Water in the Desert

Isaiah 35:1-10      The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Matthew 11:2-11 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

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Arlie Russell Hochschild writes about the Areno family in her book, Strangers in Their Own Land.  They live in Louisiana, on Bayou d’Inde, bayou of the Indians. Harold and his nine brothers and sisters grew up there, He and his wife Annette raised their children there, and now they remain there with their memories.

He goes through photo albums and remembers how they used to boat and swim and picnic on the bayou.  He recalls how his mother would catch fish by holding bait off the side of the boat, then patting the fish on the side before lifting them by the gills into the boat.  There were grand cypress trees rising out of the water, with green mosses hanging from their branches like lacy shawls.  The trees would grow as high as 150 feet, some living for as long as 1700 years.  The Arenos used the cypress wood to build their fishing boats. 

They farmed on the land there, growing beans, corn, and other vegetables.  They raised chickens, hogs, and cows.  They would fish and catch frogs.  There were beautiful birds – great snowy egrets, white and brown pelicans, gulls, herons, spoonbills, terns.  They drank the water.

Remembering all this, Harold says, “We didn’t know what we had until it was gone.”  Now the dead trunks of cypress trees stand in the water.  The birds are gone; the frogs are no longer heard at night.  Harold says he remembers the last time he heard a bullfrog – it was three years ago.  And you can’t eat the fish because they’re toxic. 

It all started when the local industry began trucking their toxic waste down to the bayou at night –because it was illegal – and dumping it, tons of toxic chemical waste dumped in the bayou.  Soon they began to see the effects: fish flopping around at the surface, trying to breathe.  They noticed the turtles’ eyes turned white.  They had gone blind and they couldn’t catch food anymore so they all starved to death.  Livestock drank the bayou water and dropped dead – goats, sheep, chickens, cows.

Harold and Annette, remembering, go through the litany of death – the land, the water, the trees, fish, animals.  Then they begin to speak of the cancer.  A new litany of brothers, sisters, parents, cousins who lived and worked on the bayou died of cancer. 

This bayou that sustained families for generations is essentially now dead.  The water is still there, there are still fish in it, but they bear the deadly toxins in them.  Only Harold, Annette, and one of their sons remain. 

This is a kind of wilderness, where life can no longer be sustained.  A modern wilderness.

The prophet Isaiah speaks words of hope for the wilderness, perhaps this very wilderness – a world that is ravaged, broken, a world where the people have become weakened, enfeebled.  The land does not blossom or sing.  But God will come, Isaiah says, with vengeance and a terrible recompense.  And we must wonder what that could possibly mean.  What could these words of the prophet mean?

Much later, John the Baptist, that crusty old guy, comes to the wilderness and calls the people out to this place to die and find new life through repentance.  And they came out in droves, even the Pharisees and Sadducees, as we heard last week, came out for this hope of renewal, of restoration.  Death, the enemy, will be defeated. 

Then Jesus comes to the wilderness.  And he walks among the people teaching and healing as he goes.  By this time, John is in prison.  His outspoken manner was too much for the authorities to tolerate.  He crossed a line when he went after Herod, and now Herod held him bound in chains.  But John hears things and he wonders about Jesus.  Is this the one they have been waiting for?

He is not certain.  The world is still broken – John’s chains attest to this.  The desert is still dry and the jackals still slaughter the gazelles, and the blind still do not see.  So there is reason to question: Are you the one?

When John’s disciples bring this question to Jesus, he suggests to them that they check their own sight and hearing.  Can you see and hear what is happening?  Do you not know that where I go the blind receive their sight and the deaf hear?  The lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the dead are raised.  Life in its fullness is restored.  Is this not good news?

We don’t know if John was satisfied with this answer.  We never hear.  Not too long after this, John is taken from his prison cell and executed. 

Perhaps this is why it remains a challenge for the world to say that Jesus is the one we have been waiting for.  For even now, even here, you and I often catch ourselves hoping for the wrong things.  Waiting for a messiah that is not the messiah. 

Harold and Annette Areno wait for the industries that killed the bayou to come in and clean it up.  Others say it’s really the job of the government to do it.  Most people seem to have given up on it.  They moved away, if they could, and try to forget it, or they wait for Jesus to come again and take them away from this awful mess. 

I wish that Jesus had cleaned everything up while he was here.  I wish he had fixed this broken world and restored all life to fullness.  I wish that he had brought God’s vengeance and terrible recompense, but he didn’t.

He gave us a kind of new life that we weren’t really expecting, no one was expecting – not John or anyone else.  And then he left his ministry in our hands.

He gave the blind the potential to see, and truthfully that is a mixed blessing.  When we see the pain we have inflicted on this world it has its own terrible sorrow.  It is all the gathered sorrow of the world that God knows in its fullness.  When our eyes are opened we might see it too.

But when we receive our vision, it is also framed by hope.  When our ears are opened we hear the call and claim of God upon our lives, and we hear the cry, “Be strong, do not fear!  Here is your God.”  And our hands will be strengthened and our knees made firm and we shall be God’s own army, marching down the road that has been opened for us, the Holy Way.  We shall be empowered to live according to our full potential and the land shall rejoice.

Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and the redeemed shall walk there. 

And so, by the mysterious grace of God, this is what we wait for – the life that has come but is not here yet.  The sorrow and the sighing have not yet fled away, but there is hope as well.  Because even while we wait, we are receiving our sight.  Our ears are unstopped and we are given new life.  And this is, indeed, good news for the world.

