A voice in the desert cries, “Prepare the way for the Lord!”
So often,
when the Word of the Lord comes to us,
it arrives—not from the obvious or easy places;
not from places with valet parking
and professional landscaping,
but from the brambly edges
and forgotten margins.
The Word often comes to us,
not carefully wrapped
or beautifully presented,
but with a starkness
or a fierceness that can challenge us.
Today in Scripture,
that Word emerges from the desert,
proclaimed by a rough man in a hair shirt
who eats locusts and honey.
But if that particular messenger
is too bizarre
or too uncomfortable,
then the Word can also be found
in the womb of an unmarried girl;
in the lives of stumbling, sinful people;
in the death cries of a condemned man;
in the echo of an empty tomb.
The messengers God sends us
often speak,
not from places of triumph and success,
but from places of ambiguity,
conflict,
loneliness,
pain.
They speak from wilderness places,
where the borders between
life and death,
success and failure,
hope and foolishness
can become blurred.
And even though it is challenging,
we can usually
accept
these odd and disturbing messengers
when they remain safely bound
within the pages of Scripture;
when they speak to people
long ago and far away;
when we don't have to see
the vermin
crawling on their hair shirt,
or smell the stench
of death and despair.
We can accept the message
of an inconvenient pregnancy
when it is announced by an angel,
not by the little girl around the corner.
We can tolerate a message
of conflict and ambiguity
when the pain is already a millennia old.
We can embrace the work of discipleship
when it doesn't get our hands dirty
or our feet wet.
A voice in the desert cries, “Prepare the way for the Lord!”
It's a bit more challenging
when the message is immediate
and the messenger is,
well...
downright scary or even a little crazy.
In my own neighborhood
a tenacious homeless encampment
has taken over part of our local park.
As soon as police or social service workers
move them out--
they return.
It's a small park, as city parks go,
tucked away in an all but forgotten neighborhood.
It is beloved by those who live nearby--
a beautifully wooded green space
for children to swing,
dogs to chase balls,
and couples to sit on benches
and dream.
It's not in the plan to gaze out
on makeshift tents
and mounds of garbage bags.
Not in the plan to step on
used needles
or empty MD 20/20 bottles.
It's not in the playbook
to encounter the stranger right there among us.
But, if we are listening,
the unlikely,
unwanted,
unkempt messengers of Stanbury Park
have a message to share this Advent--
one that holds a mirror up to our culture;
to our way of dealing with addiction,
spiraling housing costs,
ruptured families,
the aftershocks of mental illness.
How do we prepare a way for the Lord in Stanbury Park?
In your own community,
the messengers from the brambly edges
and forgotten margins
will look and sound quite different.
Their messages will invite you
into different risks
and different questions.
They will take you on different journeys
down different roads.
But one thing we may all have in common--
we tend to focus on the destination,
not the road that takes us there.
Yet, it is on the road--
in the engagement with the stranger,
in the struggle over what is just and right,
in the uncomfortable messiness of life;
that we will encounter the Lord.
God is in the homeless encampments
and the halfway houses;
the urgent care clinics
and border crossings.
God is in the rest stops
and train crossings
and forgotten neighborhoods.
God is on the road we are called to prepare.
When we join John,
and Mary,
and Joseph
in the sometimes frightening,
often dirty,
always risky work of preparing the way,
we will discover that
God
is right there on the road beside us.
Advent reminds us
that we are invited,
not just to hear the call of John,
but to echo that call with our lives.
The Gospel will continue to be preached
by people like John—
fearless prophets destined for a special mission.
But the Gospel must also be preached
on the road
by people just like us,
who struggle everyday
to find the right words to speak
and the courage to speak them.
The Word must be proclaimed
by men and women
who discover that God can be found
not only in triumph and success,
but in a neighborhood park,
and people struggling to survive.
God’s invitation
must come from people who can say,
“Here we are, Lord, use us.
Not because we are glib,
not because we are smart,
not because we have power
or authority
or position,
but because you have chosen
to place your Word
in broken and empty vessels.”
God’s Word will be preached by men and women
who have the courage to say,
"Yes" with Mary,
and then go wherever God's road may take us.
A voice in the desert, joined by the sound of many voices, cries, “Prepare the way for the Lord!”
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