Always Part of the Plan

 

December 29, 2024 – The 1st Sunday after Christmas Day

Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18

© 2024 Evan D. Garner

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those are the four gospel accounts. There aren’t four gospels. There’s only one gospel—the singular good news of Jesus Christ. But there are four accounts of that one gospel, and we need all four. 

Some people love to argue that originally there were lots of gospels and that the institutional church only restricted the number to the four we have in the Bible to suit its own needs, but the people who claim that aren’t very good at history. They’re usually trying to sell you a book or get you to watch their series on the History Channel or convince you to share something on social media. Although there have been lots of different texts that call themselves “gospels” or “good news,” the four accounts of the canonical gospel—unlike almost all of those alternate texts—were in their current form by the end of the first century. And, by 180AD, the church, which had not yet developed an apparatus for centralized decision making, recognized by consensus that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John collectively represent the singular and true good news of Jesus Christ. 

What makes the four-fold gospel tradition even more interesting is its willingness to embrace diversity as an essential component of the fullest manifestation of the one truth. You probably know this, but none of the four gospel accounts start the same way. Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus before launching in with the story of Mary’s pregnancy and Jospeh’s dream-inspired decision not to break off their engagement. Luke starts with the parallel pregnancy stories of Elizabeth and Mary, the mothers of John the Baptist and Jesus, before giving us the beloved story of the shepherds, angels, and the manger, which we hear at Christmas. Mark skips all of that and begins his account thirty years later with John the Baptist’s call to repentance and the moment Jesus came out of the water and saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him. 

But then John came along and said, “Holy my beer.” We’re not going to begin with the start of Jesus’ ministry. We’re not going to start with Jesus’ birth. We’re not going to start with John the Baptist or even with a genealogy that traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Abraham. We’re going to start at the beginning. We’re going to start even before the beginning—before time itself had been created. We’re going to start with God and God alone, when the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

When John and the community of Christians around him that grew together in faith sought to tell the good news of God’s love, they knew that the story of salvation, which stretched back even before the beginning of time, had always had Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, at its very center. For John, starting anywhere else was inadequate. The same unified work of God that brought light and life into the universe had brought Jesus of Nazareth into the world as its savior. 

The incarnation, the virgin birth, the presentation in the temple, the baptism by John in the Jordan, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the temptation in the wilderness, the sermon on the mount, the feeding of the five thousand, the walking on the water, the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, the transfiguration on the mountain top, the dying on the cross, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Ghost—all of those moments in the story of Jesus have their origin in eternal and timeless Word that, in the beginning, was with God and was God. But the good news of Jesus does not stop there.

When God spoke and there was light, when the waters were gathered together into seas, when plants and birds and fish and animals began to grow and fly and swim and walk, when Adam was formed of the dust of the ground, when the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being, when Noah and his family were rescued in the ark, when Abram heard and answered God’s call, when Moses raised his staff and parted the Red Sea, when the Law was given to God’s people, when Israel crossed the Jordan and entered the land of promise, when they were set free from the Babylonian captivity and returned home, when they waited for the coming of God’s anointed—all of those moments in the history of time have their origin in the eternal Word that has always been.

The salvation of the world did not begin with the birth of Jesus. It began before the world was created. By starting his gospel account with this cosmic prologue, John lets us know that the good news of Jesus Christ is not a plan that God hatched in response to Roman oppression. The way of Jesus is not something God dreamt up as a solution to first-century problems or as an answer to the prayers of our long-dead ancestors. This is how the world was made to be. It was made by and through and for the one to whom we belong. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus, the incarnate Word, is the very foundation of and fulfillment of our existence.

And yet the incarnate Word—the universal light that shines from within all of creation—that light which can never be overcome by darkness—came into a world that did not universally receive it. As C.K. Barrett wrote of God’s sending of that light, it was “an almost unmitigated failure.” “The world came into being through him,” John tells us, “yet the world did not know him.” How can that be? How can God send us the savior whose work of salvation has been written into the very fabric of creation only to have us reject him? Because, as John expresses so beautifully, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.”

