camping for a set amount of time in nature—the actual wilderness. But many more are oppressed by the despair of a spiritual wilderness. If not properly cared for, and in isolation, human souls can become wilderness-like—it is the opposite of souls being nurtured to be Christ-like within community. This has been true long before the pandemic.
During this pandemic, the untended wilds of many souls have been overtaken by the weeds of sin; the fallen trees of trauma, loss and grief; and the anxiety caused by the sheer size of the wilderness that when one does cry out to any who would listen, one hears only the echo of one’s own voice. Imagine being lost and alone in a spiritual wilderness. Now, imagine being lost and alone in a spiritual wilderness, and not even knowing that you’re lost.
The only help for such souls is the wayfinder—a companioning instrument that points to the Christ light. John was a wayfinder for his interrogators, though they did not know it. When John responded to questions about his identity—he was the instrument that consistently pointed away from himself in order to point to the light for them. A light, by the way, that, according to John, was already standing amongst them (v.26). The light of Christ had already come into the world, and John pointed to that light.
And, so it is with each of us—instruments uniquely equipped to testify to the Christ’s light and to point to Christ’s light. We are wayfinders, who bravely and compassionately meet other human beings where they are—in whatever spiritual wilderness they are experiencing in their lives. We are the ones who say to those despairing in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord, and I will keep pointing for you until you find the way. And, when you find the way, the truth and the life (Jn 14:6), you can point to Christ for someone else.”
In our waiting for the second coming of Christ (his second Advent), we must be vigilant in positioning our hearts and minds toward one focal point, Jesus Christ. As we locate ourselves in the creche of this temporal world, with all of its distractions, we, like those created figures, gaze upon an absent presence, a sight unseen, and yet the one whose real presence is with us in the sacraments of the bread and wine at the Holy Table. On the day of God’s choosing, all of creation, not just the righteous, will turn toward one focal point and gaze upon Christ on the day of the Lord.
So here we are waiting on this third Sunday of Advent which is called Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday. We rejoice now, even when our Lord is physically absent, because we know that the light of Christ has already come into the world, and that that same light is still coming to us now. We rejoice that we have been, and are being, uniquely shaped to reveal the light of Christ to all as hope bearers and wayfinders in this dark and broken world. Rejoice because our wait is almost over, and soon, it will all make sense. Amen.
