Advent 2A | Isaiah 11: 1-10, Matthew 3:1-12
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
It is a promise. That the project isn’t done. We aren’t finished, over, dead. There is yet life in that old stump. A shoot, breaking through the fibrous ceiling — a cauterized cut can’t staunch this flow, God’s intentional grace, the will to create, renew, this ever-changing world. Like a blatant disregard for our own weak intentions, to control and dominate, exclude and devastate. It is, for us, no end so final as one God declares. And empires have no gods!
“He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;”
The Spirit of GOD rests with the Root of Jesse. He isn’t swayed by mighty forces and their will, their greed, but by the plight of the poor and the meek. It is God’s righteousness that stirs him, empowers him, to draw an end to suffering, to abuse. God’s righteousness that ends the wickedness and deprives the wicked of supremacy.
No Supremacy
There are no human kings worthy of God’s Kin-dom. There is room for only him.
“They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;”
Not the wolf, the leopard, or the lion. They will lie with the lamb, the kid, and the calf. Not because both sides have come to a compromise, but because God’s glory can’t abide the carnivore’s insatiable appetite. The all-consuming greed, the constant craving for more, is Mammon reverse-anthropomorphized. There is no peace in the world as long as any but Jesus are declared king of the jungle.
“The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”
For these species to mingle, the carnivores must disarm. Change their ways. Become herbivores. It doesn’t work if the meat-eaters keep eating meat. There can be no peace. Nor is their peace if the herbivores become carnivores. Putting more weapons on the streets fuels violence and destruction. No, this is a one-sided affair. The violent need to disarm. Period. The supremacists need to give up dominance. The genocidal need to give up control.
Peace is Risky
“The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.”
This is how we know peace. When the Root of Jesse has finally accomplished his work. Our children can play without fear. They can attend school without being traumatized or becoming a statistic.
About this chapter from Isaiah, the late Hebrew scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote:
It is impossible to overstate the cruciality of this vision of justice for the coming ideal king, the importance of which is evident in a society like ours, wherein governmental power is largely in the hands of the wealthy and powerful and is operated almost exclusively to their own advantage and benefit. Such an arrangement of public power is a complete contradiction of the biblical vision of government.
The wealthy and powerful desire to keep their control. To dominate for their benefit, not true peace. It is why we can’t kill for peace any more than we can kidnap for love, torture for effection, or consume for equity.
John Appears
It is in this same spirit that John appears from the wilderness, wild-eyed and scruffy, declaring repentance is the gate to righteousness. He is the prophet incarnate, present for the people, describing the injustice of the world, in his camel’s hair and leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey. The right word for him is wild. He is untamed. He preaches: release of the yoke of oppression and offers freedom.
The people flock to him.
Like Elvis’s swinging hips or Cobain’s long hair in front of his eyes. It isn’t charisma or desire the people seek: it’s freedom. And like going to a dingy club from the safety of the suburbs, people stream from the walled cities, out into the wilderness to hear this rebellious message of hope, peace, love, like a pre-modern Woodstock.
There can be no coincidence that freedom comes from within the tradition, but from without of the power structure! For the Temple system loves security more than it longs for hope, peace, and true love, agape. To feel bonded, connected to the fortunes of the person next to us. Like siblings. Children of God. No, much rather embrace our titles which indicate our level of worth to the power structure. It is how we afford the right level of deference and respect. Sir, Doctor, Father ____.
They Appear
And right on cue, the Pharisees and Sadducees appear, looking to be included in the baptism of repentance. We don’t know their motivation. Why they are there. What they are looking for. Just that they are. And it surprises John. The message is so clearly to the oppressed and these people aren’t in the same boat. They are responsible for some of the oppression. Not all, mind you. Rome, the empire, is the true source. They are just trying to keep the peace. Go-between.
John asks: “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And we are probably making excuses for them and wondering ourselves how to make this make sense — not literally, mind you; we aren’t wondering who exactly — because they are entrenched and part of the problem. And yet many of us here are entrenched and part of the problem. We have positions of power, served in organizations that restrict. And we don’t want anyone here to be excluded, right? Isn’t this the point?
Of course it is. What John describes to them is their common calling. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Let God produce the Good News through you.
He continues: “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’”. This hits like a however, a warning. Don’t sit on lineage, culture, or national identity and think that is what matters here. Doing a nice thing and being all “I’m good cause I’m on the right team — my people go back to the root, to Jesse and to long before him. To Abraham. We are chosen. Blessed. The Good Guys. The protagonists, the main characters in this story.
No, he says to them, I’m the easy one. The one coming after me is the one you should really fear.
Fear and Awe
Fear gets a bad rep in our culture. We never want to fear. But fear is more of a neutral thing in scripture. I think it exists a bit like happy. You aren’t supposed to be happy all of the time. It isn’t a neutral state of affairs. You get happy in the same way you get sad. Or scared. Living in a constant state of any one emotion is not good for us.
Another thing about fear in the Bible is that it is often used like a synonym for awe. When things get big and overwhelming, say, or something unexpected happens. It isn’t a horror movie. Nor is it some bit of political theater. It is usually about getting past our defenses and moving us to see the truth.
Baptizing with water or fire: they are both symbols of danger. And purity. They can harm and they can heal and renew.
John isn’t threatening the people. He’s helping them dig deeper. John has come to wash them. Jesus is coming to purify them.
Maybe that is worth some fear, I suppose. Being burnt through is a threat to the status quo for sure. But it is also how new shoots grow.
This is Advent
When we prepare for the coming of the one worthy to be king. The one destined to be of us and of God. The only one able to reject supremacy in all of its forms and root himself in the people, in the children of God. In justice; in grace; in hope; in faith; in love. In greatness and unbounded love of God. He isn’t a lion to tame the other lions; but a man who helps men give up killing and controlling and hoarding the world’s wealth and power.
And he is coming again to help us get with the program.
That is what we’re preparing for. And why we light these candles in the Advent wreath — the first one for hope and the second for peace.
For peace. For reconciling the world. Turning the carnivores into herbivores. Learning to live side-by-side, not with the assumption that we’re already there, like a colorblind, equal society, for example. But to long for a change in ourselves. In our own hearts. That we will disarm. We will seek peace. Forever changed, purified, freed by the fires of Jesus’s baptism.