In the incarnate Son of God, we see that God’s nature is grace and truth—not coercion or violence, not force or manipulation, not threat or compulsion, but grace and freedom and love. And that means that, although we recognize the fullness of God in the person of Jesus Christ, not everyone sees what we see. Not everyone wants to receive the light. Yet even that—even the incomplete, unfinished, imperfect response to God’s love—is somehow a part of God’s saving plan. Even those moments of failure have their origin in the eternal and timeless Word.

“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” The eating of the forbidden fruit, the murder of Abel at the hands of his brother, the wickedness that provoked the great flood, the arrogance that built the tower of Babel, the captivity under Pharoah in Egypt, the hardship God’s people suffered in the wilderness, the indiscriminate bloodshed by which Israel conquered the land of Canaan, the idolatry that corrupted the nation, the persecution of the prophets, even the rejection of God’s Son—they are all within the cosmic boundaries of what was created through God’s eternal Word. None of them is beyond the reach of God. God is not glorified by them, but God can and will redeem them for God’s glory. And that’s not all.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.” There is nothing in all of creation that is beyond the reach of God’s saving love, and that means that there is nothing in our lives that God will not redeem. No struggle, no grief, no illness, no anxiety, no isolation, no failure, no doubt, no worry—nothing at all that we can ever experience that lies outside of God’s plan of salvation.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Why doesn’t God hurry up and fix everything that is wrong in our lives? Why doesn’t God just snap God’s fingers and make all things right? Because God is gracious. Because God invites us to recognize his love, and, when we don’t, God still finds a way to fold it into God’s saving work. How much easier life would be if God took over and forced the divine will upon us, but then we wouldn’t recognize our lives or our God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Everything that has ever been has been created in and through and for God. Jesus’ work of redemption has always been a part of that story, and so have you. There is no part of your life that does not belong to God. There is no struggle in your life that is beyond the redemption of the cosmic Christ. John’s account of the gospel reminds us of that, and that is good news.

A New Start

 

December 24, 2024 – Christmas I

Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-15-20

© 2024 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

It’s Christmas, which means that some of you are here because you came home for the holidays, and others are here because you wouldn’t go home if your life depended on it. Some of us, when we go home, actually enjoy spending time with our family but live in fear of running into a high-school acquaintance at the grocery store. Others, as soon as we get to our parents’ house, make plans to go out and meet our friends in order to spend as little time under their roof as possible.

Years ago, not long after college, I was back in lower Alabama and had the chance to swing by my old high school to say hello to some of the office staff that had helped me survive those difficult years. I wanted to reconnect with some people I loved and say thank you for all the times they let me hide out in the office. When I walked through the door and saw their familiar faces, I greeted them warmly and reintroduced myself, just in case they didn’t recognize me. Before I could say a word of gratitude, however, the office secretary belted out, “Evan Garner? I almost didn’t know who you were. You’ve gained so much weight!” I haven’t been back.

Going home can be a blessing or a curse. Usually, it’s a little of both. Some people relish the opportunity to reunite with family and friends, rekindling old relationships and telling stories about the way things were. Others have learned over the years that going back brings up more painful memories than nostalgic ones. And a few of us grew up in homes that we have never once wanted to return to. But, like it or not, Christmas has a way of making all of us look back. As we think about the Christmases of our childhood, we either romanticize the past or fantasize over what the past could have been. Every time we go back home, whether it’s in the flesh or in our mind, we’re either looking for something we once had but have since lost, or we’re searching for something we never had but have always longed for.

I bet the thought of returning to Bethlehem gave Joseph more anxiety than excitement. As his ancestral home, Bethlehem wasn’t the place where Joseph grew up or went to high school, but it was the town from which his family came. People knew him there. Growing up, his family surely would have made the six-mile trip south from Jerusalem a time or two after finishing one of their thrice-annual pilgrimages to the holy city. He may not have kept up with his distant cousins, but only a brief reintroduction would have been necessary to renew all those relationships, for better or for worse. 

