Advent 2

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
December 9, 2012

2 Advent C

When my sister and I were little girls, we would spend a couple of weeks each summer with our grandmother in Alabama. Every year, our grandmother would have a party for us so we could see the grandchildren of her friends. The party was not just a play date with quick snacks on paper plates. This was a dress up party with fancy little cookies and punch served out off her good china. The other little girls would come over and we would play grown-up, imitating the way we saw our mothers and grandmothers interact with each other at their social events. We would sit on the nice lawn furniture, in our party dresses, sip our punch and pretend to be much older and more mature than we actually were at 6 or 7 years old. We could sustain this imaginary play as long as the cookies and punch lasted, and then we were all off to hunt bugs or play kick ball or whatever else there was to do in the hot Alabama sun. But even after the party was over, there was the lingering thought that we really could be like grown-ups if we wanted to be. We just chose not to be.

I am reminded of these dress up parties by the reading from Baruch this morning. We hear Baruch say "Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God. Put on the robe of righteousness that comes from God, put on your head the diadem of the glory of the everlasting. For God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven." While scholars are quite uncertain about the date of Baruch, no doubt Baruch wrote to encourage the Hebrew people in a time of great trial and persecution. Baruch writes to tell a persecuted people that they should stand tall for God will deliver them. Then we hear the great echo of Isaiah "For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low, and the valleys filled up to make level ground so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God." These are words of great hope and the promise that God will sustain the Hebrew people in their time of trial and deliver them in glory.

We hear the same refrains from the prophet Isaiah in John the Baptist’s words this morning. "Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill made low....and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." But while Baruch’s message is a message of encouragement and hope, John the Baptist is out in the wilderness, living off locusts and honey, and preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Baruch’s language is beautiful. John the Baptist is scary.

Both Baruch and John the Baptist, however, look to the time when every mountain will be made low and all flesh shall see the glory of God. To my mind, the mountains themselves bear witness to the glory of God. Why would anyone want to flatten them? In the mid-winter, the mountains are laced with snow, which looks pure and clean, at least from a distance. In the spring, when the leaves return, the mountains are bursting with new life. In the summer, when the rest of the world is hot and humid, the mountains are cool and the nights are so quiet and clear that you can almost reach out your hand and touch the stars above you, or hear the train pass through the valley below. And in the fall, the leaves turn brilliant red and it looks like the mountains are on fire. The season does not matter; the mountains always bear witness to the glory of God. And to my mind, when the earth is flattened, the cause is a natural disaster or human caused catastrophe. No one wants that.

However, Isaiah, Baruch, and John the Baptist were not zipping through the mountains on the Interstate in a reasonably well maintained 4 wheel drive vehicle. For these men and their contemporaries, all a person had were his or her own two feet and maybe an animal or two take themselves and all their belongings through the mountains. Mountains and valleys were huge obstacles that not only made travel difficult, but made it dangerous and time consuming. In the mountains, especially on foot, it is often impossible to see where you are going until you get there. The dream that God would one day bring all people together, that people would one day stream from the east and west to God’s holy mountain, was at best only a dream and at worst a cruel joke unless the obstacles were removed and the land was leveled. And who could do that but God? And so, according to Baruch, the same God who created the mountains would take them down at the end time. Baruch never dreamed that in the 21^st century humans would have the capacity to do that ourselves.

John the Baptist has a different idea about how those mountains will come down. He also quotes Isaiah, but his words sound like a command: "The voice of one crying 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." While Baruch told us that God would create level ground, John is telling us to fill the valleys and level the mountains.

Even with 21^st century technology, that is a ridiculous task when taken literally. Fortunately, however, Baruch gives us a way to fulfill the command of John the Baptist without needing demolition equipment. Baruch’s instructions are these: "Take off the garment of sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory of God. Put on the robe of righteousness; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting...for God will give you the name "Righteous Peace, Godly Glory." Baruch is telling the people to live NOW as if the glory of God has already arrived in their midst. God’s promise to redeem the people is so trustworthy, so true, that the people are to behave NOW as if that for which they wait has already arrived. If we live like we believe that, our lives will reflect the glory of God for all the world to see, and the barriers that separate people from each other and from God will come down.

Advent calls us to put on the beauty of the glory of God and wait for Jesus by living as if Christ is among us now. If we do that, we will fulfill the demand of John the Baptist to repent and prepare the way so that there will be no obstacles and all flesh can see the salvation of God.

Amen.