John the Baptist is certainly one of the VIPs—the Very Important Persons—of the Advent season featuring prominently in our Advent scripture reading. The Gospel of Mark begins with the very strange account of this wild man, dressed in camel hair, eating locusts and wild honey, out in the middle of the desert.What is more puzzling? His diet and his wardrobe or the fact that people were coming from all over the country to hear him preach in the middle of the scorching desert? People poured out in multitudes, walked for miles to hear John preach. Today, you couldn’t pay some people to make this journey.
And, he wasn’t telling people how to get rich. He wasn’t performing stand-up comedy. He wasn’t their favorite football player. He wasn’t out there performing miracles or magic tricks. So, why were they out there? Why were they listening to him, and why were they allowing him to plunge them into the Jordan river?
The Jewish people of Jesus’ day lived in deep longing and anticipation of the Messiah foretold by the prophets. The Messiah would be the one to usher in the age of comfort and peace like that foretold in the first reading today from the prophet Isaiah. The age of suffering and woe would be at an end. The injustices suffered by God’s people would be righted. The separation from God due to sin would be closed. God’s people would be gathered up into the mighty arms of God and held close to his heart forever.
This is what we all long for: the sadness and restlessness of the human condition, the violence and suffering to come to an end.
And John the Baptist appearing out in the desert preaching the words of Isaiah, dressed like the prophet Elijah, who also wore a garment of camel hair, meant the time had come, the Messiah was near at hand. The anticipation they felt must have been incredible. To prepare for the iminent arrival of the Messiah, John told them to repent of their sins and to be baptized as a sign of repentnence.
And this is why John the Baptist is the VIP of Advent. John perfectly symbolizes—or, better, lives and expresses—the key themes of this season: anticipation, preparation, humility, and repentance.
Notice, how during the Advent season, the music played and sung here in church is quite different from the music you hear in Starbucks and the stores. We aren’t playing Christmas music yet, because it’s not yet Christmas. We still have a lot of preparation to do. If by the time you get to Christmas and you are already sick of Christmas, you didn’t do Advent right.
The world, our culture, is certainly not doing Advent right. Advertisers bombard us with Santas and Snowmen, not because they are interested in helping us celebrate the Advent of Christ, but mostly because they want to sell us candy cane flavored lattes and urge us to max out credit cards on christmas presents. But, this is not what Advent is for. And with all that bombardment, we can be quite sick of it all by later December.
Rather, Advent is to help us become like the people of the Gospel today who undertake the arduous venture out into the desert to prepare rightly for the coming of the promised Messiah. The scriptures, the prayers, the solemnity of Advent compel us to get our lives in order, our priorities straight.
As I’ve said before, the Advent season is a perfect time for making a good confession. Why? Because Confession helps us identify the crooked ways of our life that need to be made straight; it helps us to identify the ways our mountainous egos need to be made low. It helps us to recognize the ways “we must decrease, that Christ may increase” in the words of the Baptist. Confession helps us repent of the ways we have have misused our time, talent, and treasure for our own selfish ends.
For what did Paul say in the second reading today? The Lord “is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” If I’m okay and you are okay, no need of a savior, then the impact of Christmas on us will be lost. We won’t appreciate Jesus’ arrival at Christmas unless we feel in our bones how much we need him. And Sacramental Confession helps us to do just that.
After confessing our sins, we are compelled to reach out to those we’ve hurt, the poor who we’ve ignored; to show some sign of our repentance through acts of goodness and charity. Advent is the perfect time to make amends and to reach out in care to families or individuals going through tough times.
That’s the wisdom of this season. It’s the wisdom of John the Baptist: to focus on Christ, his mercy and his love.
As we prayed in our collect today, may no earthly undertaking hinder us who set out in haste to meet the Lord, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company. May we make haste into the Advent desert of anticipation, preparation, humility, and repentence, unhindered by all of the earthly distractions confronting us this season. May we learn the heavenly wisdom of the prophets and saints, like John the Baptist, that we may join in the joyful company of Christ this Christmas, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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