Sermon-Christmas Highway

"CHRISTMAS HIGHWAY PREPARATIONS"

Dr. James L. Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 12, 1999

Text: Mark 1:1-8

When I was younger, and I read the Advent passages about John the Baptist, (especially those in Matthew and Luke) I was attracted to those verses in which John was giving the religious hypocrites a hard time, and also the passages that told about John the Baptist publicly denouncing Herod and his wife because of their blatant sin and violation of Jewish law. Looking back, I think I enjoyed John's denouncement of those hypocrites and sinners way too much.

I guess I should not be too surprised; after all, it is very human to delight in the denouncement of people whose faults and sins are so different from our faults and sins that it is easy for us to shake our fingers in their direction and piously say: "Shame! Shame!" However, these days I find myself less eager to shake my finger at others who are obviously sinners and hypocrites. I would like to say it is because I have grown so greatly in love and compassion. And while I think I have grown some in those areas of my life, I suspect the more dominant reason I take less glee in the denouncement of the sinners and hypocrites is that over the years situations and circumstances in my life have slapped me in the face with hard, harsh evidence of my own sin and my own hypocrisy. It is less easy for me honestly to see myself in the choir of John the Baptist, and much easier to find myself uncomfortable in the truth that I have all too much in common with the people John the Baptist blasted with his heated religious rhetoric.

So, the last few years I have looked forward less and less to dealing with the passages about John the Baptist during the season of Advent. But this year, for some reason, when I read today's passage from Mark, my eyes focused on the words: "And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him …" Why? When I asked myself, "Why did all those people go seeking John the Baptist?" I discovered (or rather rediscovered) some insights about what Advent is really all about.

I am convinced all those people did not merely go to see a weirdly dressed religious celebrity who ate locusts and honey. And there is nothing in the text to support the notion that they went to cheer him on as he blasted the religious hypocrites and the sinfulness of the leaders of the land. The passage says all these people went into the wilderness to hear him preach about repentance and forgiveness. And after hearing him, these people were choosing to be baptized and to confess their sins.

What is all that about? I think it is all about longing for hope, and it is also about finding hope.

I suspect those people were not too different from most of us. They were people who had been through enough to have had the sharp edges of their self-righteousness knocked off. They were people who, regardless of their accomplishments, were also aware of wrong they had done, hurts they had caused or ignored, and of good they had failed to do. Not only were they aware that life is not as God intended it to be, deep within they knew their way of living was both a disappointment to God and a disappointment to themselves—a special disappointment that is most accurately called "guilt."

Of course, assuming they were like we are, they were good at denying this disappointment in themselves. I suspect, like us, they had developed some skill in pretending to have a certain degree of righteousness. But in their hearts they knew it was a phony righteousness, and they were secretly embarrassed—even ashamed. They tried to hide their spiritual flaws of character and their painfully personal failures of conscience from other people and from themselves.

I suspect these people who lived with regrets that were never spoken aloud to others and only rarely admitted to themselves, went into the wilderness hoping that somehow they would find hope in what John the Baptist had to offer. Their innocence was far from being in a shiny, new condition. Their souls were like battered old cars marked by abuse, dents and rust, both because of what they had done or failed to do and because of collisions in life they had suffered.

It is my guess that what drew all those people into the wilderness to listen to John the Baptist was a profound longing for hope—longing for some sort of hope and healing for all their regrets, some sort of hope and healing for the deep ache of disappointment in their lives, some sort of hope and healing for the heartache caused by what others had done to them and by what they had done to others. With their battered and beat-up souls, hidden under their Sunday-go-to-church clothes, they went, hoping to find hope.

Hope is a powerful force. It was hope for a better life that motivated men, women and families to get on board those little sailing ships in past centuries and leave what was familiar behind and set out on a voyage that often brought death. Driven by the power of hope, they took life-threatening risks as they set sail for what they called a new world.

