Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
December 7, 2003
Second Sunday in Advent

The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness
The Rev. Dr. Robert R. Hansel

Gospel: Luke 3:1-6
(A copy of this sermon is also available in audio.)

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.

This is the Sunday when those stirring words are read from Luke’s Gospel, as the Evangelist recalls for us the ancient prophesy from Isaiah, chapter 40. I wonder if you realize that Luke has chosen to quote only the opening two sentences of a much longer piece from Isaiah--one that would have been so familiar to his original readers that he didn’t have to go on to the rest of the text.

Let me try to capture for us who are living today, some twenty centuries later, a bit of the excitement and energy of the whole thing by re-casting it in more contemporary language. The message might come out sounding something like this:

Listen! Can you hear it? A voice rumbles out of the wilderness, thundering God’s own words. It says,

Clear the decks! The Lord is on his way! Through all the wastelands of
Human confusion and disorientation, God’s own highway is being bulldozed. Its clarity and truth will level every obstacle, give meaning instead of despair, cast the twists of doubt aside so that the glorious Truth of our God can bring Freedom to everyone on earth.

This is a voice that speaks only God’s own Word.

Listen! Hear now a second voice, one that urges each one of us to shout out the news:

All of you are lost and hopelessly adrift. You are like trees and grass, burned to the ground by the blazing heat of a desert wind. Nothing human will survive; only the promise of God’s compassion and love can endure forever.

But wait! A third voice calls out to God’s own People:

Why are you silent, when I have given you the vision and the gift of my own life-giving Word? Open your mouths. Say to the world that the time is right now. God is coming to you. The Lord is gathering his power and will bring his rule to all the affairs of men. See! God appears with the reward of his presence but also with the iron rod of justice and judgment. He will come among us like a conqueror, but he will establish a Kingdom as compassionate as the love that a shepherd shows for the youngest lambs.

See, the important thing here is the tone of the message. It’s not a faint whisper, the voice of weakness or distance. No, it is a powerful roar, like a lion or a rumbling explosion that shakes the whole landscape for miles around. There are three voices, not just one, and each is the herald of a stunning announcement. These three voices are the messengers of a whole new way of thinking and seeing. No one in the whole history of humankind has ever heard such words before.

Three voices are shouting a revolutionary, radical proclamation, directly from the mind and heart of God, breaking into the consciousness of People who had pretty much given up hope.

The first voice is an excited and unmistakable announcement directed to people who feel cut off and powerless. It says that they are wrong to think that God has forsaken them, gone away, or withdrawn. No, God is still in charge and God is getting ready to return, like a conquering hero. The ancient prophecy of Micah is being fulfilled:"The Lord whom you seek will suddenly return to his temple.” The first voice is one of PREPARATION: “Get ready, God is on his way!”

The second voice addresses all the “go-it-aloners”, the “do-it-yourselfers” of the world who think that earth’s future is entirely random and that we human beings are dependant solely on our own ideas and resources if we are ever to achieve harmony and peace. The second word from God is a word of PROMISE: The message for the cynical and discouraged is simple and direct: “I made a promise and my enduring Word will never fail!”

The third voice is one of reassurance, telling us that God has a plan, a strategy by which God intends to work out his purpose. It is a breathtaking vision, one that will be accomplished not through miraculous lightning bolts or tricks of magic, but through the faithful response of ordinary human beings, inspired and strengthened by God’s own indwelling Spirit. The third voice is one of PROVIDENCE; God will provide everything we need, every grace and gift necessary, if we will only open our hearts to receive it.

Preparation, Promise, Providence--these three themes are at the heart of what the whole season of Advent is all about. Into a weary and struggling world, whether in the first Century or the twenty-first Century, come these timeless words of life, breathing hope and energy once more into our heavy hearts. The three voices of this Sunday’s Gospel reading caution us against giving in to the shortsightedness that tempts us to look at reality only from the severely limited perspective of beings whose life span is merely the twinkling of an eye, when viewed through the lens of the eternal.

There’s a remarkable little book that I want to suggest as Advent reading for everybody. The title is unusual in itself. It’s called The Five People You Meet in Heaven and it’s written by Mitch Albom, the same author who gave us just a couple of years ago the wisdom and insight of Tuesdays With Morrie. The whole premise of this current book is that we human beings are like ants, running across an elaborately patterned rug. The carpet is beautifully and intricately woven, with astonishing colors and curiously connected intersections of design. But we’re much too close to the surface to see all that. We just scamper about, focused only on our busy tasks and schedules. We wrongly think that there’s nothing but coincidence and confusion behind everything that happens to us.

This book offers a different take on all that. It suggests that what happens when we die is that we, finally experience sufficient distance from which to see it all very clearly--to have an ultimate “Ah-Ha!.” Mitch Albom suggests this artfully crafted alternative view--a metaphor in which Heaven reveals the Truth. What Heaven is all about is that each one of us, in eternity, encounters and learns from five different individuals exactly how all the apparently random aspects and experiences of our life actually fit together into a coherent, meaningful journey. For each of us, those five people include ones who are close aquaintenances as well as total strangers, but all five know those key intersections and connections that allow us to make complete sense of our lives. Things aren’t really random and meaningless. It all is part of God and God is part of it all. God is fully and completely present at every single moment--whether we know it or not.

Advent Season is all about listening to a different voice--not the silly Christmas music that pours our of electronic gadgets all over the mall, not the newspaper headlines that deplore the international violence and destruction raging in far corners of the globe, not the endless doctrinal and ethical disputes that threaten to undermine completely the credibility of religious groups, nor even the discouraging statistics revealing yet again our continuing national political greed and selfishness. The voice of Advent thunders through all that, pushing it off the airways so that we can hear clearly the eternal Truth.

The voices of Advent tell us in no uncertain terms: The ultimate and final decision has been made. The glorious Good News is being shouted from Heaven to earth:

God is making the preparations.

God is ready to fulfill every promise.

and God is providing in his own Son, Jesus, who comes to us once more this Christmas, the gifts and grace needed to accomplish his will for us.

Which voices and what message are you listening to this year?

Copyright 2003 Calvary Episcopal Church

Gospel: Luke 3:1-6
3 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, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 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; 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" NRSV

(Return to Top)