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"Clear the Way!" by Rev. Charles Hoffman

December 8, 2002 Second Sunday In Advent
Isaiah 40:1-11 Mark 1:1-8

My brother owned a large acreage in eastern British Columbia. It was on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains overlooking a valley not far from the headwaters of the great Columbia River. His land was covered with timber, mostly conifers of various sorts, and he was given permission a few years ago to harvest some of that timber. What they did was to thin the forest. They brought in heavy equipment that literally pulled the trees out by the roots.

It's the modern way of lumbering. In the old days when the lumberjacks would fell the trees by hand you would hear their warnings. They would shout, "Timber!" and everyone would know to get out of the way of a falling giant.

When you are skiing down the slopes and you hear a voice behind you say, "On your right" or "On your left," you know that another skier is about to overtake you. She's telling you to stay out of her way as she passes you.

Snowboarders are much different today than they used to be. It used to be that most snowboarders didn't know their right from their left and when they wanted to pass you they had three options: right, left or over your back. And they didn't decide which one it would be until the last instant.

In the game of golf they warn you of errant golf balls by shouting, "Fore!" It's one of the many four-letter words that make up the vocabulary of golf. Some golfers use the word fore more frequently than others. All golfers know that it means you have to make way for a hard, little ball that is traveling your direction at a high rate of speed.

My dictionary says that fore is a cry of warning to those who are in danger of being hit by a ball. A cry of warning: That's what we get the second Sunday in Advent. We hear it in both of our texts, the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Mark.

Both Isaiah and Mark agree that the Lord is coming. It's out of their control but they know it's going to happen. So they sing their antiphonal anthem of Advent. At least, they do that for us this morning. First comes Isaiah in a tenor voice that would make Handel proud:

A voice cries:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God"

Then comes the Tevye the milkman bass voice of Mark in response. Handel wouldn't like it:

"Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,

who shall prepare thy way;

the voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight"

Actually, my references to lumbering and skiing and golfing don't go far enough to illustrate what Isaiah and Mark have in mind. You see, the Lord is coming but preparation is not at all limited merely to getting out of the way. There is that but there is more to it than that.

However, most of us would do ourselves a favor if we got out of the way and allowed this Advent/Christmas season to pull us into its deeper meanings. Most of us spend too much time preparing for the wrong thing. Even in our Christian homes cultural demands tend to overshadow the religious significance of the season.

We all know that. And it's easy for sermons at this time of year to get carried away in chiding the faithful for missing the point. I don't want to do that. But I do want to encourage some creative inactivity during these days of waiting. So, you won't get all the Christmas cards mailed in time. Forget it. Save them for next year. Or, be really counter-cultural and send the Christmas cards during the Christmas season! You have twelve full days more than you thought you had.

But back to Isaiah and Mark, clearly, they urge us to action: Prepare the way. Make a straight path, a highway for our God. Lift up the valleys and bring down the mountains. Level the uneven ground.

That sounds like hard work. Years ago Sharon's older brother Herb was a missionary pilot with an organization known as Mission Aviation Fellowship. M.A.F., as it is called, was started by pilots from the Second World War who used their experience and skills to lend support to Christian missions in remote parts of the world.

Herb learned his skills as a crop duster and used them first in South American and later in Asia.

M.A.F. pilots are a little like angels from heaven as they drop medical supplies and other critical cargo in parts of the world that are barely accessible overland. But sometimes they have to land their aircraft. And one of the obvious problems confronting these pilots is getting their planes onto the ground. Jungles are not easy places to land and they don't come equipped with airstrips. Jungles have a lot of trees and once you get the trees cut down you find that the ground often slopes dangerously one way or another and that it is also very uneven.

So the only thing to do is to have the natives build an airstrip. They do their best with primitive implements to dig out tree stumps and fill holes and cut down hills. Their job is to make a rough place into a level plain. And when the time finally comes to land the little Cessna 180 the people can only hope that they have done their job well; that they have prepared the way for the landing.

And the pilot hopes so, too, because in some cases he is committed to land before he can see the little landing strip clinging to the side of a hill in the jungle. I don't think the F.A.A. would approve.

It's a captivating picture. You can't see the airplane but you can hear the engine in the distance, and the sound is getting louder. On the ground the natives who prepared the way are leaning on their shovels and waiting to see if this crazy idea will work. The plane will arrive. The question is: Are they prepared?

