third sunday of advent
isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
the gospel of john 1:6-8, 19-28
preached at St. John’s Christopher St, NYC
december 13, 2020
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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Liberator, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Welcome to the third Sunday of Advent! It’s good to be with you in this new format, which we pivoted to in order to increase both our collective safety, and the clarity and heart of worship. We will continue responding, and adjusting, and trying new ways of being together, in this time of pandemic.
Today we again encounter John, as a voice crying out from the wilderness. It’s significant that John is in the wilderness – away from the city center, away from religious authorities. Away from communal support, and in a place that takes intention to get to. When we encounter wilderness spaces in scripture, these are not landscapes with well-worn and well-cared for paths. The wilderness is desolate, dry, deserted. Wilderness spaces aren’t pretending to be anything they’re not, and require the same of humans who venture into them. Any illusions of power or control are erased in the wilderness. Any illusions of greatness are washed away in the wilderness. Our pretense falls away, as we encounter deserts, harsh and unforgiving, yet beautiful and mystical. It falls away, as we learn about the depths of the ocean, with sea creatures we have yet to know or name, entire ecosystems that exist with the barest hint of sunshine. Any illusions that humans are the center of the Created world falls away as we find small creatures that live in vast glacial expanses.
When humans venture into the wilderness, sometimes by choice, but more often by necessity, the goal is to survive, to transform, and to return to something else, even as that something else is inevitably changed by your time away. And there is often a connection between wilderness and exile. Where people, communities, are wandering in the wilderness because navigating those dangers is better than their current situation, or is the only option for survival. The Isaiah reading from this week, from the last third of the book of Isaiah, is in response to exile, most likely written as the Temple and Jerusalem were being rebuilt. Earlier in Isaiah, the writing probably comes from the midst of exile. Exile, like wilderness, is something to survive, to transform because of, and to return from.
This intertwining of wilderness and exile points to the reality that both are liminal spaces, in-between what was and what’s to come. Just as there is a before and after exile, there is a before and after of time spent in the wilderness. And that liminal reality of wilderness extends it beyond the landscapes we first think of. Urban landscapes can be wilderness spaces. Our hearts and minds can be wilderness spaces. Spaces of waiting, transformation, exile, discovery.
And, I would say that we are collectively navigating a wilderness space right now, in the midst of pandemic. We are experiencing this pandemic wilderness differently, depending on our class status, our jobs, our identities, but collectively we are swimming in so much grief and loss, and that will change us. We cannot return to the before, not in the same way. We have been exiled from the world as-it-was, as-we-expected, and what will come after this time is unknown.
A marker of the wilderness and exile is an unknown timeframe – not being sure when the return will happen, not being sure who will be around to experience it – because wandering in the wilderness could be for weeks, or for years. Meaning-making can happen in wilderness spaces, but is often more present in the return, the after. In the midst of wilderness, when we are stripped from our pretense, the question is: who are we? Who might we become?
And that is where we meet John the Baptist, crying out in the wilderness. He is not the Messiah. He is not Elijah. He is a prophet, but not the prophet. We come to John, in the crowds, to be baptized with water, even as we wait for the one who is already in our midst. We come to John, in the religious authorities, asking him by what authority he does these things, away from the city center, away from the Temple. We come to John, with our doubts, and our fears, willing to venture into the wilderness, into exile, in order to encounter God in a new way, so that we might believe through him.
In the wilderness, pretense is gone, replaced with our honest selves, and the presence of the Divine. God is found in liminal spaces. In upheavals. In reversals. In reimagining’s. We travel through the wilderness, and we are transformed, through the promises of God. Promises like we read in Isaiah. God will bind up the brokenhearted… proclaim liberty to the captives…release to the prisoners. God will comfort all who mourn…[giving] a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning. We are transformed when we live our lives like these promises are possible – that the captives will be freed, prisoners released, broken hearts comforted, a new world of garlands and the oil of gladness. We are transformed when we live our lives like these promises are possible. Because they are. God’s grace and love is so abundant, so transforming, that it is poured out over all Creation, even when we are waiting in the midst of the wilderness. We are changed simply by believing, and acting, through our faith in God.
But beloveds, we know too that the wilderness can make it hard to hold onto these promises. As the days go by, as the pandemic rages, as the death toll increases, how do we hold onto the promises of God? When we are grieving, and unable to mourn together, living in systems and structures that are willing to sacrifice people for the sake of profit, willing to sacrifice our very planet for the sake of profit, where do we find God? When loss after loss piles up, whether it be the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a sense of purpose, or a loss of understanding how the world works, how do we trust in God’s love and care?
There’s not one easy answer. I wish there was. There is no magic wand that will solve our grief, our losses. We will be changed by them. God grieves with us as we are in the thick of the wilderness. In the thick of Advent, where we wait, and prepare, for the Christ-child who has been promised, who has been hoped for, but is still not here, and therefore, not certain. We have the gift of centuries of Advent – for those waiting in the first Advent, there was no guarantee that this birth would be different than any other birth. And that uncertainty, that tentative, fearful hope, might feel resonant this year, as well.
This Advent, and Christmas, might be the first one without a loved one. Or without a job. Or without gathered community. It could very well feel like you are the only voice crying out from the wilderness, as we are both more connected, and more isolated. The promises of Isaiah, the promises of Christ, of God, could feel so far away, so beautiful, and so slow in coming that they might feel impossible. You might be carrying so much grief that even the smallest spark of hope takes so much energy to keep lit. And that is holy work. Survival is holy work.
And we are not alone in this wilderness, in this exile. God is present with us. The promises of God, for liberation, for joy, for comfort, are communal promises. John was baptizing in crowds, the prophet Isaiah writing to and for a community. We need each other, in this work of hope and promise. Our waiting in Advent is a communal practice. One of the reasons we pray together, and for each other, is because sometimes, individually, we can’t do it for ourselves. The words of the Lord’s Prayer might ring hollow, God’s promises feel so far away that individually, in that moment, we can no longer bear the risk of hoping. And so we pray together, holding the faith for each other. Believing through each other. We wander the wilderness together, trying to keep as many of us as okay as is possible. We experience our exile from the way the world used to work, the way we were taught to believe the world worked, together, and we claim our identities as children of God, as we wonder what is emerging. At different points in our lives, sometimes even at the same time, we are the ones who are praying, holding the faith for each other, and are the ones being prayed for, and supported. Our persistence and our faith is not just individual, but communal.
The hope of God is not an illusory hope. It is not asking us to pretend that everything is okay, when it’s not. It’s not glossing over when we are sad, or hurting, or putting on a smile when our hearts are weeping. We are in the midst of transformation, and there is loss in that. But God is building a future out of desolation. A future we can’t even begin to imagine, where we will have oil of gladness instead of mourning. A future that is as strong as God’s love, and as tender as a newborn infant.
So then, as we are able, we are called to follow in John’s footsteps – crying out in the wilderness, preparing the way for God, witnessing to the moments where God’s Kingdom is breaking into our world. It is a spiritual practice and discipline to trust in the hope of God. Finding moments of joy, and of connection. Noticing the times where hope feels certain, and strong. Sharing these moments with others – sending a holiday card, donating to a food bank, praying for those we know and for those we don’t. Embodying the hope of God’s promise in our daily lives, so that we might believe through each other.
As we navigate this uncertain time in the wilderness, may the God of peace sanctify you entirely, and may your community hold you in love and prayer, trusting in the abundant promises of God, as we wait in longing for those promises to be fulfilled in Christ. Amen.
Reed Fowler 