modern prophets

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:3)

Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.

A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.

What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant. 

To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.

What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.

During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work, for awhile, included raising money to help Jews seek safe haven in Switzerland.

He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up. Eventually they came for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.

One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on this season of Advent.

Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas. 

It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.

That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.

Want to know more? I’d start with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s own writings, especially Discipleship, Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison.

The Rev. Dr. John Leech is a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson.

Previous version submitted to the Arizona Daily Star, December 8th 2024, as a Guest Opinion. Slight corrections made here 7 Jan 2025, after reading Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945, Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. T&T Clark/Continuum, London, 2010. Original edition Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945 Eine Biographie. München, 2006.

P.S.

Unpacking Bonhoeffer's Legacy, a conversation with Victoria J. Barnett, Wednesday 15 January 2025, spnosored by the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies (https://youtu.be/KPiT9fUON3A?feature=shared) yielded this list...

resources mentioned during the program or recommended by Victoria Barnett:

Barnett, Victoria. "After ten years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Barnett, Victoria. Bystanders: Conscience and complicity during the Holocaust. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hale, Lori Brandt. “Resource (Fall 2024): A Collection of Public Statements, Movie Reviews, and Essays for Reading, Teaching, and Understanding Bonhoeffer (Links and Pdfs) - Check Back for Updates.” International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, December 23, 2024.  Barnett, Victoria. “There’s No Such Thing as a Bonhoeffer Moment.” The Christian Century. January 2025.  Barnett, Victoria J. “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939. International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 76–86.  Barnett, “Women’s Interfaith Activism and Resistance: A Case Study from the Holocaust,” in Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., editor. National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, 2020. Bethge, Eberhard, and Victoria Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer’s Works in English  Collegeville Institute. “Theology in Uncertain Times - an Interview with Bonhoeffer Scholar Victoria Barnett.” Collegeville Institute, October 29, 2018.  Housley, Kathleen L. The scientific world of Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer: The entanglement of Science, religion, and politics in Nazi Germany. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Kessler, Edward, and Neil Wenborn. A documentary history of Jewish-Christian Relations: From antiquity to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. “The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2.” Fortress Press.

resources recommended by Victoria Barnett:

Barnett, Victoria. "After ten years": Dietrich Bonhoeffer and our Times. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Barnett, Victoria. Bystanders: Conscience and complicity during the Holocaust. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2000. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Hale, Lori Brandt. “Resource (Fall 2024): A Collection of Public Statements, Movie Reviews, and Essays for Reading, Teaching, and Understanding Bonhoeffer (Links and Pdfs) - Check Back for Updates.” International Bonhoeffer Society, English Language Section, December 23, 2024.  Barnett, Victoria. “There’s No Such Thing as a Bonhoeffer Moment.” The Christian Century. January 2025.  Barnett, Victoria J. “Track Two Diplomacy, 1933-1939. International Responses from Catholics, Jews, and Ecumenical Protestants to Events in Nazi Germany” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 76–86.  Barnett, “Women’s Interfaith Activism and Resistance: A Case Study from the Holocaust,” in Women, the Holocaust, and Genocide. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., editor. National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, 2020. Bethge, Eberhard, and Victoria Barnett. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Bonhoeffer’s Works in English  Collegeville Institute. “Theology in Uncertain Times - an Interview with Bonhoeffer Scholar Victoria Barnett.” Collegeville Institute, October 29, 2018.  Housley, Kathleen L. The scientific world of Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer: The entanglement of Science, religion, and politics in Nazi Germany. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Kessler, Edward, and Neil Wenborn. A documentary history of Jewish-Christian Relations: From antiquity to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. “The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 2.” Fortress Press.

How do you get ready for something that has already happened?

How do you get ready for something that has already happened?

 

People love Christmas. And who can blame us? Christmas means God is present and at work in the world. We love getting ready for Christmas.

 

We love getting ready for it as if it had not already happened, as if this was the first time.

 

Advent is a funny time of year, between the feast of Christ the King and Christmas Eve. Christ the King was all about the fulfillment of the promise, the completion of what was begun in the Nativity of our Lord. Christ the King we proclaimed: there is no other like him.

