The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!’” John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey. And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1.1-8)
As we continue the slow countdown to Christmas these days, a familiar figure generally grabs our attention, showing up in store windows, on Christmas cards, and in winter wonderlands. That person, of course, is Santa Claus, the quintessential Christmas character, his booming voice filling the landscape with his greeting of ho-ho-ho. Admittedly, Christmas, at least for Americans, would be unrecognizable without this bearded, pot-bellied, red-suited personality.
In much the same way, a familiar figure always appears in the readings that have been selected from scripture for these four weeks of Advent that precede Christmas, a figure that surely stands in stark contrast to the cultural icon of Santa Claus. And that favorite of scripture would be John the Baptist, about as stark a contrast as possible to jolly old Santa.
Today, the evangelist Mark introduces us to John, describing him as “clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, feeding on locusts and wild honey.” Obviously, his appearance made an impression equal to or surpassing Santa’s. And, unlike his cultural opposite, John does not live in a winter wonderland, but instead in a barren wilderness.
We have every right to ask why John should show up as the avatar for Advent, particularly in light of his pessimism and grumpiness, characteristics rarely associated with the coming of Christmas, with the exception of Ebenezer Scrooge, that memorable Charles Dickens character who never smiled and never celebrated.
The answer seems to be that John fulfills a role promised by the ancient prophets of Israel who, as we hear today, spoke of “a voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’” So, the presence of John, following in the footsteps of these prophets of old, serves as the gatekeeper to the coming of the Lord.
If we take a step back, it is interesting to see that the evangelist Mark begins his story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not with a story of his birth while angelic voices sing lullabies in the night-skies and not with shepherds (for Luke) or wise men (for Matthew) racing to be the first to find the newborn king of the Jews, but with John the Baptist. Much like an emcee who steps from behind the curtains of the stage to announce the beginning of the show, John steps out of the wilderness to make a similar announcement.
And what does he say? He announces, “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” With these words, he starts the story of the Savior of the world, a figure soon to appear when the curtain is opened and John steps aside.
While this beginning of Mark’s gospel lacks the coziness of the crib and the majesty of the magi, it stands on its own feet as a solid start to the good news that the evangelist assures us lies ahead. And while we would never call John our BFF, we have to admit he does his job with the same serious-mindedness of a prophet and with the steady stare of a seer. When all is said and done, he makes a striking figure, even if he never smiles.
As we study these verses from Scripture today, I would like to take one word from them and examine it closely, perhaps finding in it a message not only for Advent, but for the many months ahead. That word would be wilderness. Obviously, it is a word we’re all familiar with, wilderness sometimes translated as desert in the text. The Greek root of the word means lonesome or waste, understood as a wasteland.
While many of us are city-dwellers today, we are not so far removed that we are not familiar with our history as a nation, a country carved out of the wilderness that awaited the first immigrants to this foreign shore. Generally speaking, even if we’re standing on asphalt at the moment, it was wilderness a few hundred years before us.
And, for that matter, there is plenty of wilderness still to be found in our country, places where the native wild has not been tamed and where virgin forests have been untouched and maybe even unseen. Likewise, city-dwellers are often given the opportunity to take a hike through the wilderness, a way to reconnect with the past and to appreciate the rawness of nature.
The famed Appalachian Trail, a 2200 mile hiking path across the Eastern United States, has attracted the very brave and the very strong for almost a century, bringing them face to face with thousands of plants and animals and any number of weather conditions, a world both forbidding, fascinating, and fiercely dangerous if a person is not careful. It is a wilderness experience on steroids.
For John, the wilderness referred to a desolate and isolated region near the Sea of Galilee, a place devoid of most signs of life. And while we might not expect a person to seek out the desert, choosing instead to stay near civilization, John stays in this foreboding environment, following in the footsteps of other prophets such as Elijah who also made the desert his go-to place.
There is something important going on here, although at first glance we may miss it. The wilderness, for the Jewish people, always evokes memories of their ancestors’ sojourn across the desert of Sinai in search of the Promised Land, much the same as the “Mayflower” ship evokes memories of our pilgrim forefathers who crossed the dangerous seas in search of a promised land.
