A Voice in the Desert

St. John the Baptist

A Voice in the Desert
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
Second Sunday of Advent (Year B)
Homily delivered at St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong
7th December 2008: 2:00pm Said Eucharist

God, let us not accept the judgment that this is what we are. . . . Inflame our hearts with the desire to change—with hope and faith that we all can change. Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. (adapted from Dorothy Day)

The readings for this Sunday and next tell us about the voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist. They see John as the forerunner of Jesus, the beginning of the fulfillment of the hope of the Hebrew Scripture: the hope for a day in the future when God will destroy and punish all that is wrong with the world and set up in its place a new world, one of justice, peace, fullness of life, and joy, where all that is right with our current world will continue, a world renewed and purified, where good things are no longer mixed with the bad as we see in most of our daily life now. In the Hebrew Scriptures, those who suffer under this world’s injustices and yearn for the good will rejoice at the coming Day of God as a Day of Vindication, Freedom, and Justice. Oppressors and those who oppose God, however, fear the Day of God as a Day of Wrath, of Burning, of Condemnation.

A key idea in today’s readings is the image of a messenger bringing the “good news,” or “happy tidings” of the nearness of this Day of God.

The Gospel passage opens the Gospel of Mark. It depends on a play on words. The word Gospel in Greek is euangelion, good news, happy tidings, a message of joy (whether a victory in war, and end to a war, or a royal birth). The word messenger in Greek is angelos (from where we get our word angel). Mark begins, “The beginning of the message of joy (euangelion) about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it was written in Isaiah (Mark also quotes Malachi here)—‘Look, I am sending my messenger (angelos) ahead . . . [to] prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”

Mark sees these words fulfilled in the appearance of John the Baptist, whose preaching in the wilderness of Judea near the north of the Dead Sea preceded the ministry of Jesus. Mark sees John the Baptist as the messenger sent before the Lord to prepare his way, a voice of comfort and joy, bringing a message of happy news, a gospel. In this sense his story is the beginning of the good news of Jesus.

But oddly, this picture of a happy messenger seems to be the opposite of the way John himself is actually portrayed. In all four of the Gospels, John is portrayed as a somewhat stern and forbidding character-- more a voice of judgment calling for repentance and amendment of life rather than a messenger of joy with glad tidings.

The contrast brings into sharp focus this question—how can a day of wrath and judgment be the occasion for joy?

Since we read these texts during Advent, we tend to use the two-fold nature of the season as a means of avoiding this key question. In Advent, we look back to the things anticipating and leading to the coming of Jesus in the flesh, his life, death, and resurrection. But we also look forward to the great and terrible day when Jesus will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead, just as we affirm every week in the creed. Advent, then, celebrates both the once and future comings of our king. Because of this, we tend to think that it is all about then, either past or future, and not now. That is how we bracket away the question of why joy and judgment seem to be confused in these texts.

What we do is this: we lump all the happy feelings—the message of Joy—in with the first coming of Jesus. After all, in a couple of weeks, we’re going to be celebrating Christmas, and singing “Joy to the World,” “tidings of comfort and joy,” and “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men.” We wrap the stories of Jesus’ coming 2000 years ago in a package of warm and fuzzy sentimentality, and rob the stories of the real challenge and risk they presented when they were told originally.

The coming Day of Judgment, on the other hand, is not usually seen as a day of joy. It is the ultimate disaster—the end of civilization and history. It is the day when we who have pierced Jesus will look upon his glorious scars, recognize them as wounds we inflicted upon him, and weep. Even the old English name of the day—Doomsday—means for us a day of horror and doom and gloom, rather than its original sense of the day on which all scores are settled, all accounts cleared.

As a result, we tend to bracket out Judgment Day by placing it into what seems an almost mythological future, or at least to a future that just seems to get further and further away the more time goes on. And as to the founding of God’s country, the establishment of true and universal justice and prosperity, the setting up of the peaceable kingdom—we treat these as mere metaphors. It refers to the Church—after all, don’t we call it “God’s Kingdom on earth?” Or perhaps we use it to refer to our efforts at establishing social justice or economic fairness, political movements, after all, that only partially embody the ideals yearned for in the stories. In so doing, we cheapen the images and tame them, and make them available as tools for self-justification, or possible ways to sell our own political schemes or religious preferences.

But this is not really how we should react to these stories.

The Prophet Isaiah (from the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes by Michelangelo)

First, let’s look at the Isaiah passage. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isa. 40:1-2).