This time, Joseph made the trip with Mary, his pregnant fiancée. Back then, people rarely strayed very far from familial connections when proposing marriage, so there’s a good chance that the people in Bethlehem would have known Mary or her parents, but I doubt this was how they wanted to share their good news with their distant relatives. Sometimes an unexpected pregnancy is all it takes to feel like we’ll never live up to other people’s expectations.

What was it like for Joseph to have grown up knowing that he had been born into a royal family only to come back to the city of David as a carpenter whose bride-to-be had become pregnant under inexplicable circumstances? There’s no evidence in the gospel that Joseph’s friends or family gave much thought to his Davidic lineage, but I suspect that this homecoming made Joseph wonder whether his life was measuring up. That he and Mary arrived in Bethlehem with no place to stay—no family member willing to take them in and not enough money or influence to convince the innkeeper to make space for them—lets us know that this trip wasn’t easy for the holy family.

But there’s nothing like the birth of a child to cut short all that wistful longing and self-criticism. While bedding down with the livestock, Mary went into labor, and, whether or not Joseph was ready, the child of the woman he loved was coming into the world. The infant Son of God was born not back in Nazareth, where Mary’s mother, aunts, and cousins could help her, nor in the home of one of Joseph’s relatives, where surely a sympathetic kinswoman would assist with the delivery. The King of kings was born in a stable, celebrated, we are told, not by family and friends but by some nearby, nameless shepherds—as if God wanted us to be sure that the only thing that mattered in that moment was what the future held. 

When the shepherds came to see the Christchild, they did so not as a link to generations past but as a sign that, with this birth, God was doing something new. On that holy night, we hear of no one who came to the manger that was able to say that the baby looked like his grandfather or had his great-aunt’s eyes. These strangers had no way of looking back. They could only see what lay ahead—what the angels had said to them—that this child would be the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord. 

At Christmas, God shows up in a way that only embraces the past by making all things new. Except for the city in which he is born, there is nothing about our savior’s birth that suggests that he is following in the footsteps of David. Joseph may have felt the burden of the past as he came into his ancestral home, but the birth of Jesus shows us that what lies ahead is not a repeat of what has come before. Christmas reminds us that the past may have brought us to this point, but it cannot define our future.

Christmas may feel like a time when the world is urging you to look back, but God wants you to see what lies ahead—something new and hopeful and wonderful. “Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given.” The reason the prophet Isaiah speaks of an infant leader is because, at that time in Israel’s history, God’s people were desperate for a new start. People were sick and tired of the same old patterns of hardship and struggle repeating themselves in every generation. They needed a break with the past. They needed to start over.

Our new start comes at Christmas. In the birth of Jesus, God rewrites our story by writing ourselves onto Godself. Our past is only our past, but our future is found in God. This gift to the world is like no other. The world’s greatest hope arrives as a newborn—a perfectly clean slate, a sign that, though the work of redemption is not yet finished, the old patterns have been broken so that, within us, God can do something new.

This is the miracle of Christmas—that what we long for is not locked away in the past but given to us in this present moment. This season of hope has never been about recapturing something that was lost or yearning for something that can never be. With the birth of Jesus, it has always been about receiving something new. On this night, God comes into your life, right where you are, celebrating exactly who you are in this moment. Let the birth of this child interrupt any wistful longing or self-criticism that might distract you from that sacred truth. At Christmas, you are the child whom God is making new. 

The God-Bearer

 

December 22, 2024 – Advent 4C

Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55

© 2024 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video is available here.

It was a hundred miles. Not long after Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that she would give birth to the Son of God, she set off on a hundred-mile journey from Nazareth in Galilee to the hill country of Judea, where her relative Elizabeth lived. As a gift of consolation for a scared, young mother-to-be, the angel had told her that her pregnancy was linked to Elizabeth’s pregnancy. It didn’t take Mary long to realize that the only person on this earth who could understand her situation was her wise, old cousin, who was in the midst of her own unexpected pregnancy.

It was a hundred miles of walking the pilgrim’s road from the northern territory, where Mary lived, to a village near the capital city. It is almost unfathomable to us that a teenage girl would dare to make that trip alone, and she probably had company along the way. Caravans of travelers would often make the journey together, because, along the wilderness road, there was safety in numbers. Mary may have even walked with some relatives or close friends, but, in his description of her travels, Luke doesn’t mention anyone else. It was just her—if not physically alone, at the very least emotionally alone—an unwed pregnant girl, who couldn’t help but hear the whispers of those around her, as she sought refuge in the home of an understanding kinswoman.

