Scripture Sunday: Second Sunday of Advent: Preparing

Malachi 3:1-4
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Luke 3:1-6
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, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 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.
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.” ’

As we await Christ’s coming into the world, a critical question has to be answered: are we ready? We sing “O Come, Emmanuel” but do we understand what it means to have God with us? Are we ready for the kind of salvation and liberation that Jesus ushers in? We want to see God’s kin(g)dom come and God’s will be done on earth, but have we counted the cost to our own will? 

John’s arrival makes those questions incarnate. Luke is sure to name all of the points of authority that existed in first century Palestine from the Emperor to the High Priest. He lists all of the names and their stations only to remind us that the word of God… the true word of God… was making itself known to a virtual nobody living in the wilderness. This nobody will be the one charged with preparing the way and making sure that the people are prepared. 

While Luke specifically points us to the words of Isaiah 40, John’s words and actions seem to evoke the spirit of the messenger that Malachi foretells. John screams of repentance, turning away from the ways of the world to follow God’s path. He calls the Pharisees and tax collectors who have found him in the wilderness “a brood of vipers” and seems genuinely annoyed at the prospect that they too might find God’s liberative power. He orders them to give up extortion and robbery, insists they repay those they’ve cheated, and that compels them to share their excess with those who have nothing. He also warns them that the axe stands ready to fell any tree that isn’t producing good fruit. 

Are we prepared? 

John may not call us a brood of vipers, but I think his message to us would be very much the same: Repent! We Western Christians in a climate changed world have much to for. The recent COP29 climate change summit of the United Nations was a reminder that as we make half measures towards a “green” economy, the poorer nations of the world continue to bear the brunt of the consequences for our lack of commitment. The $300 billion annually by 2035 agreed upon at the summit is far less than what developing countries will need to mitigate the effects of climate disasters caused primarily by the countries who are unwilling to pay more. The unwillingness to make commitments to move away from fossil fuels will mean that the profits of executives will continue to mean more than the lives of people in the global south. A statement made by the group of Least Developing Countries stated plainly, “Once again, the countries most responsible for the climate crisis have failed us”. 

Are we prepared? We won’t be until we turn our hearts away from the places of power and towards the people in the wilderness, the marginalized places, often overlooked by our power structures. We won’t be prepared until we examine how our consumption harms those who have far less than us and commit to do better. We won’t be prepared until we are actively seeking justice for those who have had promises broken to them again and again. 

Refiners extracted silver by placing lead ore into an extremely hot fire until the silver emerged.. Fullers used an astringent soap to whiten cloth for dyeing. The smell of the soap was so strong that the process had to take place outside of the city. Both of these are harsh processes deemed necessary to bring about the desired results. Repentance is a harsh process, burning away our greed, pride, and our apathy. And John’s call is not that we burn these things out of our society. He likely wasn’t too optimistic about anything like that. His call was that we burn those things out of ourselves. As we prepare to welcome in this Christmas season, let’s not skip the hard work of making ourselves ready and listening to the voices on the margins.