ADVENT 2, B – December 7, 2008

SCRIPTURES – Psalm 80; Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

In yesterday’s “For Better or For Worse” comic strip, Ellie, a young mother, is walking with her little daughter, Elizabeth, past lots of stores. They see pictures of Santa in his sleigh, and signs that say, “Santa’s Super Savings.” Elizabeth looks at all this and then asks her mom, “If Christmas is more about God than Santa, how come people talk more about Santa than God?” “God does less advertising,” Ellie responds.

This is true; although, His voice does cry out and He does come among us to give to us His comfort and peace. But, where? Where is the glory of the Lord revealed? "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” says Isaiah. The wilderness: a barren and lonely place of blazing sun and heat and little water; of scorpions and lizards, bugs and spiders; a place of danger and fear that is to be avoided at all costs. This, God tells us through His prophet Isaiah, is where He prepares the way for His coming.

This prophecy found its literal fulfillment when John the Baptist, the prophet who preceded Jesus and prepared the people for His coming, arrived on the scene. John preached and baptized in a barren and desolate area that was on the east side of the Jordan River. There were no towns or villages there, no farms or cultivated fields or trees, just barren ground and low hills that were strewn about with rocks and thorn bushes. People who wanted to hear John’s preaching and be baptized by him had to go out into this wilderness to see him. This must surely have affected his church attend-ance! If it had been up to me, I would have sent him to the area around Jericho, on the west side of the Jordan, for that was a lush area of palm trees and crops and cultivated fields. I bet more people would have come to him there! But, no, God sent him into the wilderness, and it was there that he conducted his ministry of preparing the way of the Lord.

God’s ways are not our ways. To prepare the way for Him in our lives He must first strip us bare and break us down, remove everything in which we take pride and boast about. Christ cannot be one option among many for you to choose from. He must be your only hope, your only strength, your only comfort, your only salvation.

This is why John preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” This is why we begin our lives in Christ with a baptism of repentance in infancy, and begin our Services every week by confessing our sins and turning utterly away from ourselves. We don’t confess so that we can feel guilty all the time. God isn’t pleased with guilt! Nor is the purpose of confession keeping you in your place, under God’s thumb. He doesn’t want you under His thumb but in His arms! Christ came to carry you!

But, God can only raise those who are low. He can only help those who are in need and cry out for His help. We confess our sins because it is sinners whom God helps and to whom He draws near in Christ. If you are strong, are not troubled by and do not worry about your sins – maybe even think that you don’t have sins, at least, not really bad ones for which you will be punished! – then you won’t rely on Christ alone. You will be far from God, far from His love and blessing. If you are a sinner, however – truly bothered by the wrong things you do and think and desire, for you know that such things displease God and bring down His punishment – then you are truly ready for God’s love and favor in Christ. For, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed in the wilderness. God’s glory is revealed there.

This is hard for us. It is contrary, for we fear and avoid the wilderness. We want the pill that melts away unwanted fat, not a change in eating habits and regular exercise. We want angels singing and the stars twinkling over a beautiful, happy baby in a manger and not a dirty guy wearing camel skins and eating bugs and crying out, “Repent!” We want good feelings and happy thoughts and a God who is like a happy and non-judgmental Santa, not feelings of guilt and a Lord of might who throws down mountains and raises up valleys; who sees and knows and judges our every act and word, thought and desire; who demands repentance and lives of holiness and godli-ness. We want the lush area of palm trees and crops and cultivated fields, not the wilderness.

Do not fear the wilderness, however. Do not try to hide your sins in deep and hidden valleys in your heart. Nothing can be hidden from God, and nothing needs to be! Confess your sins to your Lord, and He will raise you up and comfort you with His forgiveness! For Jesus, your God and Savior, is in the wilderness. He comes with comfort to those who are distressed by their sins, the comfort of His taking of our sins upon Himself and paying their penalty in our place. Your sins are a filthy, hairy, weighty and burdensome garment that brings much discomfort and distress, a garment such as John the Baptist wore. Jesus has taken this garment of your sins off of you and wrapped it around Himself. He burned up and destroyed this garment when He endured God’s judgment of sins on the cross and died for you. He will not lay this garment of sins on you again! He has washed you clean in His baptism and clothed you with a far different garment: the garment of salvation, of His life and death for you. This is what we remember and rejoice in when we confess our sins. We have a mighty Lord who bore our sins and put them to death in His death! He is our Savior! His holiness covers us!

And so, do not fear the wilderness of lowliness, weakness, and sinfulness. For, Jesus is the lowly One, the One who humbled Himself to bear our burden of sin and death on the cross. He is the Savior and friend of the lowly, the God who comes in lowliness to the lowly. He does His work of salvation in the wilderness.

Perhaps this is why our world talks about Santa more than God. It’s not primarily a matter of advertising; it’s a matter of association. Jesus associates with those the world looks down upon: the downcast and weak and lowly and sinful. Our sins make us such. But, let us not fear and not fail to confess our sins! For, the Glory of the Lord, Jesus Christ, is revealed in the wilderness.