Something powerful happened when Mary walked through the door—something besides what is recorded in biblical text. In that culture, elders were revered and respected, so, naturally, Mary was the first to offer a greeting—the younger, in effect, approaching with humility a woman old enough to be her grandmother. But, at the sound of her greeting, all of that changed. Any culturally anticipated distance between the two women collapsed in an instant as Elizabeth felt her own child leap in her womb.

Elizabeth had known for decades the societal stigma that comes with not being able to have children, but now she had experienced in her body God’s great reversal of her status in the eyes of the world. Mary had just begun to feel the shame that bubbled up whenever she caught a glimpse of others’ judgmental stares. She had come to see Elizabeth in the hopes that her kinswoman would understand what the angel had said about the child she carried within her. And Elizabeth’s response to her greeting told her that God was already at work in both of them, changing their humility and shame into strength and renown, in one unified act of salvation. 

As an embodiment of the transformation that was already unfolding within them, the older mother-to-be began to honor her younger counterpart, effectively flipping their roles, as the revered one proclaimed with reverence the blessedness of her guest: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” As the words of Mary’s greeting rang in Elizabeth’s ears, the power of the Holy Spirit filled her. The one who had been asked to shelter this anxious expectant mother had become the one to welcome the Theotokos, the Mother of God, into her home. The blessing of receiving the blessed one was felt even by the child growing within her.

It is only in this peculiar context of role-reversal that Mary’s song can be uttered. Her words would be too much in any other setting. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she begins, proclaiming with boldness a statement that, while ridiculous on its face, is as faithful on her lips as it would be arrogant on the lips of anyone else. How can it be that a frail human being could ever claim to magnify God’s surpassing greatness? How can it be that a girl whose pregnancy inspired ridicule could become the means through which God’s salvation comes into the world? From Mary herself, we hear both question and answer: “How can this be,” she asked the angel Gabriel, “since I am a virgin?”

The source of her shame becomes the channel for God’s glory. The very definition of her inability, which is to say the biological impossibility of her pregnancy, is the very means by which God acts. Had her womb been occupied by the child of another, she would not have had space in her body to carry God’s Son. Had her pregnancy been celebrated by those around her, she would not have had room in her heart to magnify the Lord. Only because of her poverty of spirit is Mary able to become the mother of our savior, even the mother of God.

In a world that is blind to what God is doing, Elizabeth can see it all. She has not only the wisdom of age and experience but also the insight of the Holy Spirit. A prophet in her own right, she identifies her young relative as the thrice-blessed mother of her Lord. “Blessed are you among women,” she names, celebrating the holiness of Mary’s womanhood. “Blessed is the fruit of your womb,” she declares, anticipating the holiness of the child within her. “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord,” she announces, switching from the second- to the third-person in order to let us know that, like Mary, those who trust in God’s promises will be made holy.

Mary is, for us, an icon of faithfulness because she believed what God had said to her and, thus, became the mother of our salvation. She did not heal the sick or raise the dead. She did not defy an empire or slay Satan with a sword. Yet it was through her perfect faithfulness—her eternal “yes” to God—through which all those saving deeds were done. God’s great reversal of humanity’s plight is accomplished through the one whose perfect emptiness gave way to the fullness of God’s glory.

A young, unwed girl, betrothed to a man of David’s line, travelled a hundred miles to see her relative Elizabeth because Elizabeth was the only one who could understand what God was doing within her. As one in whom that great reversal had already begun to take hold, Elizabeth was able to see in Mary what the world was unable to recognize—its salvation coming to fruition. Only when that reversal begins to take hold in us—only when Christ dwells inside our bodies—are we also able to see it.

