Christmas Gifts that Won’t Break: Hope…from the Wilderness

A Sermon Preached from the Pulpit of

Tyger River Presbyterian Church

by Dr. Douglas D. Cushing; D. Min.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2011

Mark 1: 1 – 9

Questions

• In Matthew 3:3 John the Baptist quotes Isaiah 40: 3. Do you notice how John changes the words of Isaiah? Why?
• In the Bible the wilderness is not just a geographical location. It’s also a metaphor.What do you think it means?
• How would you define the word repent?
• What did you learn about God and yourself from these passages of Scripture?

Scripture

Isaiah 40: 1 – 5

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
² 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.

³ A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

Matthew 3: 1 – 6

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ²‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’^{* 3}This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’

⁴Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, ⁶and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Sermon

My cell phone rang. Calling me was my friend – and former Parish Associate at Tyger River – Jeff Gilstrap. Jeff had 2 extra tickets to the upcoming Bob Segar concert at the BiLo Center in Greenville and he wanted to know if Sharon and I were interested in going. I thought to myself: “Free tickets to Bob Segar…hmmmm, life is good!” I thought to myself.

Now Jeff is on the Board of Directors of the Bi Lo Center and so the day before the concert Jeff informed me that Sharon and I were invited to join him for a pre-concert all-you-can-eat-buffet sponsored by the Lo-Bo Board of Directors. “free tickets to Bob Segar…free buffet… hmmmmm, life is really good!”  I thought to myself.

Jeff warned me however that if we went to the buffet we’d miss the opening act. My reply was simple: “Oh, there’s an opening act?” Jeff’s reply was just as telling: “Ah, yea I guess so but I couldn’t tell you who it is.”

I remember going to see Jay Leno at…ah…at a big hotel… in a big city out west… in the desert. Anyway I remember Sharon and I trying to rush through a wonderful dinner in order to get to Caesars Palace…I mean this big hotel only to realize after we were seated that we rushed through that wonderful dinner so we could see the warm up act!

We don’t think that much about opening acts do we? We treat warm up acts a little like second class citizens. They are tolerable. If we’re lucky they will be entertaining. But we didn’t buy the ticket to watch the warm up act, right?

There is a temptation to treat John the Baptist like the warm up act for Jesus. John is that almost comical iconoclast who is presented to us wearing nothing but a sack-cloth of camel hair around his torso, eating bumblebees and dried plants like some sort of John Muir wannabe. For many people John the Baptist is nothing more than that wild-eyed, warm up act, who stands knee deep in the river Jordan preaching hell, fire and damnation at the top of his lungs.

But we need to pay close attention to John the Baptist during this Advent season because he was tasked with preparing the way for the coming of Jesus. And Advent season is that time when we Christians should be preparing the way for the coming of Jesus Christ into our hearts at Christmas.

In our gospel lesson this morning John’s message is two-fold. First, in verse 2 we read John preaching: “repent, for the kingdom has come near.” Then, he quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah at the end of verse 3: “A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” Now in order to understand what John meant by ‘repent’ we need to ‘get’ what John was referring to when he said: “prepare the way of the Lord.” Let’s take a longer look at these passages in your bulletin.

Notice in Matthew 3:3 how John the Baptist takes some liberties with the passage he is quoting from Isaiah 40. John says: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight’.”

Now let’s compare Matthew 3:3 with Isaiah 40:3 where we read: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’.” Do you notice the subtle changes?

Both texts tell the reader to “prepare the way of the Lord” – or to put it in our vernacular: “The Lord wants to straighten out your life, so get ready?” But Matthew’s gospel tells us that “a voice is crying in the wilderness” while Isaiah’s words are directed to people who are in the wilderness. “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord ‘”.

(Slide #2) The reason this difference exists is because Isaiah’s words were directed to the people of Israel who had been deported into Babylonian captivity after the Babylonians had invaded and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 bce. The original readers of Isaiah’s prophetic words were women and men who had gone through one of the worst periods in the tortured history of the Jewish people.

The original hearers of Isaiah’s words believed that the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem (and their subsequent deportation and imprisonment) was punishment from God for their sins. They were wondering if God had abandoned them and they were desperate to know if God would give them a second chance. They felt deep regret. They felt confused, desperate, hopeless and guilty.

Isaiah characterized them existentially as: people living in the wilderness. As I have mentioned in previous sermons when people in the bible are in the wilderness it doesn’t just mean that they are lost in a specific geographic region. In the bible being in the wilderness is also a metaphor that describes those times in our lives when we are lost in our feelings of guilt, hopelessness, or loneliness. Typically the common denominator for anyone in the wilderness is a feeling of being separated or abandoned by God.  Can any of you relate to this feeling of being in the wilderness? Maybe you feel like you are in the wilderness right now?

Now for some of us, life is so very good and all the breaks are coming your way. Rejoice and give thanks. But for many, many more of us life is kind of messy and God seems very distant.