 

We will not be fooled. We will not take counterfeits. Whatever, whoever, claims our first allegiance, there is one prior, greater, and first in line.

 

Frankly I don’t know what it would be like to live under a king. I’m an American and this is where I’ve always lived. I’ve seen one or two royal persons from a distance, but they weren’t my royalty, just visitors.

 

So when I hear of the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, I don’t have anybody in the way. Except everybody and everything that puts itself, or that I put, in between me and God.

 

But God does not allow that. God does not accept that anything or anyone should come between us and God. All other allegiances, all other kings, come second. God in Christ comes first. 

How do you get ready for something that has already happened? The love of God is already at work.

 

While we are waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, of Christ on Christmas, we already know that God is at work. Because this Christmas is a reminder that in the arrival of God into our world, in the Holy Spirit, in Creation, and in Christ, we know that we are not separate from grace.

 

We may think of Holy Week, of Good Friday and Easter, as the time when we remember that we are redeemed, saved, made whole again from what was broken; that it was then that the eternity of God’s love was revealed.

 

But the good news in Christmas, and anticipated in Advent, is that Love has already come into our world.

 

When we think of advent we may think of joyful preparation, and the need to get our house in order to make room to welcome Jesus. We may think “prepare the way” - and we’d be right. But we would also be right to recall that God was there first, in the world from the beginning, and is only now in the new day that Christ has made, redeeming the promise of ages: God with us, Emmanuel.

 

In Christ the fullness of God was pleased to live, and we are called into the fullness of living by that gift. That gift that opens before us on Christmas.

 

***

 

And while we prepare for it, in self-examination and repentance and fasting, or decorating the church with greens, or reconsidering our yuletide gifts, we get ready. We get ready while we watch a Christmas movie - though it’s too early! and sing a song of welcome to the one who is coming.

 

There are many forces bearing on us, attractions and distractions pulling on us.  But we get ready when we set aside all distraction and turn to the Christ-child once again, in confidence and poverty, in wealth of grace and gift and gladness and gravity, in expectation and hope of a renewal once more, once again, of what really matters in our lives to come to the fore.

 

And once again, as if meeting the Christ-child for the first time, we await one little baby in whom the hope of the world is contained. As if you can contain a little child: for from him comes the explosion of grace and joy and hope that we call Christmas. Here it comes. Get ready, church. Get ready, world.

 

***

 

Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.

 

A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a concentration camp.

 

What had he done to earn that? From the beginning of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant.

 

To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation?

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.

 

What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant for the church not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. What it would mean if it was. And so he was among those who raised that voice.

 

During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his clandestine work included raising money to allow Jews to seek safe haven in Switzerland. The Gestapo arrested him in April 1943.

 

He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up.  

 

But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write to friends and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.

 

One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on Advent.

 

Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas.

 

It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.

 

That bridge of hope is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about. God is already active in the world. From the beginning of the world through Christ to the consummation of time, God is at work. Responding to God’s love by placing our trust and primary allegiance in his hands, and faithfully participating in God’s work of redemptive love, will carry us through the toughest time.

 

What Christmas means to us, Christmas that is coming, is hope. It means the arrival of God in our world, bringing peace on earth. The good news is even better: Christmas means that he is already here.

 

God is already active in the world. How can we not love a season that invites us to begin to live like that?  We are invited this pre-season, as every season pre- Savior, to look at ourselves and others, and see what God sees in us: not mortal sinners but eternally beloved children. 

 

We see the love of parent and stranger, community and chorus of angels, shining the love of God on one child. But not only him.

 

Children in the Holy Land today, in places torn by war, civil strife, or natural disaster, children desperately crossing waste places through the desert to hoped-for new homes of safety, children placed in foster homes or cherished by grandparents, children safe and embraced by loving families, all these have the light of the love of God shone on them.

 

And when they grow up, they may not be as cuddly, but they are still children of God's grace. They are beloved of God. Each of them, all of them. We are with them.

 

We know we need Advent. Four Sundays are short notice to get ready. To begin to see the impact of God's present - since the beginning - in the world.

