The second Sunday of Advent is, for me, when things start to feel real. When Advent truly starts.
In the first week, we’re still coming out of Thanksgiving, surprised we’re already in December, faced with blue after months of green, and thrown into remembering our place in the world, but not of it, as society begins feasting while we’re still reflecting and preparing.
In some ways, I wish we’d add a fifth week of Advent and just spend two weeks on the first readings. We read of the return of King Jesus, God making the world new, judgement, and hope. In the blur of it all, each year I feel like I don’t sit with that as long as I should.
But, here we are in week two already. Despite what the shops, radio, and culture around us say, we are deep into Advent. It is fitting that the second week of Advent has John the Baptist calling to us from the wilderness. In the fog and haze of the first days of Advent, I think his voice would be hard to hear.
But, now we are in week two. We’ve caught our breath. We’re starting to prepare for the great Feast of the Nativity. We’re buying gifts. We’re thinking of family gatherings. We’re attending end of year parties.
That is what I find interesting about the Advent season in America. The great marketing machine of commerce and the culture around us push an idea of idealized happiness and child-like wonder. “Christmas”, as they call it, is to be a time of feasting, no worries, no stress, a retreat to a world of imagination and magic. And, I totally get it. Who doesn’t want an escape from the hard things of life!
What’s crazy, though, is that while we’re supposed to be projecting this outward image of ease and happiness, we’re actually in one of the most stressful times of the year. We’re confronted with difficult family and work relationships at various gatherings and parties all compressed into just a few short weeks.
Like it or not, that thing you’ve been avoiding with Kathy in accounting will have to be addressed, or the department Christmas party is going to be real awkward. Unless you want further alienation, you’re going to have to face your father and spend hours (or days) back in your family home. Who gets gifts? Who doesn’t? How many do you get for her? Is it enough? How many cookies have I eaten this week? Should I take an extra run just in case? This song reminds me a grandma. I know I’m supposed to be happy, but it makes me really sad.
Maybe it’s just me, but Advent really gets me thinking about people and relationships. In the contrast of what I’m “supposed” to be feeling this time of year against what I’m actually feeling, I get reflective. I start thinking about relationships that need mending. Buried hurt comes to the forefront. Emotions seem to be closer to the surface than at any other time of the year.
It is, then, in this state of mind that I hear John’s call to “prepare the way of the Lord [and] make his paths straight.” It is with family and professional drama at the forefront that I receive John’s command to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”
I think there are two common ways of reading John’s warning in today’s gospel lesson. The first type of person hears the talk of trees with bad fruit being “cut down” and assumes it doesn’t apply to her. She’s either trusting in her baptism (not necessarily a bad thing) or assumes she’s a “good person” and therefore can’t possibly have bad fruit. The second type of person stresses about his fruit production and either gives up and accepts the eternal fires because he just can’t do enough or works himself to exhausting trying to earn his salvation.
Both readings are, of course, taking one down the wrong path.
We cannot earn salvation and, of ourselves, cannot produce good fruit. Going to work, paying taxes, and not murdering anyone doesn’t make one a “good person.” All have fallen short of the glory of God.
In our baptism, we were indeed saved. Jesus washed us of our sin and made us new. We can trust in our baptism. It is a sure sign that we are within the ark of Christ’s church and can endure the rough seas of life confident He will not let us sink.
But, Jesus gives us so much more in baptism than a one-time salvation. As John reminds us today, Jesus baptizes us with the fire of the Holy Spirit. We are baptized not be set aside until Christ’s return. Not to be set on a shelf so our fragile salvation isn’t damaged. No, we are baptized to go out. We are baptized to enter the world full of God’s light and love. The fire of the Spirit that dwells within us is to be shared. The fire in us is to be used to bring God’s warmth and light into the cold and dark world.
That is the heart of John’s call for us to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to John to receive baptism as a quick way to remove their sins. They were truly sorry for the mistakes they had made. They truly believed God would wash them through the sacrament. John is not calling them out for a lack of faith. He’s calling them out for not truly being who they should be. For focusing too much on their own sins and not the work for which they were saved for.
