Year C
Matthew 11:2-11
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Holy Way through the Desert
By far the most important and significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated at the end of this Advent season. In two very short weeks, we will be celebrating and rejoicing in the miracle of God’s visit to this planet. And even though we are not quite there to the big day yet, our readings today on this third Sunday of Advent emphasize joy and rejoicing in the good news. The good news of Advent: “Behold your God is coming.” God is preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah and invites us into the joy of this new life with God and to rejoice in the gift and generosity of God expressed to all of creation. And nothing matches this theme of joy today known as Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday than the text from Isaiah.
Joy pulses through this text from the first line, with its glad lands and blossoming deserts, to the last, when a ransomed people come home singing. We read of a time that is coming: a most desirable time, marked by rejoicing, healing, great fertility, peace, and gladness. Magnificent things will happen to those who are not used to magnificence. Harmony will return to those who are used to fighting. Isaiah promises a journey home from the wilderness of exile that will be a new exodus through a well-watered desert that blooms and rejoices. The God of creation has not given up on the people but is faithful and will bring all things to their rightful end.
Yet, earlier in the book of Isaiah we read of wilderness, dry land, desert, weak hands, feeble knees, and fearful hearts. The pain of the people toward the end of the Babylonian exile was evident and they began to wonder if they would ever see their homeland again. The city of Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed. In the face of this devastating blow, the people in exile were left feeling dejected and hopeless. It was no wonder the people felt as if they lived in a dry land, that their hands were weak, their knees feeble, and their hearts fearful. They desperately needed someone to turn their situation around and turn their hopelessness into joy.
They turn to the prophet for some words of encouragement. Isaiah tells the people to be strong and without fear because God is coming to save. God is their salvation and is faithful, and has prepared a new future for the covenant people. Although the people are now in a place of desolation, God will prepare a highway for them to the holy city. It will be a holy way in the desert for them to travel into God’s new future. The Lord will come and save. How marvelous! How full of promise for the coming of the Messiah. Advent celebrates the story of Jesus’ coming-a promised and promising baby born into a Jewish people held in captivity under Rome, despairing about their future. This promise is of the return of the God who saves, of restoration, of new ways into the future. Of a kingdom that shakes things up!
Isaiah gives us a vision of a shaken up kingdom of God all over the landscape, the transforming flora and fauna, to say nothing of human welfare. In God, wilderness becomes not a journey of struggle but of hope marked by reversals in the world’s priorities. Reversals that Matthew draws our attention to today as he tells of what was happening in the ministry of Jesus right before the very eyes of the people in his day. This kingdom of God turns the world upside down. Throughout this chapter Jesus is dealing with the fact that what he’s doing is not what people were expecting him to do. The trouble is that everyone including John the Baptist, who is now in prison, are getting puzzled and disappointed.
John heard about what Jesus was doing and it didn’t sound at all what he expected. He expected Jesus to sweep though Israel confronting Herod, toppling him from his throne, becoming king and getting him out of prison. Instead, Jesus was befriending tax-collectors and sinners and gaining a reputation for not keeping the Torah. He knows this is the way to bring in God’s kingdom. Yet, he was not doing anything that John wanted. This makes John wonder had he been mistaken? Had Jesus forgotten what he was supposed to do? Was Jesus ‘the one who was to come’?
Matthew says yes and wants us to know that he really was ‘the one who was to come.’ He really is the Messiah just not the one they expected. John wants him to bring judgment and one day that will happen. But already the mercy and healing are breaking in and it is Jesus’ ministry to bring it in. This is the Messiah’s main task according to Jesus-to open the eyes of the blind and ears of the deaf, to heal the crippled and the leper and to proclaim to the poor the joy of the good news. Advent that invites us to examine our hearts to discover what might keep us from fully embracing that joy and it gives our eyes time to get used to a world turning upside down because now we are part of the Messiah’s work; we are his hands and feet.
Where ever we are, we are on the road set in the middle of a desert. Whether by work or by patience, the Messiah will come again to earth and make the desert bloom. Patience is what James today calls us to practice, “until the coming of the Lord.” The Book of James offers us a variety of teachings about how to live while waiting for the coming of the Lord. Using the very down-to-earth image of a farmer waiting patiently for his “precious crop” to grow until “it receives the early and the late rains,” he implies that the Lord’s return to earth will not be just any day now, but will occur when what is needed for his return has fully taken place. The crop can break forth fully only after the second rain.
He encourages the early Christians, to stand firm, not to judge one another, but to bear each other’s faults and failings with patience until that day arrives. Centuries have passed and the end of days has not come, but Advent is the time that we keep alive the hope that God is not finished either with creation or with human history, that God is present and active in our lives and in the life of the world to bring about what is needed for Christ’s return. We are to wait patiently for the New Day, for the holy way through the desert.
Our work during these days of waiting is to hold onto the vision and live in love until the Lord comes again. With James we can rejoice knowing that “The coming of the Lord is near.” With Isaiah, we can find joy in a promised coming as a most desirable time, marked by rejoicing, healing, peace and gladness and as a result of God’s coming to save, the blind will see; the lame will jump; those who cannot speak will sing for joy. This is where and how God is at work. When we see these things happening, even if puzzled like John was, we can know assuredly that the reign of God has begun. Those who recognize it, and are not offended because they were expecting something else, will know God’s blessing.
Therefore Rejoice! “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. The lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!