 

We know we want Advent. We want wreaths and glory to the king and simmering cider and cookies and greetings from strangers and all the rest. The chance to give to relieve the suffering and brighten the days of the lonely. The chance to give and the chance to receive. For we have all received, before we have had a chance to give, God's love.

 

Hope is the struggle of the soul,

breaking loose from what is perishable,

and attesting her eternity.

 

-Herman Melville  1819-1891

Free to worship him without fear, *

Preachers tell us we need prophets. Prophets tell us what is really going on. They are not primarily people who predict the future. They tell us what is going on right now in our present situation and what it means in the light of the sovereignty of God. Sometimes what they have to say lasts beyond their own time. Isaiah and Baruch, for example. John the Baptist, for another. And Zechariah, John's father.

A more modern prophet lived in the last century. He was a German Lutheran theologian, and he spent most of his life in Berlin. Most of his life. He visited Spain, New York City, England, and Sweden. And at the end of his life he was not in Berlin, he was in a prison camp.

What had he done to earn that? From the beginnings of his country's turn to national socialism, he had spoken out to his fellow Christians about what it meant. What it ultimately meant. 

To some of them, it meant good times ahead. What could be better than a strong leader who would clean house and bring church and state together to strengthen the nation? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for that was his name, saw differently. He was not alone, but he did not, at the end, have many friends. There were family members who were much more, or much less, implicated in resistance to the national socialist regime that took over their country.

What he did at first and for many years was simply to point out what it meant for the church to merge its identity into a national project. What it meant not to be an independent voice, for justice, for the poor, for the person on the edge of society, and for the person pushed there by politics. 

During the war he became involved in working for military intelligence, but while he worked there he was also a courier for the resistance movement, trying to build bridges for democracy with people in other countries. And his main clandestine work for awhile was raising money to allow Jews to seek safe haven in Switzerland.

He was famously involved, but only peripherally, in a plot to kill Hitler. That plot failed in July 1944 and gradually the conspirators were rounded up. Eventually they came for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

But that is not the end of the story. In prison he was able to write friend and family, and continue to develop his understanding of what was going on. He continued to be a prophet.

One thing he said that I have been thinking about puts a different spin on Advent.

Advent we rightly hold to be a time of preparation, of repentance and renewal, in anticipation of the arrival of Christ at Christmas. 

It is a time of hope, hope that bridges the distance between faith and love, between what we hold to be true and how we put it into action.

That is what got Dietrich Bonhoeffer into trouble. Most pastors just went along with what was going on - or took quieter ways to resist.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had taught something important to think about.

What Christmas means to us, Christmas that is coming, is hope. It means the arrival of God in our world, bringing peace on earth. The good news is even better: Christmas means that he is already here.

God is already active in the world. How can we not love a season that invites us to begin to live like that? We are invited this pre-season, as every season pre- Savior, to look at ourselves and see what God sees in us: not mortal sinners but eternally beloved children.  

We see the love of parent and stranger, community and chorus of angels, shining the love of God on one child. But not only him.

Children in the Holy Land today, in places torn by war, civil strife, or natural disaster, children desperately crossing waste places through the desert to hoped-for new homes of safety, children placed in foster homes or cherished by grandparents, children safe and embraced by loving families, all these have the light of the love of God shone on them.

And when they grow up, they may not be as cuddly, but they are still children of God's grace. They are beloved of God. Each of them, all of them. We are with them. 

We know we need Advent. It's short notice to get ready. To begin to see the impact of God's present - since the beginning - in the world.

We know we want Advent. We want wreaths and glory to the king and simmering cider and cookies and greetings from strangers and all the rest. The chance to give to relieve the suffering and brighten the days of the lonely. The chance to give and the chance to receive. For we have all received, before we have had a chance to give, God's love.

God of Freedom, protect those who worship amid fear, and grant courage to those barred from sacred spaces. Soften the hearts of those in power, that they may choose mercy over oppression. Bring peace to every street and let justice flow through the land. May all worship in freedom and safety, and may peace and dignity be restored to all.

