by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Luke 3:1-6
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, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
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"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
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;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
You know I just love taking car trips. I suppose I am an introvert because for me there is nothing better for getting away from the stress than getting out on the open road. I love the seeing new things, stopping at gas stations (well maybe a little less than I used to considering the price of gas), finding a roadside diner that looks like it might be good. I like finding motels and talking with people I know I probably will never see again. I like the way the weather can be on the road. I like driving at night. In short I like everything there is about traveling by car. Ok maybe I don’t like the flat tires that occasionally show up. One of my dreams is to travel the country when I have the time and health to do it, God willing.
Speaking about traveling let me tell you a quick story about a group of monks who were traveling together after many years in their monastery. They had decided to take a trip for a vacation in Florida.
While traveling along a highway patrolman pulled them over. He knew immediately by their dress that they were monks.
Cop: "Brothers, this is a 65 MPH highway -- why are you going so slow?"
Monk: "Sir, I saw a lot of signs that said 22, not 65."
Cop: "Oh my goodness, that's not the speed limit, that's the name of the highway you're on!
Monk: Oh! Silly me! Thanks for letting me know. I'll be more careful.
At this point the cop looked in the backseat where the other monks were shaking and trembling.
Cop: Excuse me, brother, what's wrong with your friends back there? They're very pale and shaking terribly.
Monk: Oh, we just got off of highway 119.
About a dozen years ago we took a car trip of about four weeks. I loved every minute of it. Now how did we figure out where we were going each day? We used old fashioned roadmaps. We knew where our ultimate destinations were but we didn’t know exactly how we wanted to get there. We tried to avoid major interstates as much as possible so we looked each day for a route less traveled, usually a two-lane road. It’s amazing what you can see from a small highway as opposed to a massive interstate.
Well one of the things we saw were towns, and lots of churches in those towns. I have no idea how many churches we saw, but one thing I can attest to is that there are tons of churches in this country. Not only are there a lot of churches but there are all different types of churches, hundreds of denominations it seems.
As I traveled I got to wondering how it was possible for all these different churches to have so many different understandings of how to worship God and attain salvation. I expect each of them was sincere in their theological doctrines. I am equally sure every one of them felt that they were right in some important respect and that the rest of us were either wrong or misguided. Each of them was, metaphorically speaking, following their own roadmap. I have, since that trip, thought a lot about all those churches and all those ways of understanding the same Jesus and the same God.
The gospel we heard a bit ago is the beginning of Luke’s well documented account of John the Baptizer. John was a very famous figure and had an equally famous father. He was also completely unorthodox in his dress and lifestyle.
Now the life roadmap for John, since his father was a priest, was pretty well laid out for him even before he was born. The expectations were that John too would be a priest, and that he would conduct himself in an expected way.
But John shocked a lot of people and traveled down another highway. He wound up in the wilderness at the Jordan River, dressed in camel hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate bugs and honey and called everybody to account for their sins in a very old-fashioned, Hebrew Scriptures, prophetic way.
John wasn’t nice about it either. He called those in power the worst of all the sinners, and what he offered was an opportunity for redemption through baptism. His actions eventually landed him in prison and unfortunately his head on a platter.
Now John was famously often asked who he was. His answer was simple and let me paraphrase in travel terms. John said he was a sign, a sign sitting on the side of the road as we travel along. He was a sign that points to the coming Messiah. He was baptizing with water but the one coming was going to baptize with the Holy Spirit. The one coming was going to change the world. We are told that Jesus in a short time came to the Jordan for John to baptize him. I’m sure that was a huge day for John.
Now I return to all those churches I saw on my trip and all those different roadmaps to an understanding of Jesus Christ. I imagine all of them start in the same place. It works like this. John is pointing the way to Jesus Christ. When all of us arrive, and we get to know Jesus, we are introduced to his life. We learn he was smart, compassionate, and did some incredible things. The most incredible of course being his resurrection from the dead, insuring each of us eternal life.
We can argue about everything that happens in between starting with John and arriving at the cross and the resurrection all we want. And it’s fun to think about the things that happen along the way, and great fun to debate them with each other. But the basics remain the same. That’s why we all celebrate Christmas, and why we all celebrate Easter.
Folks it’s Advent. God is on the way. A special baby will soon be born.