That salvation—your salvation—is not manifest in the victories, rewards, or accomplishments of your life. Those are gifts of God, for sure, but your true hope is not found in any of them. Our hope is found in our own emptiness. Our hope is in the one who has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things. Our hope is in the one who was carried in the womb of Mary and brought into this world by her faithfulness to God. Our hope is in Jesus, and, when we, like Mary, approach God with our own emptiness, believing that there will be a fulfillment of what has been spoken by the Lord, our souls will magnify the Lord, and our spirits will rejoice in the God of our salvation.

No One Chooses Thomas...Except Jesus

 

December 21, 2024 – St. Thomas (Blue Christmas)

Habakkuk 2:1-4; Hebrews 10:35-11:1; John 20:24-29

© 2024 Evan D. Garner

Video of this sermon can be seen here.

I don’t want to be a Thomas. I don’t want to be defined by my doubts. I don’t want to feel inside myself that the truest part of me is the part of me that doesn’t have enough faith to believe in Jesus. 

I’d rather be a Peter. Or, if that’s asking too much, I’d be happy to be a John or a James or even a Bartholomew. I’d welcome the chance to be a minor character in the story of salvation if it meant that I wasn’t known as the one who wouldn’t believe—who couldn’t believe. I’d be almost anyone as long as it’s not a doubting Thomas.

But we don’t get to choose who we are, do we? We don’t get to decide for ourselves what part we play in God’s great salvation drama. Like Thomas, we don’t even get to choose for ourselves whether we have faith. We either have it or we don’t. In a frustrating and exhausting way, it’s not up to us. We can search for it. We can practice it. We can try and try again. We can fake it and hope that one day our pretense will give way to something real. But faith isn’t something we can manufacture. It’s almost as if faith is something bestowed upon the lucky ones for reasons we can’t discern while the rest of us are left to wonder why we missed out.

Why are we the ones for whom all the puzzle pieces never seem to come together into a coherent whole? Why don’t we get to be the ones that other people look to as examples of how to be calm in the midst of life’s storms or how to maintain hope when everything around us feels hopeless? Why are we the ones who are always playing catch-up, running after those who have it all figured out but without ever getting any closer to them? 

Just once, we want to know what it feels like to have our burdens of grief, loss, and disappointment lifted from us. We want to feel them buoyed by a faith in a God who, we are told, is making all things right but who, as far as we can tell, isn’t making them right for us. The never-ending struggle is wearing us out. The weight of pretending that we are okay when we are nothing that resembles okay is bending us over, literally hunching our bodies, pressing us ever closer to the ground.

Surely Thomas felt that weight upon his shoulders in the week after Jesus died. I can imagine that he didn’t bother to lift his head more than a time or two during those days. His teacher and friend had been taken from him. The one in whom he had trusted—the one whom he believed had come to save God’s people—had been betrayed by a member of their inner circle, effectively indicting all the disciples for failing to see it coming. 

“Why wasn’t I taken with him?” Thomas must have asked in his unanswered prayers. Back when Jesus was still alive, when he had decided to return to Jerusalem to face his opponents, Thomas was the one who had declared that he was ready to go and die with him. But, instead of standing beside his master, Thomas had wilted in the moment of truth. He had fled in fear and shame like all the others. It’s a hard thing to be the one who keeps on living when the one you love the most has died.

Worse, still, Thomas’ friends were convinced that death had not taken Jesus from them for good. Jesus’ humiliating execution, they claimed, had been reversed by God, who had raised Jesus from the dead. “He appeared to us!” they exclaimed to Thomas, “when you weren’t there. Even though the doors were locked, he came into the room, and he showed himself to us. He is alive! Why don’t you believe us? Don’t you trust us?” But finding faith isn’t as simple as taking someone else’s word for it.

“Why couldn’t Jesus have waited until we were all together?” Thomas must have wondered. “Why would he reveal himself to all of the disciples except me? Is it because I am not worthy? Is it because I failed him? Is it because I do not know how to have faith like Peter or James or John?” 

For the longest week of his life, Thomas carried that isolating grief with him wherever he went. He was the only one in the community of disciples who didn’t feel like celebrating. He was the only one who didn’t get to see Jesus—the only one who didn’t believe. And there was nothing he could do about it.