Lord in your mercy…hear our prayer

Sabeel weekly newsletter, November 11, 2024. 

https://sabeel.org/wave-of-prayer-218/

Second Sunday of Advent
Year C
RCL
Baruch 5:1-9 
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
Canticle 16

Second Sunday of Advent, 2024: December 8th. Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew, Tucson. 8 & 10:30am.

• Baruch 5:1-9
• Philippians 1:3-11
• Luke 3:1-6
• Canticle 16

Free to worship him without fear, *
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.

http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/messiah.htm

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
(Isaiah 40: 1-3)

Ev'ry valley shall be exalted, and ev'ry moutain and hill made low; the crooked straight and the rough places plain.
(Isaiah 40: 4)

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
(Isaiah 40: 5)

Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts: Yet once a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come.
(Haggai 2: 6-7)

It is the time of year that we remember that the Christ has come before. Much of the run-up to Advent, at the end of the long season after Pentecost that culminates in the feast of Christ the King, reminds us that we await the Messiah. His second coming is anticipated with fear and desire; His first coming, with joy.

Joyful anticipation is a way to see Advent through to Christmas. Penitence or at least preparation is another. In fact we do both, as we recall and renew the promise of ages, that the Lord will comfort his people and set them on the right path. They will need to seek the right path. This applies not just to the ancient nation of the Hebrews in time long remembered, but in our own time and in our own lives.

For at the very last, when Zechariah proclaims in song the prophecy and its fulfillment, we grasp fundamental freedoms: freedom to worship him without fear. This comes out of promise and out of preparation. Anticipation, of the coming liberation. Not domination, but freedom. 

FDR addressed his country once (January 6th 1941) on the state of the union in a speech noted for his articulation of Four Freedoms:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-franklin-roosevelts-annual-message-to-congress

https://www.fdrlibrary.org/four-freedoms

FDR was an Episcopalian. He kept the Book of Common Prayer by his bedside. And every morning that he said Morning Prayer out of that book, he would have heard the words of the song of Zechariah:

Free to worship him without fear.

He did not say freedom would only come with the second coming of Christ. He did not say that it fully had with his first. But with Christ we could strive to see the day when that freedom, and those freedoms, became clear, evident, more real in our lives and in our deeds that ever before. 

There is sliding backwards. There is failure. There is often despair. These are only human. 

The divine hope, the divine promise, and the human response in faith and love, persevere.

What will we do this Advent day to prepare the way? The way to the Cross, yes, but through the Cross to the dawn from on high that shall break upon us, as promised, as the reign of God becomes real to us.

To shine on those who dwell in darkness - is partly our job. Near and far, friend and stranger, there are those among us in the human family with whom we walk the way of peace who need our company.

We accompany those of different abilities, backgrounds, and even faiths, as we walk toward peace. 

The reign of God - 'already but not yet' in the familiar phrase - comes closer when we come closer to God.

JRL+

What is coming into being?

Have you known someone who set an extra place at the table for an ‘unexpected guest’? Maybe Jesus, or Elijah, or a prophet? Or perhaps an angel, lest they entertain one unawares and badly?

In the days when Herod reigned in Judea, the people of the land expected Elijah or someone like him. They just didn’t know who, or when, that prophet would appear. 

In no way did some ordinary household expect his arrival in their own home, any more than an ordinary elderly couple expected a late-life child. “I am old, and my wife is getting on in years.” 

Pious temple-priest family as they were, Elizabeth and Zechariah did not see themselves as look-alikes to Abraham and Sarah, or Hannah and Elkanah, or the parents of Samson. Those were stories in the Bible they read, for sure, but they were centuries, even millenia, old. Part of the tradition, not a daily hope.

And yet. The unexpected came, and met - and exceeded - all expectations. One like Elijah did come, and come he did to that small family. They rejoiced at the unexpected and their neighbors rejoiced with them.

What is God doing? The constant question, behind the questions, of the parents and, we learn, of their neighbors as well. “How can these things be?” Zechariah asks, echoing Abraham, as he, like the other new old father, receives the angelic message.  Zechariah is struck speechless by the news, from Gabriel, that he is becoming a father. Awe-struck all fathers-to-be may be, this is something special, a sign from God.