And while the desert was a physical place, empty of food and drink, but full of dangers and demons, it also was a spiritual place for the Hebrew slaves, the place where they came to know their God and to know their place in his scheme of things. As they trekked across the sands of Sinai, suffering torments and trials, they were continually challenged to cleanse their hearts of evil and to put their trust in the Lord God.
Of course, they failed more than a few times, the five-star failure being the melting of their jewelry and the making of a molten calf that they worshiped, substituting a metal image for the mysterious God who led them through the desert by a fire at night and with a cloud by day. As a result of their forty-year march through the wilderness, it became both their founding and defining moment.
Forever after, the wilderness would evoke in the minds of the Jewish people a time of trial and tribulation, a time of temptation and testing. In other words, it was a spiritual experience as much as it was a physical experience. It was, in short, the place where they experienced the Divine Presence, finding it in the bald barrenness of rocky hills and desert dirt. When all else was stripped away and nothing remained, the Most High God stood before them.
So, it was because of this same significance that we will find great Hebrew figures such as Elijah and John in the wilderness, seeking and searching for the Divine Presence, almost always surrounded by hardships and heavy hearts. For this same reason, we will hear Hosea the prophet tell the people that it is time for them to return to the desert, to reconnect with the Most High God, speaking to them these words, “Israel, I the Lord will lure you into the desert and speak gently to you. Behold, I will allure her and will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.”
Incarcerated as many of us are in modern high-rise cities, we may believe that such closeness to God is not given to us, surrounded as we are by metal and mayhem and masses of people. But the truth is that the wilderness experience does not require scorched sands and blistering sunlight. Understood not so much as a physical place as a spiritual place, we can find ourselves in the wilderness even in the middle of rush hour traffic.
Really, all it takes for a wilderness experience is to find oneself feeling lost and alone, forsaken and forlorn. Often defined as a sense of abandonment by God or a belief that God doesn’t care about us, the wilderness experience tests the mettle of our hearts, forcing us to face the demons of despair and desolation, challenging us to find God in the ugliest and scariest moments of our lives.
Obviously, such a wilderness experience can be as unique as the person, coming in all manner, shapes, and sizes, but always having the same terror that is the twin to the vast and empty terrain that surrounds us. Just as the wilderness in its physical form is far from pleasant, so it is in its spiritual shape. Given a choice, we would run for cover, but there is no cover in the desert as Elijah the prophet learned, lying beneath the weak limbs of a juniper tree, praying that he might die, saying aloud to God, “I have had enough.”
Not only for Elijah, but for us also, the wilderness experience is always a question of survival. Will we make it? Or are we too lost and too tired to want to make it? With financial, material, physical, or emotional burdens weighing heavy upon us, can we find relief? Can we take the next step? Will an angel come to us, as it did to Elijah, and urge us to get up and eat?
The one thing we must remember as we undergo the wilderness experience is that it is a journey. For the Hebrew slaves it was forty-years long. For Elijah, it was forty days and forty nights. For Jesus of Nazareth it was forty days. But journeys, by that very nature, end. A day comes when we leave the desert and enter the Promised Land, a day never clearly shown us, but certainly promised us.
While in the wilderness, our sanity and our survival and our spiritual rejuvenation come when we are able to see that we are not truly alone, but are close to the Most High God, hidden and clouded as the Divine Presence always is. And his care for us is more often than not shown in human carriers, some with wrinkled faces, some with gentle voices, but almost always with an angelic glow.
So, maybe the story of John in the wilderness is a good start to the Christmas story. After all, Christmas tells us that God entered the wilderness of this world, born in the lowest of circumstances, threatened by kings and denied a place to rest his head, the Divine Presence now found in human form, proving definitively that God is with us.
When we find ourselves in the wilderness, those times when our faith is found weak or worn, the times when it is a struggle for us to walk a few more steps, the Christmas event serves as a reminder to us that God is found in unusual places and in unpleasant circumstances, even if we have to look long and hard to find him. John, standing before us today, serves as a messenger for God, promising us that the wilderness, for all its hardships, will bring unexpected blessings and spiritual bounty.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 