• Maybe it’s some poor moral choices that you have made lately that are really making a mess of life; of your job; of your relationships.
• Perhaps you are struggling with an addiction or some other compulsive behavior that is getting the best of you.
• Maybe you’ve just slowly drifted away from your relationship with the Lord and now life feels empty, boring, passionless and you need to return home to your Lord.

If you feel like you are in the wilderness right now, then listen again to Isaiah’s words because they are words for you this morning. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Isaiah is saying to everyone whose life is spiritually screwed up, or devoid of the presence of God: “Hey I’ve got some great good news. The Lord is coming to make a path out of your chaos… a sort of divine dept of transportation plan to straighten you out and set you back on the right path. And the best part is that God is going to take the initiative. All you have to do is prepare to accept God back into your heart.”

If you desperately want to the Lord to back into your life this Christmas then here is some really good news: God is coming back to you! And all you have to do is one thing: Prepare yourself for his coming.

One simple thing…that’s all that is needed for Christ to come to you this Christmas and begin straightening out your messed up life. And that one thing you need to do is…prepare for his coming. Isaiah says: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord”. And to prepare to get out of the wilderness all you have to do is admit that you’re in the wilderness…admit you’re lost and drifting from God.

If you are living in the wilderness of life this Advent season then listen again to Isaiah’s prophetic good news: “hey all of you whose lives are a wreck, I’ve got some great good news, the Lord is coming to make a path out of the mess of your life… to straighten you out and set you back on the right path. And the best part is that God is going to take the initiative. All you have to do is prepare to accept God back into your heart”.

That’s what Advent season is all about. It’s about admitting that you are in the wilderness, trusting that the Lord is going to make straight your path and then waiting and preparing for his coming…for his highway out of the wilderness.

And how, you ask, do you get on the highway out of the wilderness? The answer comes from listening once again to that wild-eyed warm-up act who stood on the banks of the Jordan River and yelled: “repent, for the Kingdom has come near.”

(Slide #3) The Greek word for repent is “Metanoia”. It means simply to turn around. It means turning from the bondage of your bad habits and poor decisions and turning toward Jesus Christ. It means turning from your sins and your pre-occupation with yourself and turning toward Jesus. Repent…turn around.

Years ago the son of one of my doctoral colleagues came from Scotland to spend a summer with Sharon and I. His name was Matthew Ritchie. He came from Edinburgh not just to see the US but also to serve as an intern at our church for a semester. When Matthew arrived there were a couple of small transitions that needed to be address because Scotland is a little different than the States. One such challenges was driving.

People in Scotland drive on the left side of the road and their steering wheels is located on our passenger side. So I thought if I can give Matthew a few quick driving lessons his adjustment to life in America would be that much easier. And so it was that one bright shining afternoon during his first week in the states I took Matthew over to the River Falls community got out of the car and told him it was his turn to drive for a few minutes. At first Matthew looked shocked but then his eyes lit up like a child in front of the tree on Christmas morning. Only later did I realize why he was so excited.

As we pulled out onto the River Falls Dr., I told Matthew he needed to turn left. As he began to turn the car I could see that he was heading straight toward a street light…and accelerating at the same time. “Turn Matthew…turn Matthew…turn harder, slow down…brake Matthew… Brake!”

The car lurched forward and then came to an abrupt stop barely missing the streetlight. As my car sat in the middle of the road perpendicular to the curbs of River Falls Dr. I asked Matthew how long he had, had his driver’s license – a fair question at that point. Matthew turned to me, smiled and said, “Oh Doug, I’ve never even applied for a driver’s license in Scotland.”

But instead of yanking Matthew out from behind the steering wheel, and stuffing him into my trunk like I wanted to at that moment, I said to him, “let’s turn around and try again.” Herky jerky, back and forth, fits and starts we sputtered and lurched up and down River Falls Drive. preparing a way…making straight a highway…making the rough places a plain. The call to repentance is simply God’s way of saying, “let’s turn around and try again. This time trust in me.”

For those of us in the wilderness this Advent season that wild eyed warm up act John the Baptist has some good news. the Lord is coming to make a path out of the mess of your life… to straighten you out and set you back on the right path. And all you have to do to prepare is to wait and to listen for the Lord’s voice saying to you: let’s turn around and try again.

And if you want to get on that highway back to God you have to do one simple thing: repent. If you want to make room in your heart for Christ this Christmas you just need to make some room and here’s how you do it. Get still, get quiet and take a long, hard, honest look at your life. Repent of those actions and attitudes and habits that may have gotten you into the wilderness in the first place.

You don’t need to tell God you’re sorry for your sin so much as you need to tell God I get it. I know what I need to do and what not to do to stay on the highway with you. And then you gotta do what you resolve to do and don’t do what you know leads you into sin. That’s what it means to turn around…to repent…to get off the side of the road and get back on the highway with the Lord who loves you and opens the door on the passenger side and says: Come on in. Let’s ride together and I’ll do the driving.

Christmas Gifts that Won't Break: Hope...from the Wilderness [ 17:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download