But that didn’t stop Jesus from doing something. A week later, the disciples were right back where they started, which itself suggests that maybe even seeing the risen Jesus doesn’t fix everything all at once. Or maybe it’s a reminder that the community of faith cannot fulfill God’s commission until everyone is able to join in. Regardless, this time, Thomas was with them. And Jesus knew that Thomas would be there. Jesus knew that he could not return to his Father without seeing Thomas first.

When Jesus appeared to the disciples a second time, the only difference was Thomas. He was the reason Jesus came back. “You, too, Thomas,” Jesus said to him. “I love you, too. My work cannot be finished until you know that you belong to me, just like all of the others. Look at my hands and my side. Reach out and feel the wounds for yourself. I want you to know and believe that neither my death nor your doubts have the power to defeat God’s love.” 

Jesus does not come back for Thomas because of Thomas’ faith. He returns because of his doubts. He returns because Thomas isn’t sure, because he can’t figure it out, because he can’t make himself feel what everyone else around him seems to be able to feel. If the resurrection of Jesus means anything, it means that those who have felt the sting of death rob them of their ability to celebrate the fullness of God’s love will one day be rescued by that love which cannot be complete without them. If the empty tomb means anything, it means that Jesus will come and find the Thomas in each one of us. 

Sometimes it’s hard to believe in God. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that a God who would create a world in which pain and suffering are so common will one day make all that pain and suffering go away. Most of the time, we want to believe that, but often we can’t figure out how. And that’s okay. God’s love isn’t waiting on you to figure it out. God doesn’t need you to believe in him in order for God to love you or to come and find you. That’s the real miracle of Christmas—that God’s love finds us no matter what—and we receive that miracle anew every time Jesus offers himself to us in the communion of his body and blood.

Repentance Belongs in the Wilderness

 

December 8, 2024 – Advent 2C

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

© 2024 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

Did your parents ever tell stories about your birth that took on a life of their own? Maybe your mother’s labor was as difficult as Rebekah’s, whose twins, Essau and Jacob, struggled so painfully in her womb that they were likened to two nations fighting against each other. Or maybe your mother’s pregnancy was anticipated by a distant but insightful relative the way that Samson’s birth was predicted by an unexpected visitor. There’s a reason we tell these strange stories about someone’s birth, and, by the time we are old enough to hear them for ourselves, it’s hard to know how much they were shaped by the birth itself and how much belongs to the sort of person we have already started to become.

How many times do you think John the Baptist heard his father sing the song about his birth? “And you, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.” Zechariah’s is a song about the salvation of God’s people and, from his infancy, the role that John would play in it.

This is where Luke begins his gospel story—not with the birth of Jesus but with the promised birth of his cousin, John. Luke starts with the story of John’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Both of them belonged to the tribe of Levi, which means that they both came from priestly families. Luke tells us that they were righteous people who lived “blamelessly according to all of the commandments and regulations of the Lord,” which is a pretty lofty way to describe anyone (Luke 1:6). But Luke also lets us know that there was a problem: they had no children.

We might not see that as a problem, but, in those days, the inability to conceive a child was understood to be a sign that God had withheld God’s favor from someone. It is remarkable, therefore, that this barren couple, both of whom had passed the age of child-bearing, were still seen by their peers as holy people—holy enough for Zechariah to be allowed to continue to serve as a priest. 

One day, during the two-week period when Zechariah’s section of priests was on duty in Jerusalem, the lot used to determine which priest would be sent into the holy part of the temple to offer incense to God fell on Zechariah. It was an especially high honor. While in the holy place, he looked and saw an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar. He was terrified, but the angel Gabriel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” 

Naturally, Zechariah was surprised by this, so he instinctively asked the angel how this was possible, since he was an old man and his wife was also “getting on in years” (Luke 1:18). But, in response to those doubts, Gabriel struck mute the elderly priest, leaving him unable to speak until the promised birth had taken place. Sure enough, eight days after his son was born, and as soon as he had confirmed in writing his wife’s decision to name the child John, his tongue was loosed, and, with the first words he had spoken in over nine months, Zechariah declared, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.” 