The setting is the end of the Exile in Babylon of the Jewish people. In 586 BCE, a great national disaster overtook ancient Judaism—Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II conquered and destroyed Jerusalem and transported its inhabitants en masse to Babylon. All that Jews had hoped for, their confidence that God would keep his promise that the Davidic royal house would continue uniteruppted forever, their desire that God would repeat against the Babylonians his miraculous delivery of the city against the Assyrians a century before, their hope that if they turned to God, God would turn to them and save them—all of this was crushed with the destruction of the city and the deportation of the nation’s leading classes.

In Babylon, Jews found other grounds to hope in God, and Judaism reformed and deepened. After the Babylonians themselves had been defeated by the Persians, a return to Palestine was possible.

The oracle starts as a dialog between God and the members of his court on high—the Hebrew verbs are in the plural, as you will notice from the King James’ version, “Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my people.” God is telling the angels to prepare things for the consolation of Judah: “Comfort my people, speak tenderly to them that their term is ended, that they have received double for all their sins.”

The angels are to reassure the Jews they are still God’s own, “my people.” God does not disown them, despite their sins. Their punishment is over, and they are now ready to be forgiven and restored to their homeland and Jerusalem.

An angelic member of the court now responds to God’s announcement of liberation and cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the Lord’s road, make straight in the desert God’s highway” (40:3).

The angels pronounce that the return will be easy and swift—symbolized by a highway from Babylon to Jerusalem that runs straight through the desert, with all the hills and valleys smoothed out. The exiles, being dragged in chains to Babylon, had stumbled and fallen over the high mountains, the deep valleys, and the dry desert on their way to a city they hated. Now, they are returning to the city that they love, but returning over a highway going through a country marvelously leveled by God—every valley shall be lifted high, and every mountain and hill flattened. “Prepare” and “make straight” means “to remove all obstacles.”

This return to Jerusalem is portrayed as the future Day of God. He not only makes the way easy for his exiled people, but he also expects his people to prepare for his intended kingdom (62:10) “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (40:5). God’s liberating work is not intended only for Judah, but for all peoples. Those nations will see the miraculous deliverance of God’s people from Babylonian bondage and their unlikely return. So they too will join in the celebration, and embrace Yahweh and his kingdom of peace, justice, and prosperity for all.

And here is where Second Isaiah’s commissioning begins. A member of the angelic host commands him to “Cry out”. And for the first time, the prophet speaks. “What shall I cry?” (40:6)

We expect him to cry out joy and happiness at God’s great act.

And he does not. Once he has found his voice, the prophet continues not immediately with a message of joy or comfort, but a pronouncement of the sorry condition we find ourselves in. “All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass” (40:6b-7).

Second Isaiah’s proclamation of judgment at the moment of joy and restoration provides a counterpoint to the question about why John the Baptist—who proclaims judgment and demands repentance—is portrayed as a messenger of joy.

HOW CAN WE REJOICE AT THE PROSPECT OF JUDGMENT? WHY PROCLAIM JUDGMENT AT THE MOMENT OF JOY AND RESTORATION OF HOPE?

Second Isaiah’s answer to this question is not “Rejoice. We were oppressed, and now the oppressors are getting their just deserts. Let’s take pleasure in their punishment, now at long last!” It is not the petty satisfaction of a child vindicated or a plaintiff recompensed.

It is also not “We were punished. What we have suffered is our just deserts! Now God owes it to us to restore us.”

It is not “How can I share this joyful news with my people? This Babylonian exile has proven to them how completely helpless, vulnerable and incompetent we really are.”

The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsa)

Rather, he declares that all people are grass, not just those who are about that have the tables turned in their favor. His argument is about all human beings, regardless of their condition. “All people are grass. We are about as constant as wildflowers that last a day.”

His point is that the Exile has shown a truth that is universal about all people—even the Babylonian victors who carried the Judeans off, they themselves have been conquered in turn.

To be human is to be temporary. To be human is to have a life span than is shorter than your imagination. To be human is to fall short, to be imperfect, to be powerless about ultimate things.

Human glory passes away. But so also does human suffering. We in a very real way are all helpless, vulnerable, incompetent, and devastated. The fate we suffer is as variable as a wind, a breath from God.

In the most essential way, we are all victims of our mortal condition. This does not mean that the wrongs we commit, the oppressions we practice, are in any way less serious or in need of being set to right.

But it does mean that it just might be possible that the Day of God—the Day which will set all things right—in some way should be expected to benefit not just what we call “the wretched of the earth.” For in some ways, all are wretched.

