Think of how horrific this must have been. The chosen people, living in the heart of the kingdom, David’s city, and watching the temple built by Solomon be destroyed. The Temple was supposed to be the spiritual center where one day all people of the world would come to worship in harmony. Jerusalem is sacked, the nation destroyed, the temple burnt to the ground, priests and civic leaders carried away. Think of something like the United States being conquered, Washington DC being destroyed, the capital and the white house burnt, our government leaders taken into slavery AND our churches demolished and priests and bishops arrested and taken away. That is the background for the first reading today. It seemed to the Israelites as if God had abandoned his people.
And what was the prophet Baruch’s message? Standing in the rubble of Jerusalem, the prophet says, don't be sad. “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery; and look to the east.” Why the east? The east is the direction of the rising sun.
So Baruch is saying don’t mourn. It looks dark right now. But you will see God arise and set captives free, establishing justice, restoring the glory of Israel.
And that theme of hope recurs over and over in the Old Testament: that in life’s darkest moments, when things look bleakest, we must trust that God has not abandoned us, that he will ultimately fulfill his promises to deliver us from evil.
Just about 50 years after Baruch’s prophecies, in the year 538 BC, the Babylonians fell to the Persians, and the Persian King Cyrus freed the exiles, and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
Now fast forward, five hundred years. It was the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.
Again, another dark time in Israel’s history. Tiberius Caesar the successor of Caesar Augustus was a ruthless dictator—oppressive, violent, capricious. Pontius Pilate, a name we know pretty well was Tiberius’ equally ruthless and violent local representative in Judea. Governor Pilate was only too willing to crucify Jews by the thousands; he raised the Roman insignia in the Temple, which was blasphemous. Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother, were fearsome, hateful, ruthless, collaborators with the Roman Government.
Annas and Caiaphas the Jewish high priests, as leaders of God’s flock were supposed to be men of righteousness, but they used their religious power for political gain, and instead of conducting the worship of the Temple in righteousness according to God’s commandments, they had allowed corruption to sink into Temple life.
St Luke sets the stage—he calls to mind this corrupt and vicious hierarchy which governed political and religious life in the first century. And after describing these dark circumstances, Saint Luke tells us that God made his instrument not one of these high and mighty men. God used as his instrument this nobody, John, in the desert. Not a mighty ruler, but a man eating locusts in the desert.
And John’s message? God is about to act again. To all of you who are oppressed, beaten down, hoping, waiting, tired of the violence, the corruption, and the suffering:
"Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."
A change is coming, a revolution is on its way. The destruction of the old oppressive powers is at hand. God is about to act. So, “Prepare, ye, the way of the Lord.”
How are the people to prepare? John called them to a baptism of water and repentance. A baptism of water in the river Jordan, calling to mind the passing through the waters of the Red Sea, when God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God is going to free you, just as he freed the Israelites from slavery, leading them into a promised land.
And John called them to repentance. The word he uses for repentance is metanoia, the greek word, that meant to change your mind, change your heart, change your attitude, change your behavior, so that it is in keeping with the God’s commandments. You can’t and won’t be prepared for God to break into your life without repentance.
The world of Tiberius Caesar, the oppression of Pilate, the religious malaise of Annas and Caiaphas had stunted their hopes, and the chosen people had fallen into mediocrity. And John was saying, get your hearts and minds ready, because God is about to act, the in breaking of the kingdom of God in your midst.
During Advent we consider how God has already begun such good work in us, bringing us goodness, freedom, and peace, but also how God, as St. Paul said in the Epistle, wants to bring that good work to completion. He wants to strengthen us in virtue, he wants to drive out hopelessness, he wants to conquer addiction, he wants to transform selfishness into Christ-like self-donation. But we have to do our part. “Prepare the way of the Lord” requires some work on our part.
If you can’t identify some crooked aspects of your life that need to be made straight, look again. If you can’t identify some valleys of selfishness that need to be filled in with generosity, look again. If you can’t identify some rough parts of your personality that need to be smoothed over, look again.
If God can break into history in the dark time of Caesar, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas and Annas, he can break into our lives. The Gospel, however, exposes these men to be on the wrong side of history, for they rejected Christ when he came. But that doesn’t mean we have to be.
May we prepare the way for the Lord to come more deeply into our lives, by repenting as John tells us, by renewing our hope in Christ by taking God’s promises to heart, that the good work God has begun in us may be brought to completion, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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