3rd Sunday in Advent: Sunday, December 11, 2011

Texts: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, Psalm 126 or Luke 1:46b-55, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

When I was little, I was scared of the dark. At night, I would turn off the lights in my room and literally run to my bed, jump in, and get under the covers as fast as possible. My sister Andrea, who is two years younger than me, somehow knew this. When I was probably around ten and she was eight (and yes, I was still scared of the dark then), she would hide quietly under my bed, wait for me to turn off the light, listen for my breathing to slow from the sprint from the light to my bed ten feet away, she would go, “Rwah.” I would scream and jump and then chase her into her room, threatening to kill her. This didn’t happen just once. I fell for this for several nights… sorry, people, your intern isn’t that quick. Anyway, I finally got smart and turned the tables. I’d turn off the light, run to my bed, and calmly and slowly reach my arm under my bed and grab her hair. Suffice it to say, she didn’t do it again. Let’s just say: for what I am about to say, I blame Andrea. I am twenty-nine years old, and I am still afraid of the dark. I mean, seriously, scared of the dark. I know there is no boogey man, nothing hiding under my bed, and nothing coming to get me… and Andrea is in Iowa, 1800 miles away. When I get up for a glass of water or whatever in the middle of the night, I will turn on the lights, one by one, on the way to the kitchen, and turn them off, one by one, back to my room, still fighting the urge to sprint back to bed. What seemed like such a real fear to me makes me feel sort of silly now, as an adult.

As we become adults, we become desensitized, or somehow force ourselves out of that fear. I wonder if our lack of fear of darkness makes the light somehow less miraculous. So we read John’s words about the light and say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But the light is coming into the darkness. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” We know about light. We turn on the lights and the darkness is gone. We have the power - literally - to bring light. I wonder, though, if the people two whom John was speaking had a relationship with the light that was more similar to a little kid’s. In the desert, when the sun goes down, unless the moon is out, there is nothing… no differentiation between the earth and the sky, no distinction between water and land, no distinction between a friend and a foe. It’s scary… and it’s dangerous. It’s hard to take a step in any direction.

The darkness is both literal and metaphor: it is both literally very dark in the desert when the light is not there, and it is very dark in our lives when the light of Christ is not there. But we have already seen the light, right? Well, yeah. We know how the story goes. Sometimes, we skim over it so quickly, that we forget how this would have sounded and felt to the communities in which these words were written. So John is out in the desert, and the Pharisees and Levites come to him (when these two get together in John’s Gospel, pay attention: something is usually up). These were the lawyers and the priests that trace their identities and their jobs back to Moses’ day. They come to ask: hey John, what are you doing out here? Who the heck do you think you are? I know they didn’t have walkie-talkies or two-way radios back then, but I imagine them radioing in: “(static) Another crazy out in the desert… this one seems like he might be dangerous… better go check him out. Over (static).” So they come, with hardly an explanation of who they are and ask John the question: “Who are you?” “The Messiah?” They’d had a few people come and claim they were the Messiah, but they never amounted to much of anything. They’d incur a small political uprising, which would be put down by Rome, and just when life got back to normal, there would be another yahoo claiming they were the Messiah. Nope, not the Messiah. Elijah? Nope, not Elijah. A prophet? Nope, not even a prophet. Everyone was claiming to be a prophet these days. ²³He said,
‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
“Make straight the way of the Lord” ’,
as the prophet Isaiah said. John was only a sentinel; a herald, someone pointing the way. But what was peculiar about John was that he wasn’t claiming any of the glory for himself. He confessed, and he did not deny it, but he confessed and said, “It’s not me.”