Then comes the most powerful line in the story. Second Isaiah, or maybe one of the angelic host replying to him adds—“The grass indeed withers; the flower certainly fades– but the word of our God will stand forever.”

God’s word—his active meaning in the world, his meaning that acts in the world, his intention that spoke the universe into existence, that proclaimed to Pharaoh “Set my people free”, that created a people out of social outcasts and marginals, that word now proclaims return to Jerusalem as a sign to the whole world of God’s never-failing promise of assurance to all victims.

So the return to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, is a sign of hope for all: “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, messenger of happy news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, your God is at work here!” (40:9). “He feeds his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom, and gently leads the mother sheep.” (40:11).

In this passage, the return from Babylonian exile is seen not so much as a release from bondage as God’s giving us a new opportunity to come to him and fulfill the measure of what he intended in creating us—to create upon the earth people, a nation and a worldwide humanity living in the way God calls us to live –God’s Kingdom on this earth. “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (40:5).

It is the very fact that we recognize our helplessness and our hopelessness that allows the joyful news to make any sense to us. Only when we know we are grass, mere wildflowers, only when we have heard and truly believe, “you are but dust, and to dust you shall return,” can we truly hope for the salvation of God. Only then are we willing to do anything necessary to receive it. Only the hungry truly appreciate food. Only the downcast and the oppressed rejoice in news that finally things are being set at right.

The first letter of St. John says “in Love, there is no judgment.” That is true in every sense. If it is truly love, there are no conditions, and no implied standard against which you are being measured.

But the fact remains that we are so made that without a reciprocal condition-free response, without our total surrender, we cannot receive love when offered. And for most of us, the feeling of despair caused by judgment is a prerequisite for us to surrender to accept love. As St. Augustine says, those who have their hands full cannot accept a gift.

Second Isaiah transcends nationalism and sectarianism by seeing the return as not merely a national restoration or a religious rebirth, but also God’s act of invitation to the whole world. This is one of the reasons Mark uses it as a type to introduce the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist.

When we turn to the opening verses of Mark, we see how the theme has been adapted and expanded, both by the author of Mark and by the character of John the Baptist.

John preaches in the wilderness of Judea, near the north of the Dead Sea. He is within a few kilometers of the community that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, and there are clear links between him and that community.

The Judaisms of the period all agreed that ritual and moral impurity could be driven away by following the prescriptions of the Law of Moses—for many of these the remedy was to wash in pure water and wait until sundown. As a result, mikvehs, or ritual baths are common objects in the Jewish archaeological sites from that period. Since there were many gentiles interested in Jewish monotheism, and some of these wanted to become Jews, the various schools of Judaism of the period began to practice washing purification rites for people desiring to join to God’s people to purge the general impurity of living as a gentile. This was in addition to circumcision for men. Such proselyte baptism was basically another kind of ritual washing provided for in the law, albeit one practiced for the first time and as an initiatory rite.

A Mikveh from Khirbet Qumran.

The sect at Qumran rejected the validity of the Temple priesthood and sacrifices, and as a result practiced their own washings and purity rules. Simply being born Jewish wasn’t enough, you had to accept the right belief system and practice the right ritual system. As a result, it appears that they practiced some form of proselyte initiatory washing for even other Jews who joined the community. There is even a passage in the Qumran Manual of Discipline that says that this washing had to reflect a change of heart in the person if it were to be valid. It states that a person cannot become clean if he fails to obey God's commandments in addition to following the cleansing rituals. "For it is through the spirit of God's true counsel concerning the ways of man that all his sins be expiated," observes the Manual, "and when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God."

Members of the Qumran community also had a clear hope for a cataclysmic future intervention by God on their behalf. Having endured centuries of foreign rule, these Jews longed for freedom from oppression, and their writings pine for the arrival of Israel's messiah. The Manual requires that those wishing to enter Qumran "shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of Him; as it is written, Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a path for our God."

It is this same passage from Isaiah that Mark quotes and applies to John the Baptist, and in a way very reminiscent of how the Dead Sea Scrolls quote Hebrew Scripture.

John was baptizing in the Jordan just a few kilometers from the Qumran mother House. The fact that both John and the Qumran covenanters fled to the desert to escape what they saw as the corruption and false religion of Jerusalem stems from the importance of the image of the desert in Hebrew biblical history. It was where God met with his people and/or with the “man of God” to help form and shape him into the one God had called him to be. God meets Moses in the desert (Exodus 2:11—4:31), and purifies his people there as they wander for 40 years after the Exodus. He meets Elijah there (I Kings 19:1-18).