Now hold that scene for the moment. I'll come back to it.

Both John and Isaiah issue the call. Prepare. Get ready. The Lord is coming. You know, Isaiah's call was not answered for over five hundred years. That's a long time, about as much time as between now and when Christopher Columbus first bumped into the Americas!

Isaiah dreamed about it. Jesus fulfilled it. John proclaimed it. "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

John appears between the times. He is the go-between, the middleman between Isaiah and the Christ. John looks backward to Isaiah but he exhorts all who hear him to look forward to Jesus. In fact, what John doesn't know this second Advent is that Jesus is already making his way south from Galilee to meet up with him on the banks of the Jordan.

Mark calls John the baptizer but he is more than that. I don't know how my colleagues who preach from the lectionary readings feel about it, but I think John is the star of the show during Advent. And if you want to know how to behave during this season then take a look at John. John is the one who calls attention to Jesus, which is just about the most important thing any of us can do at this time of year.

I'm sure you've noticed that there is competition on the block. Jesus may well be the reason for the season but he's fading in the polls. The highway of the Lord into our world is a rough way. Ours is not a society that recognizes the infinite worth of Bethlehem's Child. In fact, I suspect that if he came today the inns would be closed and he would be held at arms length.

So there is a lot of roadwork to do. The way of the Lord is anything but smooth. Every valley is not exalted and every hill is not made low. The path is strewn with all sorts of deterrents and roadblocks.

There is among us a practiced apathy toward blatant injustice. We are expert at looking the other way, of turning a blind eye.

There is opposition to anything that might curtail our self- imposed right to live as voracious consumers. We guard our lifestyle as though it is a God-given right, which it isn't. We cling to it as though it were a matter of life and death, which it isn't. At least it isn't for us. For someone else it may well be a matter of life and death.

There is unabashed self-absorption that would have made our ancestors blush.

And there is a destructive reticence among us to name the One whose coming we await. We cower in the shadows and let Jesus find his own way into the world.

And this is precisely why John tells us that the greatest act of preparation is repentance. There's nothing for our behavior but to repent of it; to make a one hundred and eighty degree turn, collect our certificate of forgiveness on the way out, and go do a better job of being followers of Christ in the world.

Mark says that John appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And he notes that it worked. People came to John, heard him witness, and were baptized in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Interestingly, Mark doesn't catalogue the sins. Of the four gospels, Mark is the minimalist version and sometimes we might wish he had said more. What were the sins that those people confessed? Luke helps us. Maybe he had a better tape recorder than Mark because he fills in the blanks.

In Luke's version John lambastes the crowd until they ask him for help. John calls a spade a spade and a sin a sin. Finally, the people are ready for specifics. What are we supposed to do? And John is prepared with answers. He singles out food and clothing. But basically what he is saying is that most of them have more than enough and they need to share with those who have less than enough. And they need to stop exploiting the poor and defenseless among them. It's all pretty basic, straightforward stuff.

John tells us to cut it out because it's a roadblock, a deterrent to the coming reign of the Lord. You see, the message of repentance turns out to be a message for you and me, for the church of today.

Now I know you didn't come to church this morning to get beat up. But you can't blame me because I don't write it. I just preach it. And as far as I can tell, John says that Second Advent is about proclamation and repentance. That's how you clear the way for the Lord to come. Name him by word and deed and live as though you believe he's right.

But there is something else and we mustn't miss it. Second Advent is also full of grace, because during this season it is the Lord who is coming to us. If we move toward him it is because he first moved toward us. That's the direction of the movement. And to say that is to say that we live in the realm of grace. I'm sure you've forgotten it by now, but the Isaiah text begins with the words, "'Comfort, comfort my people,' says your God."

Comfort ye my people. Some of you came to church this morning feeling bruised and buffeted by life. You need to hear those words and I don't want you to miss them. There's not a better collection of four words than those four: comfort ye my people.

Now remember that little Cessna 180 that we left on its approach to the airstrip in the jungle? I told you we would come back to that scene. While you listen to the sound of the engine getting louder, remember that this plane is on a mission of mercy. It bears medicines and information and all sorts of other things that those waiting people need. It carries a cargo of grace.

The natives still can't see it but they know it's getting closer. In fact, there's one little guy running around in a little white suit he got from the missionary basket and he's shouting, "The plane! The plane!"

We can only hope that those people have prepared well. Because, you see, ready or not that plane is going to land. Think about it. Amen.