Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, 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.’ ”
Well winter is finally here! Just this past Friday when I woke up, I saw that the snow had fallen and the winds were blowing making it a chilly -15 outside. Friday mornings are a running morning for me, and in no way was this temperature going to deter me, I am a December baby and the cold lives in my blood. My sister-in-law and her husband were visiting us over the weekend, and when she woke up she did not feel the same way, this was way too cold for her. After chatting with them over a cup of coffee I went and got dressed for my run. I put on my jogging pants, a t-shirt with a thin sports jacket and hat. Getting myself pumped to get out there my sister-in-law said, “You’re wearing that? You can’t wear that! You’ll freeze!”. I laughed and said “Don’t worry, I’ll be okay”.
Now in fairness it was a really cold morning and she doesn’t run outside in winter, but her comment stood out to me as something that we all tend to do: place restrictions on ourselves before even trying. How many times have we or people around us told us that ‘it can’t be done’ or ‘you can’t do that’? How many times has our internal voice told us ‘you can’t’ about things we would love to try, or experience, or achieve?
Let’s try a little exercise here together, I want you to take your hand, standing up if you want to, and reach around your back as far as you can and notice where it ends up. Now I want you to do it again, but this time reach 3 inches further back. Did you make it further? You went further than the first time, when I told you to go as far as you could, we may have all thought we can’t reach any further, but when we put our mind to it, we mostly could. We’re capable of more than we realize, and our mind plays a powerful role in realizing that capability.
This morning we hear words from John the Baptizer who is preaching in the wilderness and Luke introduces John by placing him in his historical context. John is living during the reign of emperor Tiberius, ruler of the Roman empire, and during the rule of Pontius Pilate, governor of the province of Judea, and during King Herod’s reign, ruler of the region of Galilee, and during the high priestly offices of Annas and Caiaphas. Luke does not list these people for historical purposes, he wants those hearing the gospel to know the situation John is in. Emperor Tiberius who ruled with terror proclaimed that real power and influence cannot come from the bottom up but exists from the top down. Pilate, inflexible, self-willed and relentless in his governance held in low-esteem Jews in his province, believing that greatness can’t come from these people. King Herod, completely disregarding his own religious custom by building on burial grounds and placing images of the emperor in public spaces believed that his people can’t thrive without deep loyalties to Rome. The high priests Annas and Caiaphas, a father and son-in-law, whose high priesthoods had been and would continue to be inherited through family ties, knew that if God was to send a messiah or prophet to the people of Israel it would be to Jerusalem, to them, it can’t be to anywhere else.
In John’s time there was a lot of ‘can’t’ beliefs with governments and religious leaders. You can’t have power, you can’t be great, you can’t be free, you can’t experience God’s miracles. Government and religious institutions as a whole dictated what the people can and can’t have, can and can’t do, can and can’t feel. But what’s the Advent story, what’s the Christmas story? It’s all about how miracles can happen, how the word of God reveals what is possible on this earth. The word of God went to a place people thought it couldn’t go, not the temple with the high priests, but to the wilderness to basic ragged preacher. The word of God required no allegiance or loyalties to governments in order to thrive, making those who followed its message free. This word took those who were the least in the eyes of governors and made them great. This word made the first last and the last first, giving power to the people on the bottom, power that those at the top of the empire could never fathom. This word of God showed the people that they were more capable than they realized, and that even though everyone around them told them it couldn’t be done, that not only could it be, it will be done: every valley filled, every mountain and hill made low, the crooked made straight, the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh seeing the salvation of God.’ ” It can be.
I think we all remember for the most part Obama’s ‘yes we can’ line that he used in his first election. Whether you liked his politics or not, it can’t be denied that this phrase chanted by massive groups of people was popular, and that’s because those 3 words beat against the status quo that we common people hear so often: you can’t. Hearing, ‘yes we can’ alters our mind and makes it feel like anything is possible. If we want to know what it was like for those people when they first heard John’s message, his call to prepare the way, I think it’s safe to imagine it created a similar enthusiasm and popularity amongst people who were looking to feel inspired from the constraints of life, who had forgotten that God is not something that’s happening in high institutions or in the future, rather that God is happening right now in everyday places. God’s sending a messiah, God is doing miraculous things in the world, prepare yourself for it. And this kind of preparation that John is calling us to involves removing the cant’s from our minds, and turning our selves toward the cans, shifting that mentality. That’s what Advent reminds us of, as we prepare, we turn our mind against all the cants of our time and start thinking that we can, we can have hope amidst despair, we can grow our church as churches decline, we can build communities based in love and justice and mercy as the greed of the world increases, and we can experience peace on earth amidst the wars.
On Friday I was able to get out there and run in minimal clothes without freezing because my mind was turned toward possibility. Because I believed I could, I moved with intention and my blood moved and my body stayed hot. But had I just gone out thinking I can’t do this and stood still, then I would have frozen. By deeming what we are capable of, institutions and those in power make us feel like all we can do is stand still, we can’t do anything and so we become frozen. I see that happen in so many churches that stand still with the changing waves of the world, but church, a place where the word of God dwells, is not suppose to be an institution that stands still, it’s a wilderness, and in the wilderness everything is constantly in motion, bending, twisting, moving with a faith that proclaims we can, we can dream big with God, we can act grand with God, we can live every moment of our lives with a God who is holy mystery, who is constantly moving with us too, working wonders in our lives. May our preparations throughout this Advent season and beyond be ones that embraces the spirit of possibility, turning our minds to belief in God who tells us we can do anything. Amen.
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