A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity Church ,
Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, December
4, 2011.
“THE WAY HOME”
Our Collect
for this, the Second Sunday of Advent, says:
Merciful
God, who sent thy messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the
way for our salvation; Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our
sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Collect
for today offers a blueprint for the way home to God, out of exile, bondage and
estrangement, into a close relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.
Using the
pattern of the Collect, what follows this morning is a reflection on the
process of coming home to God, out of a faraway place. This reflection will focus on Isaiah’s
prophecy as it was realized when God’s chosen people came out of exile in
Babylon, and on John the baptizer’s call to repentance as he baptized in the
Jordan River.
So, we will
begin by asking a question: Do you know
the way home?
Perhaps
most of us have had the experience of being away from home, or perhaps have
even been lost for a time.
If you’ve
had that experience, do you remember how if felt to be away from home,
especially if you knew you either couldn’t find your way, or knew that it would
be a long time before you could get home?
God’s
people in ancient times must surely have known these feelings. As I make that statement, I have in mind the
period of the captivity in Babylon, which lasted from 586 BC to 536 BC. Much of the population around Jerusalem and
Judea was deported when the Babylonians conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah
in 586.
So perhaps Isaiah’s words rang in their ears,
telling them that it was time for them to go home as they learned that they
were to be free to leave: “In the
wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway
for our God. Every valley shall be
lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall
become level, and the rough places a plain.”
Now hold
that image of Isaiah’s prophecy, along with the return of God’s people to
Jerusalem and to Judah, in your mind for a moment, and let’s turn our attention
to notice some parallels which exist between our Isaiah reading and our gospel
text from Mark, chapter one.
There is a
progression which is found in each passage.
Here it is:
1. God’s people are in bondage, enslaved because
of the sin of idolatry.
2. A prophet’s voice announces a way to return home to God.
3. The return to God involves a wilderness (desert) journey.
4. God’s forgiveness allows the exiles to return home to Him.
5. God’s power makes possible the reunification with Him.
Now let’s see how this progression works itself out in each case.
We begin
with Isaiah’s prophecy, and its fulfillment when God’s people made their return
from Babylon in 536 BC.
1. Sin and
idolatry: Eventually, God’s people
came to see that the reason for their defeat and subsequent deportation to
Babylon was due to their idolatry. For
centuries, worship of the one, true God had been intermingled with pagan idol
worship. Many of the pagan gods that
found their way into worship (even in the temple in Jerusalem) were actually
Canaanite gods, like Dagon or the Asherah poles, or Molech. It took the deportation to Babylon to break
God’s people of the habit of worshipping other gods, alongside (or in place of)
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses and Elijah. Never again would they intermingle the two,
once they were back in the Promised Land.
2. The
prophet’s announcement: Isaiah’s
prophecy comes true as the Persian king Cyrus allows the people to return to
Jerusalem and Judah.
3. The
wilderness: The people would have to
travel westward through the wilderness to return home.
4. God’s
forgiveness: The announcement that
permission had been granted to return home signaled the beginning of God’s
forgiveness. The time of punishment was
over. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and
cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,” Isaiah
had said.
5. God’s
power: The return home is made
possible by the power of God.
Furthermore, it is God who will make possible the reunification of the
people with their God. Isaiah had said,
“He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms,
he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”
Now, let’s
examine the situation as we find it during the time that John the baptizer was
baptizing in the Jordan River, in the first century. We are able to apply the same five categories
to the contemporary situation he faced.
1. Sin and
idolatry: Though the people are not
enslaved by the sin of worshipping Canaanite gods, or the gods of the Romans,
who had conquered the Holy Land, they are guilty of idolatry in another
sense: They have made the law of Moses
into an idol. The law’s original
purpose, to provide a way for God’s people to walk with the Lord in holiness
and righteousness, had instead become a legalistic code of conduct. Attention was focused so squarely on what a
person could or couldn’t do in any given situation, that oftentimes the law
itself took the place that God alone should occupy. Sin was defined as any transgression of the
provisions of the law as it was applied to each and every possible situation a
person could encounter. Penance for sin
became somewhat legalistic, as well, for a person could go through the outward
motions and consider themselves forgiven without making the inner change of
heart that true forgiveness entails.
2. The
prophet’s announcement: John the
baptizer calls the people to repentance.
Notice that the same words which we have already heard in Isaiah are
repeated here.
3. The
wilderness: Mark tells us that
people came from Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Judea to the wilderness to
wash away their sins.
4. God’s
forgiveness: As people confess their
sins and enter the waters of the Jordan, their sins are forgiven them.
5. God’s
power: If John’s baptism was for the
forgiveness of sins, then the baptism of Jesus involves the receiving of power
to bring others into unity with God. At
first glance, my statement probably doesn’t make sense, so I’ll attempt to
clarify: Notice that John says that his
baptism was with water (and for the forgiveness of sins, as we’ve noted a
moment ago), but that Jesus will “baptize with the Holy Spirit.” If we recall when the Holy Spirit was given,
and what happened as a result of the coming of the Spirit, then I think we can
make the connection….the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost, and the Spirit’s
indwelling made possible the spread of the Good News, news that God had made it
possible for all people to come into fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.
The return
home for God’s people in the sixth century BC was a physical, geographical
event which carried with it the importance of returning to the Promised Land,
and to Jerusalem, that place where God dwelt.
The return
home for those who had undergone John’s baptism, and Jesus’ baptism
subsequently, was a return home spiritually.
As a spiritual event, it was therefore available to all people
everywhere. The human heart would be the
place where God dwells.
How does
this apply to us?
Do we
undergo a similar return home somehow?
I think the
answer is “yes”.
We remain
quite prone to the sin of idolatry. This
is to speak honestly and frankly. Idols
are no longer wood, stone or ceramic, like they were in ancient times. In our day, idols might consist of a certain
prized possession, or an idea, or money, or status.
Of any
idol, which is essentially anything that takes the rightful place that God
alone ought to occupy, we have the need to repent.
Recall the
words of the Collect for today, as it says, “Give us grace to heed their (the
prophets) warnings and forsake our sins.”
Repentance
will involve meeting God in the wilderness places, the lonely places, of our
lives. God is often found in those
places where the distractions are few and the relating is between God and us,
alone.
But genuine
confession is followed by genuine forgiveness.
Recall the words of Psalm 103:
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he (God) put our sins away from us.”
Forgiveness
is followed by the restoration of fellowship with God, so that the power of God
to reconcile and to build anew is known in our lives.
Do you know
the way home?
