In
the year that the University of Kentucky basketball team played the University
of Louisville in the Final Four, Michael Phelps became the most decorated
Olympic athlete of all times, and Johnny Manziel led Texas A & M to beat
Alabama in football … Jared from Boston won a wrestling match.
Who on earth is Jared from Boston,
you might ask? Well, who on earth is John, son of Zecharia, from the Judean
wilderness? St. Luke sets the scene for Jesus’ birth by introducing John the
Baptist, “the Forerunner” of the Good News, just like I introduced this Jared
from Boston. All of the great powers and principalities of John’s day are set
before us in great detail so that they can fall away to reveal a scruffy,
little-known desert prophet—a prophet
through whom God’s light shines into the world.
Every year, on this second Sunday of Advent, we lift up John the Baptist
into our Christmas story, like a child placing a well-worn figurine into the
old family crèche. We usually do so reluctantly, however. Discussing the Advent
lessons with a colleague a few weeks ago, I remember her groaning, “It seems
like every other Gospel lesson is about John the Baptist this year.” John the
Baptist is indeed a disturbing and unappealing character in our story. It is
not easy to sentimentalize him, as we do the shepherds and the three kings and
the cute stable animals. John rants and raves and looks like a wild man,
prowling around in the desert and crying out desperately for change. John stirs
up the status quo, calling for “repentance”--a decisive turning from the way
that things have always been. John makes us all uncomfortable.
Yet, John, son of Zecharia, is not
only about hellfire and judgment and the need for change. In today’s lesson, Luke
introduces his account of John the Baptist’s ministry with the prophet Isaiah’s
comforting words to the
exiled. Our Gospel lesson cites only part of Isaiah’s famous quote, which really
reads:
“‘Comfort, comfort my people,’
your God says. ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that she has
fulfilled her term of service, that her sin has been accepted, that she has
taken from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.’ There is a voice of
one crying out: ‘In the wilderness, clean off the path of the Lord. Make smooth
in the desert plain a highway for our God. Every valley will be lifted up and
every mountain and hill will be brought low, and the steep place will become a
level place and the rough ground a valley. And the Glory of the Lord will be
uncovered, and all flesh will see together.’”[1]
In Isaiah’s proclamation, the messenger is
sent as a comforter, as one who speaks tenderly to God’s tired and wounded
people. Here, God is
coming to be uncovered, to enter into the very midst of us and to allow us
finally to see God’s mysterious, holy presence. God’s pathway must be cleared
in decisive and earth-shattering ways, but it is being cleared for a God of
compassion, grace, and forgiveness to come through, for a God who announces
that the time of anguish and punishment is over.
John, son of Zecharia, stands with us
in the wilderness of the world, a lone figure speaking God’s desire for both
change and compassion, one man of God operating out of a totally different kind
of power from that of Rome and the Jerusalem Temple.
So who, then, is Jared from Boston?
He is a twelve-year-old little boy with cerebral palsy, confined to a
wheelchair. Jared dreamed of wrestling, and although everyone knew that he
could never really join in, they let him attend practices. When he bravely asked
if he could have a real match in front of real spectators, the coach found
Justin, another twelve-year-old boy, who went over to Jared, shook his hand,
went down on the mat with him and managed to pull the almost-paralyzed little
boy over on top of him, where Jared was able to throw his arm over Justin,
pinning him down and winning the match. The smiles on both boys’ faces and the
cheers of the crowd made the national news, and every anchor on the news team
had tears in his eyes when the story aired.[2]
In the mighty world of sports, Jared
and Justin are insignificant. To place them in any recap of the sports news of
2012 is ridiculous. They do not fit with Michael Phelps and Johnny Manziel and
the Final Four. But a powerful light shines out of their story, a light of love
and justice and goodness that makes us forget about all the rest, if only for a
moment. Jared and Justin proclaim change and compassion and provide, in their
courageous way, a glimpse of the upside-down power of the reign of God, the
reign that began in a stable in Bethlehem, the reign that John, son of
Zecharia, proclaimed in the wilderness.
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