To be struck speechless may seem a punitive sign, a reward for doubt, but that now voiceless doubt becomes itself a sign of God’s doing.

What is God doing? Elizabeth exults. Like Hannah, wife of Elkanah, mother of Samuel, Elizabeth sees in her unexpected expectation a gift from God and a sign of his favor.

And so it is only right that the child is named for God’s favor, as his name means that: God’s favor, God’s graciousness, rests upon this one, this child.

Knowing what they knew, separately or together, they named their child John - beloved of God, sign of God’s favor, and grace. 

Favored: and the angel who greets Mary will likewise greet her, “Hail, favored one!” “Hail full of grace!” 

And so the families and the hopes of all peoples are drawn together. Peace on earth, indeed, to those whom God favors. 

But back to the neighbors’ question: What will this child become?

What is coming into being?

Any parents would be wondering, and these are in awe. Elizabeth and Zechariah and all the people of Israel and Palestine, must wonder. They stand at the end of a long line of faithful couples, surprised parents, unexpected children, hope, and promise. And now something is happening. 

Something new. Not just as any child is new but as the world is new. For a new order of the ages now begins. John is not only the last of the prophets, he is the forerunner of the new thing that God is doing.

He is promised to be a child of a new age. His birthright would be to follow his father’s steps, and become a temple priest, maybe even in his turn one day offering incense. But his father and mother know better. His path is a break with the past even as it is a fulfillment of promise. He will go before the long-expected one, the anointed one, who will lead his people, and all people, into a new order of the ages.

John, son of a priest and of the line of the first priest, Aaron, did not hold on to these things, and sought no position within the temple structure. Instead he went out to the undeveloped country, the land around the river, where he began to do his work.

He proclaimed and preached and called to all the people to turn aside from any way but God’s way; to prepare themselves as a straight road through the wilderness, a highway for their God. And on that road, that path of faith and hope, they would return to obedience and holy living.

The universality of his message was clear, as was his welcome. Tax collectors and soldiers, Herodian or imperial, were among the many who took baptism under his hand.

What then should we do? They asked. John had some practical advice. And then something more: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”

It is not what we expected. It is everything we expected. The prophet in the guise of Elijah has come: Prepare the way! and the Anointed One is on the way. How shall we prepare our hearts - this time - for his arrival? (Much of wisdom consists in doing the next right thing.)

What we know about it is this: there are practical things to do. John as an adult will advise repentant sinners,  soldiers and tax collectors among them, to treat others fairly. To do justice, as the prophet said, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. 

Christ is coming. And to prepare to follow his way we set aside a lot we do not want to carry with us any farther. Not simply as tired hikers crossing a weary wilderness, but as those approaching a new and promised land. There are challenges ahead, tasks and even conflicts, that will require us to travel light, or to discard what impedes us. We repent, and turn toward God.

And yet there is another question: Now what? What do we do? Not just the people in the first century of the new era, the happy family, the rejoicing neighbors, the repentant soldiers, but us, now. What do we do now?

For the Fore-runner has appeared, and delivered his message, to them, and also to us. Now what? What should we do now?

Present the happy family with new baby gifts? Is that it?  

I think not. I think this particular new guest, grateful as the folks would be for such gifts, wants something more. I’m not thinking of incense or spices or ready money. I’m thinking of love.

Love for him, sure. Who doesn’t love a little baby? Okay, Herod.

But love for Herod? Come on! Love your enemies? That’s spiteful! Isn’t it?

Or is the wisdom of this world not so wise after all? Let us see what happens. The story unfolds.

We are moving, with John, into the kingdom of Heaven. It is just around the corner. And we don’t know quite what to expect.

And on the way, the way prepared with love, we will meet the unexpected.

In his Christmas Oratorio W. H. Auden put it this way:

“He is the Way.

Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;

You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.

Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;

You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.

Love Him in the World of the Flesh;

And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.”

[from For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio by W.H. Auden

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/23421649-for-the-time-being-a-christmas-oratorio]

JRL+ 

Lutheran Church of the Foothills, Tucson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ECmiY-Jf5k