The World Is About to Turn

Matthew 3:1-12   In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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A week ago Saturday I had Kim and Joe in the garage going through boxes of Christmas decorations.  They went through everything.  Then I dropped broad hints that maybe they should get out the ladder and look in the attic over the garage, in case we had stashed some things up there.  We couldn’t remember for sure.  I didn’t need these decorations yet.  We’re not ready to put up the tree yet.  I was just looking for our Advent wreath.

We never did find it, which was very irritating because I know it will turn up next June. But I gave up looking and drove over to Hobby Lobby, where I walked up and down the aisles looking for something I could make into an Advent wreath.  I found some materials and I am happy with my new wreath.  But it was time and money I wasn’t expecting to spend.

And that is the way this season always turns out to be, isn’t it?  This is only the beginning.  There will be hours and hours spent making ready for Christmas with all the things you are supposed to do.  There will be money spent in amounts I don’t like to think about – all to prepare for the season.  There are so many demands on us at this time of the year.  And because of that I feel uncomfortable asking you to do anything more.

But I need to tell you something.  Getting ready for Christmas is not actually what we seem to think it is.  We need to say this today, because we have John the Baptist, that wild and scary prophet, with us today.

I have some decidedly mixed feelings about John.  He is an unwelcome intruder on our holiday festivities.  We get everything all cleaned up, sparkly and pretty, and in comes John with mud on his feet and burrs in his hair.  We didn’t invite him to our party, but here he is anyway.  Every year, John is that one guy you sort of dread having to deal with. He won’t just let people enjoy themselves.

Like those Pharisees and Sadducees, who just wanted a piece of the good times that everyone else seemed to be having.  They see all the people running out of their homes and rushing down to the water’s edge to receive John’s baptism.  They were throwing themselves at him, unburdening their hearts, laughing and crying and hugging each other.  It looked like a good time, I’m sure.  But when these Pharisees and Sadducees slipped into line, and tried to blend in with the crowd, John called them out.  He wasn’t having any of it.  YOU BROOD OF VIPERS!

He could have been gentler about it.  Maybe in other circumstances he would have been gentler, but this was a moment when bluntness was called for.  No fleeing from the wrath to come, not here, not today.  You can’t come out here looking for an easy way to feel better about yourselves, to mask over the problems that lie underneath.  There is trouble in your souls, there is trouble in your community because of the unaddressed trouble in your souls.  That’s John.  Good-time John.

He comes every year because we need him, whether we like to think so or not.  John is all about preparing the way for the Lord, making his paths straight, making the world ready for him and all that his presence will bring.  John wants to help us get ready for Christmas.  This guy; the one with the muddy feet and wild hair.  He wants to help.

I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t need John’s help.”  But here’s the thing: you do need his help. 

It isn’t going to be enough to put up lights and decorations, pretty as they are.  They are beautiful. But the Lord doesn’t care about our lights and decorations.  We do that for ourselves, alone, and they are useful only so far as they help us draw nearer to Christ, only so far as they make a way for our spirits to connect with God’s Spirit. 

This is why I needed my Advent wreath, although I know I could have just made a wreath with paper and crayons and whatever candles I had on hand.  But I wanted it to be beautiful – and not just to serve as a decorative object.  I need it to serve as a focal point for me every evening during this season, to slow myself down, center myself, and invite the Holy Spirit in. 

Because if I don’t slow down, if I don’t find my center and meet God there, I will fail to see what my heart and soul truly need.  I will fail to notice the scars of sin in my life, and I will fail to identify the stumbling blocks I have put up that keep me from a real relationship with Jesus.  If I don’t slow down I will miss Christmas altogether.  I will miss Christ.

Every year he comes – Immanuel – and offers himself to a world that is hungry for goodness, a people who are crazy enough to hope for impossible things: peace, well-being, the reign of love.  Every year he comes and invites us to open our hearts and let him in and be the force for change.

The scriptures hold a vision for us of the reign Christ ushers into the world, and the change he will bring.  The prophets of Israel spoke of this vision, this hope, as when we hear, the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 

This world is hungry for the change he will usher in, we long for it.  And this longing has been with us almost from the beginning of time. 

From the story of the first humans who longed for something they couldn’t quite define and reached for the wrong thing … from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people turned their longings into lust and greed … from the stories of the kings of Israel who abused their power and the empires who crushed whole nations, our longings and desires are so easily misdirected when we disconnect from one another and the source of our being. 

Our world is no different now than it was for the people of Israel 2000 years ago.  There is still a need for the hungry to be fed and the downtrodden to be lifted up.  There is still a need for the loveless to be shown compassion.  There is still a need for us to speak words of forgiveness to one another.  There is still a need for us to speak words of truth to the powers of this world. 

How will we do that?  Each of us may find our own way.  For me, it begins with the Advent wreath.  For less introverted types, there may be other ways.   But each one of us needs to find the way to reconnect, to open our eyes, to see the suffering and the need, and not look away.  Then to ask one another, what can we do, as the church, what can we do?  To defend the powerless, to feed the hungry, and console the afflicted? What can we do to bring some peace to our world?

During this season of Advent, preparing for the season of Christmas, let us speak to one another about the things that matter, about the hope that we can help each other kindle in our hearts.  The world is about to turn, brothers and sisters, and you and I can be a part of it.