The Pharisees and Sadducees knew and believed, you see, that they were God’s chosen people. They followed the law, kept away from gentile practices, and walked to the Jordan because they knew that God had saved them from Egypt. That God had called their forefathers out of wandering nomads and made a nation. They knew they held a special covenant with God. They knew if it were broken it would lead to exile and death.
John is not condemning them for this belief. It is true. It is admirable. It is the same faith that moves us to trust in our baptism.
What John is calling them out on is that they’ve forgotten why God called them. Why God made them a chosen people. They are to be a light to the nations, not running and hiding.
If the Pharisees and Sadducees were coming to baptism not just thinking about their own sins, but how they as a people had fallen short, they would be in a good place. Freed from sin, they could confidently focus on how to be a light in the Roman empire. How they could share God’s love and holiness with the pagan empire surrounding them.
But, instead of doing this, they focus on hiding, appeasing, more closely following the law (a focus on personal holiness at the expense of societal holiness). There was not a plan or even a thought on how to share the good news of the one true God to Pontus or Ceasar. Outside of its impact on personal ritualistic purity, no one was too bothered by pagan worship and culture surrounding them.
John is reminding them that God doesn’t need them to do His will. If God wants more children to be light in the world, He can make more from stones. Being chosen might save you personally, but is not the purpose behind God’s work.
Bearing fruit worthy of repentance means understanding the depth of your sin and the vastness of the grace you have received. Knowing how bad off you were, how completely and totally wrecked you’d become, helps you understand how far Jesus had to take you to make you whole again. Knowing that distance, knowing the danger our fellow man find himself in, should drive us to bear the fruits of repentance in the world.
Now, don’t get things twisted. This is not where I’m about to launch into a sermon about works. You can’t do anything to earn God’s favor. You cannot make fruit even if you tried. Only He can. That is the call today.
You have been baptized. You have received the fire of God’s Spirit. You are called to make disciples of the nations. To be a light. To be God’s loving presence in a cold world.
How, you might ask. Yes. Volunteer with homeless ministry. Donate to the food pantry. Tithe. Help that friend move. Give the man with the bell a dollar. All of these are good things.
But, more than this, come to mass. Pray. Read scripture. Be with God that you might know Him and be filled with His presence.
That is why we are here. We come here not to get our golden star for the week. Not to appease an angry God. No. We come here to be filled. In the reading of the Word, in the prayers, and in the Holy Eucharist we receive the fullness of our Lord. He fills us with His grace, love, and mercy. He renews His Sprit within us. He does this not to make us clean, He already did that in our baptism. He fills us that we might go out into the world bearing the fruit He gives us at His table. He fills us that we might empty ourselves in sharing His fruits with a hungry and hurting world. That is why we come each and every week.
Being light in the world doesn’t always mean doing big and visible acts of mercy. The fruits of the Spirit are, after all, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
In our readings. In our prayers. In the preaching. In all of these things, we are confronted with God’s holiness contrasted against our sin. Here God allows us to see things through His eyes. He reminds us of the world as it should and will some day be. He does this not to condemn, but to prepare us. To renew His vision within us so that we can share glimpses of it with the world.
The fruits he gives us to share are a kind smile to a cashier. Patience in a crowded parking lot. Love towards the grumpy server. Meekness in dealing with a difficult coworker. In these small acts God’s people bring His light into dark places. In these small ways God’s people prepare the way for Christ to reveal Himself to the lost. In these small ways we are making disciples of all nations.
So, today, come to the alter not seeking your own salvation. He has given you that. In your baptism you are His forever. Come today before His table ready to receive the holy food He has prepared for your neighbors. Receive this Holy Meal and go out into the world ready to share it. At Christmas parties, family gatherings, in shopping mall, in checkout lines, in meetings, and at the copy machine may we step outside of ourselves and share the gifts of God so freely given to us. Prepare the way for our Lord, bear His fruits to the world.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
