Prepare the Way for God's Word of Salvation - Lectionary Reflection for Advent 2C (Luke 3)
3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
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The time had come for the people to prepare themselves to see the one who would reveal God's message of salvation. This took place, according to the Gospel of Luke, during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, the successor to Augustus. At that time the sons of Herod the Great, Lysanius, and Pontius Pilate had responsibility for governing the region called Palestine and its environs on behalf of the emperor. At that time the ruling priests in Jerusalem were Annas and Caiaphas. In other words, Luke places the moment of revelation in a historical context.
We hear this word of salvation on the second Sunday of Advent. According to Luke God had sent a messenger who would break through the morass of a violent world to clear a path for the one who would embody God's salvation. While the Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent took us to the final week of Jesus' earthly ministry, where Jesus called those with ears to hear to stay alert and keep watch so they would be ready when the Son of Man returned (Luke 21:34-36), this week we step back to the beginning of that ministry when John the Baptist would take up his ministry of preparation.
According to the first chapter of Luke, this was John’s destiny from birth. As Luke reveals, the two men are relatives, cousins in fact (how that is possible considering the two men are from different tribal backgrounds is never resolved). The message is simply that these two lives, that of John and Jesus have been intertwined from before their births. In adulthood, John embraces his own calling to prepare the way in the wilderness for the one who is coming to reveal God's way of salvation. Luke draws upon the words of Isaiah 40:3-5 to describe this calling. Thus, ohn is the one crying in the wilderness, offering to all those who will heed his call a baptism of repentance that leads to forgiveness. The Gospels make it clear that John is not the one who brings salvation to the people. Instead, he is the one who lays the foundation for God’s agent of salvation to fulfill his calling. Luke wants us to know that this took place in time and space. It’s not a metaphor or simply a nice story. It is much more. It is a reminder that God the Creator is invested in the creation and its future. But in this vision, the world is flattened out, as Isaiah declared, so all can see God’s salvation. As one who loves the mountains and the valleys, this might not seem good news at first. But it is an understandable vision. The point is this, in the ministry of John, we are made ready to see and receive the salvation of God.
So what does Luke/Isaiah mean by this reference to the salvation of God? What is being revealed? It is Jesus, of course. This is the message of both Advent and Christmas. God the Creator is revealed to us in the person of Jesus. It is the message of the incarnation that stands out here, even if the entirety of the message is to be revealed. What we know from this reading in Luke 3 is that John has taken up his position of preaching and baptizing (word and sacrament?), and that he is doing so in preparation for the unveiling of God’s salvation.
This unveiling occurs in a particular context. It is important to remember that Luke frames John’s work in the context of a particular political situation. It is one where violence and oppression are the norms. As Dennis Smith helpfully points out, the majority of persons named by Luke have a role in the deaths of Jesus and/or John. Both political and religious leaders are implicated, reminding us that more often than not religion and politics get intertwined in such a way that religion is co-opted. Annas and Caiaphas owed their jobs not to God’s calling, but to the benefice of Rome. They were creatures of Rome, entrusted with keeping things quiet. They don't appreciate it when people step in and upset the apple cart. While Caiaphas and Annas are committed to keeping the region peaceful and quiet, both John and Jesus step in and upset the status quo. Both John and Jesus were rabble-rousers. They were perceived by the elite to be problems and both were killed as a result. [Feasting on the Gospels--Luke, Volume 1, p. 67].
What made John and Jesus a problem is that they offered an alternative vision of reality; one where the justice and peace of God reigned. In this Advent season, we’re invited to consider what this alternative realm looks like and then decide if we want to embrace it. Now, if saying the sinner's prayer was all that was expected of us, salvation would be easy. Of course, it's more than that. According to our reading from this second Sunday of Advent, when the salvation of God is revealed it will bring dramatic change to our reality. The question is, will we have the eyes and ears to perceive God's presence and work in the world?
When it comes to the revealing of Gos' presence and realm in the person of Jesus, Karl Barth can be of help preparing our spiritual senses. He writes:
The kingdom of heaven does exist already; from God’s side action has been already taken for our good. To pronounce the name of Jesus Christ means to acknowledge that we are cared for, that we are not lost. Jesus Christ is man’s salvation in all circumstances and in face of all that darkness his life, including the evil that proceeds from himself. There is nothing which not already made good in this happening, that God became man for our good. Anything that is left can be no more than the discovery of this fact. We do not exist in any kind of gloomy uncertainty; we exist through the God who was gracious to us before we existed at all. [Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p. 71].
John comes pointing to the coming realm of God, but as Barth reminds us, the realm of God is already present. The question is, can we discern its presence? That is the task given to John, who, following the message of Isaiah, has paved the way for us so we might experience the salvation of God, who has been gracious to us since before we even existed. Therefore, we can give thanks to God!
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