Imagine how many times John heard the Song of Zechariah while he was growing up. Imagine how tired he became of hearing his father declare that one day he would become the prophet of the Most High. Imagine how awkward it was at John’s teenage birthday parties to have his father interrupt the festivities to proclaim yet again that his little boy would one day give God’s people the knowledge of their salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. It’s one thing to grow up knowing that you will inherit the family business, but it’s quite another to hear from before you can remember that you have been filled with the Holy Spirit and set apart by God for a special purpose.

Should it surprise us, then, that, by the time the word of God came to the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, it found him not in the temple, where his father had received this prophecy, nor in the local synagogue, where the Torah was read and preached every sabbath, but out in the wilderness, where the only creatures who could hear what John had to say were the hyenas, wolves, and leopards?

Luke wants us to notice that. Luke wants us to be as astonished as Zechariah was when he heard that he would become a father. It’s not an accident that Luke introduces the ministry of John the baptizer by precisely dating it according to the timelines of the political and religious leaders of his day. This was the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius’ reign. It was when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, when Herod was the ruler of Galilee, and when Philip and Lysanias were in charge of Iturea, Trachonitis, and Abilene. Luke even grounds John’s ministry according to the time when Annas and Caiaphas were serving as high priests—a reckoning that would have meant something to his parents. 

But John isn’t found anywhere close to those people. He’s out in the wilderness, in the region on the other side of the Jordan River, where civilization stops and the unkempt wilds of God’s unbridled power begin. That’s the place where the prophecy that John’s father had spoken on the day of his naming would unfold. And that’s where we must go if we are going to be a part of it.

We see in the story of John the Baptist that God is doing something strange and unexpected—something which cannot begin among the institutions of power because they are precisely those institutions that John has come to reform. As we will hear more about next Sunday, John’s baptism of repentance draws out into the wilderness those people who dare to believe that God’s will for the world is not being fulfilled by the politicians or priests of their day. John comes to announce that, instead of helping God’s people, those institutions have become stumbling blocks that inhibit their relationship with God and that anyone who wants a fresh start must leave them behind, venture out into the wilderness, and be washed clean in the waters of baptism.

God’s vision, announced generations earlier by the prophet Isaiah, is of a world in which God’s people can return to God as easily as driving down a straight and level highway. Perhaps because he had grown up so close to those institutions, John recognized that all the twists and turns and potholes and speedbumps that got in the way of the people’s relationship with God had been put in place by the very authorities that were supposed to help them. John knew that, once those impediments had been removed, the Anointed One of God would come and establish God’s reign among God’s people without any hindrance. John’s job, therefore, was to help the people see what it takes to remove all those stumbling blocks so that, when Jesus came, they would be ready to receive him. For John, that is what repentance was all about.

Two thousand years later, the nature of repentance hasn’t changed at all, but I wonder whether we’ve spent so much time in the temple and in the corridors of worldly power that we’ve forgotten what it sounds like or where we must go in order to hear it. These days, words like “repentance” and “sin” have become associated with religious leaders and institutions that make us want to run in the opposite direction. But repentance isn’t bad news. It’s how we leave those institutions behind and make space in our hearts to receive God’s salvation. 

Any call to repentance that effectively strengthens an institution’s grip on power is not of God. Anyone who uses shame, fear, or guilt to promote morality or religious behavior is not of God. Those are the very people and institutions whose existence have made it harder for us to know the saving power of God’s love. John calls us to leave them behind and go out beyond their reach in order to receive a fresh start. 

The story of John’s birth, the forerunner of the messiah, begins with a priest in the temple being silenced by an angel of the Lord. That irony is not lost on me. This might be the spot where your participation in the story of salvation begins, but St. Paul’s cannot be the place where it finds its fulfillment. That’s because we are not saved by any preacher or by any church but only by the grace of God. 

Hear again and respond anew to God’s call to repentance—a call that we might hear in the temple but one that always draws us out into wilderness, beyond the reach of those institutions that seek to domesticate the Almighty One. That’s where the power of God runs wild and free, remaking the world in God’s image, one repentant sinner at a time.