And the wilderness is important in another sense. The wilderness represents the “periphery”, the “margins”, the “edge of the world” to Jew and Gentile alike. To Jews, the hub of the world where everything of significance happened was Jerusalem. And the center of Jerusalem was the Temple. It was the Temple that was the symbol to all Jews, not only of the religious center of worldwide Judaism, but its political and economic center, as well. It was the abode of those who were the leaders of Israel and of the systems that both governed Israel and set the priorities of the Jewish presence in society. If the center had become corrupted, it was only from the periphery that reform could come.

St. John the Baptist

It is here that John appears, nearly as a wild man, clothed in camel hair and a leather belt, eating wild honey and locusts. He preaches a “baptism of repentance unto the forgiveness of sins.” A better way to translate it, I think, would be, “a washing or immersion signifying your change of heart that results in the setting aside of your sins.”

It is something like what the Qumran sectarians practiced, but popularized and meant for all, not a hermetic ritual into an exclusive sect. People flock to Jordan and crowds accept his teaching. But he is not preaching a cheap grace.

He charges the people he has thus washed to “go out and produce fruit worthy of repentance.” What he is saying is, “Go and produce tangible evidence in your acts that you have indeed had a change of hearts, a change of direction. It is only thus that your sins can be set aside by God and by you.”

In the gospels in Luke and Matthew, he is quoted as giving examples of what such tangible evidence is—if you are a soldier, don’t commit unnecessary violence and take advantage of people; if you are a tax revenue agent, only collect what is required and don’t skim the proceeds to line your own pocket.

I wonder what John the Baptist would say today if we asked him to give examples in our society of tangible evidence of a change in our hearts. Would he ask us to stop walking past beggars without assisting? Would he insist that we stop paying less than living wages to those we employ? Stop abusing spouses and children? Belittling employees or subordinates? Stop making fun of those who differ from us? Would he ask us to stop frequenting enterprises or buying goods that are based on the exploitation of others? Would he simply ask us to stop doing things that bother our conscience?

John applied this need to have a change of heart, a change of mind, a change of direction, to all, regardless of condition or family background. He says (again in Matthew and Luke) “Repent! Being Abraham’s children is not enough—God can raise up children of Abraham from the very rocks if he needed to! What is needed is a change of heart!”

Some would say that Mark has misquoted Isaiah, and that John is a very different figure from the announcer of the return from Exile in Second Isaiah. I am not so sure. We are dealing with typology here, with deep images with many resonances and layers.

The fact is that God is a God who acts. And when God acts, certain patterns and issues repeat themselves.

We must not delude ourselves into thinking that we do not need to repent. We must listen to the voice crying in the desert, “prepare the Lord’s way, Make his paths straight.” It is only by our recognizing our own wrongs and oppressions that we throw ourselves, again helpless and hopeless, on this God who speaks, acts, and saves, and tenderly treats his own as a shepherd treats little lambs. God had called us as his own. He will not abandon us. It is God who moves us in our hearts as we hear his voice. We must receive his gift and heed his call.

John knew that judgment and turning from our sin was not the whole story. He calls us to give tangible evidence in our behavior that we have indeed changed our hearts.

In all the Gospel accounts, he points to one who is greater than he is that will follow, one that will baptize not just with water but with holy spirit. Again, the parallel to Qumran is clear. What he means is his washing that shows a change of heart and results in forgiveness or setting aside of sin can only purge away guilt. But what is needed is more, the actual power to live as God wants us to live. It is for that greater messenger, whose sandal straps John is seen as saying he is unworthy to untie, that he is preparing the way.

In this season of Advent, several prayers are useful in helping us hear the solemn warning, that voice of judgment that is at the same time a messenger of joy. I read some here by way of reminder for us all [taken from the Oxford Book of Prayers.]

Almighty and eternal God, who drew out a fountain of living water in the desert for your people, draw from the hardness of our hearts tears of compunction, that we may be able to lament our sins, and may receive you in your mercy.
Latin, late 14th century

O God our Father, help us to nail to the cross of your dear Son the whole body of our death, the wrong desires of the heart, the sinful devisings of the mind, the corrupt apprehensions of the eyes, the cruel words of the tongue, the ill employment of hands and feet; that the old man being crucified and done away, the new man may live and grow into the glorious likeness of the same your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Eric Milner-White, 1884-1964

One is the collect for the first Sunday in Advent, a collect we all should be repeating in our private prayers throughout the season:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Finally, perhaps the simplest and most important prayer of all,

Lord Jesus, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner.

In the name of God, Amen.