“It’s not me.” Usually, when we hear these words, we expect it to be some sort of way to get out of trouble. Did you hit your brother? No, not me. Did you steal your parents car to go to a party? No, not me. Did you lie to your boss so you could get that promotion you’ve been working for? No, not me. Did you lose it at your husband in front of your kids? No, not me. Whatever age, it seems we use these words entirely differently than John did. He wasn’t trying to get out of trouble. His confession was: “It’s not me; I’m not the One.” It wasn’t: “I wish I was the one, but I’m not,” or “I should be the one, but nobody recognizes my greatness.” It was: “I’m not even worthy to take off this guy’s shoes.” In a society in which many people want to take credit for anything good that happens in their lives and hide behind something or someone else when everything crashes around us, these words are foreign.

And so they probably were to the Pharisees and Levites. Most of them had dedicated their lives to God’s service. They were the faithful remnant of their day. They could point to all of the sacrifices they had made, all the good deeds they had done, all in the name of God. Surely it was all worth it, right? Surely these efforts would get them someplace, right? So then why did this yahoo John think he was able to baptize people? What was his deal? How could he have the gall to do this when he was not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor even a prophet? He was a nobody, and, so far as they could tell, he was pointing to nobody. They knew the prophecies of the Messiah; they studied them over and over and over again. If John was pointing to the Messiah, then where was he? In the desert? You have got to be kidding. Surely any dignified Messiah would come to the temple so that he could be recognized by the religious leadership there. Surely he would go to the place where they believed the presence of God dwelled. Right? If John was preparing the way for the Messiah, why didn’t he take any credit for himself? It was perplexing indeed; they had no idea what they would say to the leadership back at the temple. Three days’ journey to the middle of nowhere, and they were coming up empty-handed. They didn’t have grounds to arrest him; he hadn’t blasphemed, nor had he claimed he was anyone of consequence. They could hardly bring him in on charges of baptizing; there were a lot of people out in the desert doing ritual washing (and the people out here in the sticks could use a good bath).

Finally, they asked: “Then why are you baptizing, if you’re just a nobody?” “Dude, chilax: it’s just water.” The words he said after this chilled them to their core: “Among you stands one whom you do not recognize.” Do not, or cannot? I mean, surely with all our good deeds and all the stuff we do around church, we would recognize the Christ if he came among us? Right?

They started back to the temple, shaking their heads. Here was this crazy guy out in the desert, surely he couldn’t be pointing toward the Messiah, could he? Darkness started to descend, and they stopped for the night. Everyone was pretty quiet as they watched the fire die down to coals. They started hearing animals calling in the distance, and they shuddered, wishing there was more light so they could see the dangers that awaited them. We assure our children darkness is nothing to be afraid of. We would do well to take our own advice: no matter how dark the night of our soul, Christ’s dawn comes to us. Sometimes, it’s hard to admit you’re scared of the dark, but even harder to admit that you’re scared of the light.

We downplay the Pharisees’ and Levites’ skepticism, or mark it as a failure of their faith. But I’m not sure we’re any better at seeing God at work in our world today. I think that, deep down, we have the same fears regarding our faith. Exposure to the light changes things. It changes who we are, who we understand ourselves to be. It shows our need and our frailty, and it’s not exactly comfortable.

No matter how scary exposure to the light may be, it is through this exposure that we come to know ourselves as we are, broken, and Christ as he is, holy. It is when we are exposed to the light that we see ourselves for who we are. It’s scary. It’s exposing. It takes all of our efforts, all the things that we want to contribute to our salvation, looks at them and recognizes them as a pile of dust. It is when we are exposed to the light we see Christ for who he is. He is the one who changes everything. He is the one who looks at us and says, “You are mine,” though we have nothing in our hands to offer him. It recognizes salvation in a helpless baby born to a teenage mother and proclaims: “This is the One.”

This is the One who offers us comfort in our distress, the One who brings peace in the midst of strife, the One who brings life in the midst of death. This is the One whose light scatters the darkness. He stands among us, not as one whom we do not know, but as the One who knows us. His light shines in our darkness, and it cannot be overcome. And so we are witnesses to the light, confessing along with John: “It’s not me.” Thanks be to God.