Lions and Lambs

Isaiah 11: 1-10

Matthew 3: 1-12

December 8, 2013

Preached at Prescott Baptist Church

It is the second Sunday of Advent and we are waiting, actively preparing our hearts and our lives to be mangers, birth places (once again) for the Christ-child. We have so much hope for a better world, a world where the poor will be noticed and fed, where the meek will receive power, a world where all creation will be redeemed.

Both of our texts today, Old Testament and New Testament, take us into the wilderness. The prophet Isaiah shares a vision of a wild place where the predator lies down beside its prey. 

Our Gospel text in Matthew invites us out into the wilderness with that outrageous John the Baptist where he gathers in and baptizes the crowds, telling them about one who is to come, one who will lead us all out of the wilderness, one who will redeem the world and everything in it.

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” Isaiah tells us.

“Prepare the way of the Lord!” John shouts. “I baptize you with water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit…”

The power has gone out at my house the last two days. The ice has over-stressed the transformers and they have exploded with sonic booms.  Suddenly the lights go out, the computer shuts down and the heat is off. Darkness surrounds us. The cold settles in quickly. And we are in a wilderness experience.  Lost and wandering. What can you do without power? 

I stood in the middle of our street and talked with our neighbors, Jeannie and Phil. We were bundled up against the cold: coats, scarves, gloves and hats on our heads. I looked down the street and saw darkness in every house to the east and to the west. It’s frightening to me- how dependent we are on Memphis Light Gas and Water. I lit candles in the house and sat beside them—waiting for the power to return. 

This season of Advent is a time to acknowledge our powerlessness and our need for a savior. There will be no place for a Messiah to be born if we are not able to humbly repent and prepare a place for his birth in our lives. 

I was baptized at the age of fourteen at First Church of the Nazarene in Nashville, TN. I was one of about ten adolescents in line that Sunday evening.  I walked down three concrete steps into a baptismal pool. Dr. Ted Martin was the pastor who tilted me back across his arm and submerged me under the water. I hoped my red plaid jumper would not float to the surface. I also hoped that the water of that baptismal pool would wash away my sin, my fears and give me a whole new life. I walked up the steps on the other side of that pool and went right back into the life I knew. I was the same person after I was baptized; my identity had not changed and I was not given power over my own human impulses and frailties. Baptism didn’t change who I was. But it did name clearly who I belonged to and who I could turn to for the gifts I needed  for a life that mattered: courage, faith and hope. 

Our Old Testament reading illustrates for us Isaiah’s vision of a peaceful kingdom, a time that is coming when the new king of kings will reign, when power will be in the hands of a righteous and just ruler.  Predators and their prey will live side by side.  Babies will play unharmed near poisonous snakes. Woody Allen once gave his own interpretation of this vision: “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb. But the lamb won’t get much sleep!”

I wonder… is it only the predator who will be transformed in this coming peaceful kingdom? What about the prey? I want to think the peaceful kingdom will be a place where even the lamb is set free from its fear, from that rush of adrenaline that comes with knowing you are food to another beast.  And more than that. I want to imagine that the lamb discovers in the coming kingdom the sound and the force of its particular roar. The peaceful kingdom will be a place where the little child realizes she has her own kind of power to contribute to the peace and harmony of creation.  

We are together on this second Sunday of Advent waiting and hoping for all creation to be converted. The peaceful kingdom is a place of conversion. The vulnerable will find themselves set free—even with and especially with their vulnerabilities. The powerful will recognize their need for humility. And all creation will exist in relationships of mutual respect. 

It’s hard for us to imagine here in this wilderness where we live, in this place where we just hope the electricity stays on and we get enough to eat. In this wilderness city where we hope we are not the next victim of some violent crime. In this wilderness where we know we need a savior. In this wilderness where we recognize and regret our own contributions to what has gone wrong in the world as we know it. In this wilderness where we are called to repent and make a way for something new, something better.

Our modern day prophet, Nelson Mandela, died this week. A true hero has left this life and gone on to his eternal reward. He was 95 years old when he gave up the fight. And his life was a fight from start to finish, a bold fight against injustice in the wilderness of apartheid. Mandela spent 27 years in prison.

It is reported that a child asked him after his release from that long period of exile, “What was it like to be sent to jail when you didn’t even steal anything?”

Mandela replied, “Oh, but I did steal something. I stole freedom for South Africa’s people.”

In our Gospel reading, John the Baptist is out in the wilderness associating with the poor and the powerless, stealing freedom for them. The people pour into the wilderness to confess their sins and to be baptized, to be converted into new creatures set free from the weight of their pain and guilt.

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The River,” a four year old boy, Harry, is picked up from his city apartment by a new baby sitter, Mrs. Connin. The heavy, older woman is very religious as so many characters are in O’Connor’s stories. She takes the child, Harry, to the river for a baptismal service. The boy lives with his parents who are not mature, not nurturing parents. Harry has been ignored during his four short years on earth. He has no past experience of being noticed or respected as a real person. He had never heard of Jesus except when he heard his parents curse. He had no idea, until Mrs. Connin showed him a picture of Jesus, that there was such a man. 

The woman leads the boy through the woods, walking on pine needles. It might as well have been an amusement park for Harry; it is all so new and strange for him. The preacher, a tall young man, was standing about ten feet out in the stream where the water came up to his knees. He was calling out in a twangy voice, his head tilted upward. 

“There ain’t but one river and that’s the River of Life made out of Jesus’ blood. All other rivers and oceans come from that one river. This is the river you lay your pain in, a rich red river of Jesus’ blood.” (If you’re familiar with O’Connor’s work, you’ll recognize this as the way most of the preachers in her stories talk.) 

Harry leaves Mrs. Connin’s side and moves forward, deciding that he wants to be baptized by the preacher in this River of Life. 

“If I baptize you,” the preacher looks into the face of this child, “you’ll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ. You’ll be washed in the river of suffering. Do you want that, boy?”

“Yes,” the child answers. 

“You won’t be the same again,” the preacher warns. “You’ll count.”

You’ll count. Once you recognize the true source of power in this world and give your life to that source, you cannot claim to be insignificant. You cannot look back and pretend that you belong to the wilderness. You will find yourself in that river of life that leads to the peaceful kingdom where all creation will be free, redeemed and existing in a state of mutual respect. 

We are already on the second Sunday of Advent. Time passes so quickly. But it is all we have in the wilderness. This is our time to prepare for the one who is coming to steal freedom for us, to make it clear that we count. We matter because of our Savior’s power.  

Amen