In the name of God, +Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen
In the Holy Gospel of Saint Luke read today, we have heard,
The Word of God came to John the son of Zechari'ah in the wilderness;
And he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Saint John the Baptist came as,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God."
In the epistle to the Church at Philippi, Saint Paul writes:
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with
knowledge and all discernment, so that you may be
pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of
righteousness, which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and
praise of God.
We see in these three lections three distinct, but interlocking, foci,
three motifs of the Faith: the Name of God, the baptism of Jesus
Christ by Saint John his cousin, and the call from Saint Luke that we are
to prepare the Way of the Lord. Saint Paul's epistle to the
Church at Philippi gives us a formulary for how we are to prepare ourselves
for the Coming of the Lord, for the invasion of the Messiah
into human history.
Baruch was an inseparable companion, disciple, friend and scribe of the
great Prophet Jeremiah. He wrote down an entire scroll of his
prophetic sayings and read them to the people in the Jerusalem Temple.
Baruch prophesied the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
Captivity and the desolation of Babylon. He clearly prophesied the coming
into the world of the Son of God, Who would "dwell with
mankind". His prophecy begins with the words: "This is our God, and naught
else doth compare with Him"
In the past few weeks, Fr. Warren has noted that Jesus does not come
unbidden to take Lordship over us. He does not attempt to make
us turn to him by force or bullying. In fact, Jesus clearly will NOT
invade our lives without our permission. He will not become our
Lord and Master against our will.
Let us look to the Prophet Baruch, who worked closely with Jeremiah six
centuries before the coming of Jesus Christ. He was apocalyptic; he saw
the invasion of history by a new force. He saw that
the order of this world was to be overcome by the new world
with the Messiah at its head.
My beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, if the prophet Baruch could see
that something new is going on here; some unprecedented,
unimaginable entity is coming; some startling invasion of our history is
underway, ought not we also to see it?
Both the Prophet Baruch and the Apostle Paul and the Evangelist Luke --
each one from a different perspective, each one from a
different time and place, each one speaking particularly to their unique
situation -- each one witnesses to a new coming, to the advent of
to the advent of whom or what?
Looking first to Baruch: he notes that the Name of the new reality is the
Holy One of God, is the peace of righteousness and the glory of
godliness. Six centuries before the birth of Christ, Baruch was
foretelling the coming of the Messiah, The word of the Holy One. To
get a sense of the scale of this foretelling: it as if Christopher Columbus
had been able to foretell the outcome of the United States
presidential election in 2000.
There is no culture for which the name of God has a greater significance
than that of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Jewish thought, a
name is not merely an arbitrary designation, a random combination of
sounds. The name conveys the nature and essence of the person,
place, or thing named. It represents the history, significance, power, and
reputation of whom or what is being named.
If this is true of all names, it is particularly true of the Name of God
Himself. In fact, the four letters which in Hebrew spell the name of
God - Yodh, He, Waw, He - J H W H -- are perceived by the religious as so
holy, so special that when scribes were writing copies of the
Old Testament and came to the name of God, they followed an elaborate
procedure. First, they broke the stylus [or pen] they had been
using, then they bathed, recited ritual prayers, took up a new stylus and
used it for God's name, broke that pen, bathed again, took up a
new pen, and continued writing. As we can imagine, this was an
excruciatingly slow process no cutting and pasting here.
God's Name - the four-letter Name represented by the Hebrew letters
Yodh-He-Waw-He is YHWH. It is often referred to as the
Ineffable Name, the Unutterable Name or the Distinctive Name. It is related
to the Hebrew root He-Yodh-He (to be), and reflects the
fact that God's existence is eternal. In scripture, this Name is used when
discussing God's relation with human beings, and when
emphasizing his qualities of loving kindness and mercy.
Note that when Moses asks God what His 'name' is, he is not asking,
" What should I call you;' rather, he is asking, 'Who are you; what
are you like; what have you done?' That is clear from God's response. God
replies that He is eternal, that He is the God of our
ancestors, that He has seen our affliction and will redeem us from bondage.
This background about the significance of names in general and holy names
in particular make us better aware of what an event the
Baptism of Jesus Christ by John in the River Jordan was.
Of course, John recognizing Jesus to be the Messiah, he initially refused
to baptize him; only when Christ insisted did he perform the
baptism. This baptism ends Jesus' preparation; he now goes to the desert
for forty days to prepare for his public ministry.
Note that John's baptism was not some magic act that mysteriously cleansed
unaware people of their sins and failings; the water of the
Jordan was not some pixie dust that, sprinkled over indifferent people,
would cleanse them. No, John the Baptist preached that people
must repent, must turn and return, must come back to the Will of God, if
they are to be cleansed by baptism. Again, Fr. Warren's
point: we are not going to be saved, cleansed, purified, or brought to
Grace without our active and willing participation. We are not
going to be saved in spite of ourselves; we must do our part; we must turn
and return.
John the Baptist represents times past and is the herald of the new era to
come. As a representative of the past, he is born of aged
parents; as a herald of the new era, he is declared to be a prophet while
still in his mother's womb. For when he was yet unborn, he leapt
in his mother's womb at the arrival of blessed Mary. In that womb he had
already been designated a prophet, even before he was born; it
was revealed that he was to be Christ's precursor, before they ever saw one
another. These are divine happenings, going beyond the
limits of our human frailty.
When John was preaching the Lord's coming he was asked, "Who are you?" And
he replied: "I am the voice of one crying in the
wilderness." The voice is John, but the Word is the Lord: "in the
beginning was the Word." John was a voice that lasted only for a time;
Christ, the Word in the beginning, is eternal.
Through his birth, preaching and baptizing, John bore witness to the coming
birth, preaching and baptism of Christ, and by his own
suffering he showed that Christ also would suffer. He preached the freedom
of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly
men. He was locked away in the darkness of prison, though he came bearing
witness to the Light of life and deserved to be called a
bright and shining lamp by that Light itself, which is Christ.
We give honor to the Name of Jesus, not because we believe that there is
any intrinsic power hidden in the letters composing it, but
because the Name of Jesus reminds us of all the blessings we receive
through our Holy Redeemer.
In the Name of Jesus we obtain every blessing and grace for time and
eternity, for Christ has said: "If you ask the Father anything in my
name he will give it you." Therefore the Church concludes all her prayers
by the words: "Through Jesus Christ our Lord,"
Thus, when on Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry announces that the Lord is
nigh, we are instructed that we must prepare the way of the
Lord; we must carve a highway for our Saviour through the morass of our
sinful and fallen background. Please understand that, when I
say we must prepare the way of the Lord, I am not talking about writing
Christmass cards and working on gift lists and shopping for
presents and planning travel and festive meals and holiday parties. No,
rather, I speak of our internal preparation, of our need to
prepare a fit residence for God the Son in our souls.
You and I must clean out our sin-laden and backsliding and corrupted
past. For some, this would involve sacramental confession; for
others, a careful inventory of our practices and principles; for all, a
careful attention to what is going on with this Advent season.
John the Baptist is crying out to you and to me today, just as he cried out
in the wilderness, "Prepare the Way of the Lord; make straight
a Highway for our God. May we respond,
In the name of +the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen