Interrupted expectations

It was a time charged with expectation. Everyone know it was time for something to happen. You could say it was Friday of Daniel’s 69th week, 483 years after Ezra led a group from Persian captivity to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. The time, Daniel had said, when Messiah would come.

It was also a year of Jubilee. A time when things that had gone wrong the previous fifty years would be corrected and set right. Properties reverted to original owners and debts were canceled.

So when John went to the wilderness to announce the advent of the kingdom people took notice. They came from Jerusalem and all over Judea to hear “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”

John had passed over an inherited priesthood in the temple, with its attendant privileges and luxuries, to prepare the way of the Lord. He left a luxury apartment in the temple complex to live in the Judean wilderness. He traded fine linen garments for vestments of rough camel hair and crude leather. Instead of the fine food priests enjoyed he ate off the land: locusts and wild honey. John’s choice of lifestyle and location reminded everyone of Elijah, and added to the expectation that something big was about to happen.

The longstanding prayer and expectation was for Messiah to finally come and restore David’s kingdom. Within the political context it became associated with the hope and dream that Messiah would send the brutal Roman overlords packing.

John interrupted their expectations. His advent message was simple and to the point: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance in John’s mind meant interrupting normal life to don sackcloth and ashes, fast, and call upon God to confess sins and ask for his help. Repentance meant reorienting one’s self to focus completely on God and maintaining right relationship with him. One would gain the kingdom, he said, through repentance, not military conquest or political change. Messiah’s advent had nothing to do with removing the Romans.

He interrupted their expectations another way. Access to the kingdom was gained by baptism, the initiation rite Hebrews had reserved for pagans who converted to Judaism. To suggest that Hebrews needed baptism was offensive. John did it anyway. As John applied it he led repentant people to baptism in the same waters their ancestors had entered the promised land. He invited them to leave behind the old ways and be “born anew” into a new nation he called the kingdom of God. Baptism is an initiation into something new, where the old is left behind and there is a total reorientation of heart and life to God.

John was anything but seeker-sensitive. When the important folks from Jerusalem came to check him out he called them names and asked them what they were doing there. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he thundered. “And don’t make too much of being descended from Abraham, either.”

He went on to warn them their priesthood of the kingdom was about to be interrupted. They had been unproductive in God’s vineyard far too long, and the ax was laid at the root of the tree. Unproductive trees in God’s garden would be removed, and that meant the temple and the Jewish religious system. That meant that instead of removing the Romans, Messiah would remove the temple order.

We, too, can find ourselves distracted and misdirected in our kingdom building. It is easy to take off in a tangent that seems right but in reality is unfruitful. In our own lives we can think more of ourselves than our right standing with God. At church “mission creep” may distract us from our true purpose and lead us to not represent God’s kingdom well.

When that happens there is good news. God created us in his image and likeness, intending for us to be continually oriented toward him. We became distracted by the fruit on the tree, and that pursuit proved to be unfruitful. Our orientation was lost. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ God showed us how to remain oriented toward him, and allowed Jesus to repent and bear the weight of our sin on him. Now God recreates us through the power of the Holy Spirit and orients us toward the kingdom-keeping God intended.

Advent reminds us to think deeply about our hopes, dreams, and expectations. It challenges us to remember our baptism and live into lives of repentance required by the kingdom. This Second Sunday of Advent, allow God to interrupt your expectations and lead you into life-changing repentance and renewal. Remember your baptism and be thankful.

Merciful God, who sent your 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 lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP)

2 Advent A 2013