The passage says almost everyone was going to hear John the Baptist. I am convinced they were drawn there by their longing for some kind of hope. And what was the hope that drew them?

The passage says John was talking about repentance and forgiveness. He was talking about the possibility of people making changes in their living, and the possibility of experiencing peace in their souls. This is what repentance and forgiveness are all about: making changes in our living and experiencing healing and peace in the depths of our being, in our hearts, in our souls. John the Baptist was involved in a ministry of proclaiming the possibility of change—that is, repentance—and the gift of soul-healing peace—that is, forgiveness. And in this way John the Baptist was offering hope. This is the way John the Baptist was preparing for the coming of Christ—preparing the way of the Lord.

Most of the time when I have heard the verse: "Prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight his paths," what I have heard is a statement something like this: "Jim, get the highway of your life in shape; get the dips repaired, and straighten out those dangerous curves in the way you live so that Christ can have a straight shot, right into the heart of your living."

Now to be sure, this is an important part of what John the Baptist was telling the people then and now. This is why so many of us preachers have preached so many Advent sermons that in various ways said: "Get yourself ready to receive Christ."

But now I see there is more to the Advent message. Preparing the way of the Lord is not limited to a self-centered concern merely to try to get ourselves ready to receive the coming of Christ. We are to prepare the highway for the Lord to come into the midst of us all. We who claim to believe the Gospel not only have the responsibility to listen to what John the Baptist says to us, but we also have some responsibility to take on the role of John the Baptist in the midst of our everyday living.

Our getting ready for the coming of Christmas should involve more than getting ourselves ready. It should also involve us in doing what we can to prepare others for the coming of Christ. Getting ready for Christmas is to involve us in more than doing our own personal, private, individual Advent devotions. Getting ready for Christmas also includes doing what we are able to do to help others get ready. We are to prepare the way of the Lord, not just to come into our lives, but also into the lives of those around us as well.

How are we to do this? Gregory The Great, one of our Christian ancestors who lived about 600 years after Jesus wrote: Whoever preaches right faith and good works prepares … a road for the Lord to come into the hearers’ hearts.

Or, to say this in some other words, whenever what we are saying and doing is a reflection of our faith in Christ, we are building a highway for Christ to travel on. When our words and deeds reflect our trust in the love of God, we are preparing the way for the Lord.

John's ministry was one of proclaiming hope by calling people to repentance and offering them forgiveness. In calling them to repentance, he was offering them the possibility of making changes in their living. In his proclamation of forgiveness he was offering healing for their battered souls. This ministry of John the Baptist is also the ministry of each of us.

It is the ministry that flows from us when we live with such confidence in God and the grace of God that our living reflects the hope that not only persons but also the world can change. And for this change to happen, our ministry must also include offering the kind of healing that only genuine forgiveness can bring. However we make known the possibilities of repentance and forgiveness is the way we are to be involved in the Advent ministry of preparing the way for the Lord.

God, thank you for the gift of being able to change and for the gifts that heal our souls. Help us share these gifts and in so doing, participating in the building of a Christmas highway. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

O God, our celebration of Christmas is so filled with traditions, we sometimes lose touch with the truth and the reality we are celebrating. Forgive us when we are so focused on the company that is coming or the trip we are going to take that we forget about the visit of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Forgive us when our dread of having to be with certain people or our dread of being alone is so strong that it makes us insensitive to the joy that thrilled the shepherds and the awesome wonder that motivated the wise men. Forgive us when our concerns about the gifts we are giving or receiving cause us to lose sight of Your amazing Christmas gift.

O God, we need more than forgiveness. We need a renewal of heart. We need Your grace to be at work within us so that we will focus on what You have done in Christmas rather than on all we think we have to do this time of year. Help us view Christmas from the perspective of faith so that we will experience joy and amazement as we remember and celebrate the gift of Your Son—the one who in teaching us to live, taught us to pray: "Our Father ..."

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