Luke 3:1-6
“The Path of Peace”
December 5, 2021
When Kelly and Izzy and Caroline and Celia grow up and are telling their children or grandchildren about what it was like to live through this time of COVID 50 years from now, I bet they will talk about how some of school here in Arlington was at home on a computer and some was in their classroom building.
The school at home meant Mom or Dad or some other family member was with them while school on-line was happening and their teacher had to often explain things in a different way.
They will talk specifically about Fisher Elementary School.
They will remember having to wear a mask whenever they went some place like school or a store or even to the Federated Church of East Arlington.
They will talk about how adults then teens then kids their age got their vaccinations.
It is all those details which will make the story that much more meaningful when they talk about a time that will definitely make it into the history books of their grandchildren much like polio and the vaccination for that frightening disease 60 years ago are now in our history books.
With apologies to Alyson who valiantly made her way through this part of Luke’s Gospel, it’s important to remember that all those tongue-twisting and hard to say names and places set the stage for this story.
The details of who, where and what are what pull us into the story.
Some are pretty familiar like Pontius Pilate and Herod, especially since we know they had a connection to the deaths of John the Baptist and Jesus.
The Philip we hear of is most famous for marrying Salome who was his niece and the person who wanted John’s head served up on a platter.
When Luke runs through these names of some of those known for atrocities and corruption, we are reminded when we grow cynical about today’s world leaders that there have always been those who abused the system and their people.
But then we hear John the Baptist trying his best to clear a path for Jesus when it must have felt like he was spitting into the wind.
We hear him proclaim “Prepare the way of the Lord” on this second Sunday of Advent and we discover that in spite of his diet of locusts and honey and strange fashion choices, that God had plans for John.
John wanted the world to be ready for Jesus to bring his message of love to the world.
John speaks of preparation for Jesus as straightening paths, filling valleys, leveling mountains and hills, righting the crooked and smoothing over the rough spots.
What part do we have in preparing this Advent for Jesus once again?
Repent which can be hard to hear but remember it just means to turn around and change our ways and this will be how we live into our baptisms.
With so much suffering and struggle and injustice in the world it can feel futile to go up against all that hurt.
What John the Baptist is modeling and saying is that we need only look carefully at how we are in the world and in the places that we have any control over, make sure we are turning toward God and God’s love and away from anything we may do or not do that is not born of love.
Today, Kathy and John added light to both the hope candle and the peace candle. Why is peace so elusive when we constantly claim to want it?
We began our Advent Carol study on Friday over Zoom and the gentleness and peace that was evoked with O Little Town of Bethlehem seems hard to reconcile with our world right now. All those promises of making things right that John the Baptist offered seem so far from where we are as God’s children today, our moment in history. This week the 28th school shooting of 2021 has us both hurting and challenged because when it happens every other week, we steel ourselves to the pain and grief. I don’t know about you but I don’t want this to feel normal.
As we look at our candle of peace on this Advent wreath, I am thinking of a fellow pastor in California who movingly wrote in an online clergy group yesterday of 2 parishioners, a mother and her teenage son, who together are supposed to light their candle of peace there at his church this morning but he wasn’t sure the son would be able to do it.
You see, this past week that boy’s best friend was shot and killed while doing his homework on his computer by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting.
In our sense of powerlessness to build a lasting peace, we do know that we can come to the table, a table that is open to all, one that Jesus invites each of us to.
Holding onto the promises that John made, let us get ready for Jesus.
The peace or shalom that we yearn for is not only a lack of conflict – it is also the way of true freedom – the kind of freedom that lets all of us who are held captive by hostility or resentment or addiction or stress or injustice – that we might all be set free.
May we carry the light of peace with us to the Communion table that reminds us to envision a place where all are welcome and all are fed in the spirit of peace that God holds out before us and then we are to do whatever we can to help make this happen.
History is being written this very moment.
What do we want it to say?
Let us pray…
Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way for your only Son. May we always live lives that invite and encourage others to take their seat at your table, and be nourished and fed by your word and your very life. Give us the courage to enlighten the world with your own glorious light. We pray in your name. Amen.
https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/619bc1986615fb58eb000037/susan-langhauser-setting-the-table-for-jesus