December 9, 2001
Isaiah 7:10-16
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Matthew 3:1-6, 11
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and Matthew 11:7-15
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“Wild The Place and Wild The Man”

I have never seen a movie about John the Baptist.  Surely, somewhere, sometime, someone must have made one, but if so, I missed it.  If I had the ability, I would like to direct a movie about this wild man in this wild place.  If I were the director, I would have the movie open with a camera scanning the brown, boring desert not to far from the Dead Sea.  There would be a few dungy gray buildings, then the rolling, burnt hills with the seemingly endless sky above them; add a few goats grazing - they seem to be everywhere in Israel.  We could even add some wandering Bedouin in their dark robes tending meager flocks near the top of the hill.

About that time, I think I would have a voice crying out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”  As the title appears over the desert hills backdrop, the camera slowly moves down, down the embankment and through the reeds.  It focuses on a skinny bearded fellow standing, up to his thighs, in the water with a freshly baptized person next to him shivering in the late afternoon breeze.

As the camera zero’s in, you begin to notice that this little man is not dressed in a normal manner.  He has a simple garment of camel hair, brutally coarse and uncomfortable.  About his waist, in diaper fashion, he has a leather girdle; effective, but heavy and cumbersome.  He leaves the river, about this time and goes on shore to eat some of his diet, some locusts, you can hear them crunch as he bites.  He supplements this protein with some wild honey.  This is the guy who is saying to all who come, “Prepare the way of the Lord”.

Who is this John?  We know very little about him, and if he is to be important we need to establish some credibility.  We have heard that his birth was promised to his Father Zechariah the high priest and his Mother Elizabeth, in a dream.  They are told they will become parents even though they are old.  Zechariah is so moved and surprised that he is struck mute, unable to speak until the child is born.

An angel said to Zechariah, “Your son will be great before the Lord.  He will not drink wine or strong drink, he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, he will turn many of Israel to the Lord their God.  He will, the angel said, go before them in the spirit and power of Elijah. (Luke 1:14ff)

Ah, Elijah.  That’s the clue we have been looking for: Elijah the great prophet of the Israelites away back in their history.  He is a royal pain to King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  Elijah was the prophet who challenged the prophets of Baal to reveal the presence of their God on Mt. Carmel.  After their attempts to have Baal send fire to destroy the altar and the cut up meat of a bullock failed, Elijah prayed and fire came down and consumed the meat and the altar and even licked up the water that Elijah had poured over the altar and the sacrifice.

Elijah had all of the priests of Baal slain and thereby angered the Queen Jezebel who ordered that Elijah be sought and killed in like manner.  Elijah flees for his life.  After Ahab died, his son Ahaziah began to reign.  King Ahaziah fell through the lattice in the upper chamber of his house in Samaria and was very sick; maybe an infection from a broken leg or some such problem.  He calls for his messengers and asks them to go and inquire of Baalzebub, God of Ekron whether he would recover from his illness.

Elijah intercepts them and in his brash manner says, “You’re going to inquire of Baalzebub because there is no God in Israel at this time, and the King has forgotten Yahweh.  Go back to the King and tell him, the Lord says, you shall get out of the bed in which you are resting, but you are going to die.”  The messengers stop their journey to see Beelzabub and return to the palace and report to the king The King responds, “What kind of a man would tell you this?  The messengers reply, “He wore a garment of hair cloth and a girdle of leather about his loins.”  The King shrieks, “Damn, It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

The name of Elijah was well known.  He was brave.  He was strong.  He was a powerful prophet who did much to insure the very future of Israel.  Every Jew knows of Elijah, the great prophet.  It is customary at the Seder meal to pour 5 cups of wine.  During the course of the Seder, the fourfold promise of God’s redemption is remembered.  Taken from Exodus 6:6-7 ” the devout would read, “And I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, (1) and I will deliver you from their bondage, (2) and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgement (3) and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God,”(4)

Customarily, the 5th cup represents the 5th form of God’s promise of redemption.  It is found in Exodus 6 verse 8, “And I will bring you into the land…. and give it you as a possession.”  According to tradition, Elijah is the one who will usher in the Messiah and the ingathering of the Jewish people into the land of Israel.

Now we see it clearly.  Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah was dressed in a garment of haircloth and had on a girdle of leather about his waist.  The 5th promise has not yet been delivered.  Now, in New Testament times, we have another story about the coming of Messiah.  Following the same format as the book of 1 and 11 Kings, this story also has a forerunner; one who confronts people and calls them to repentance.  Matthew says his name is John the Baptist.  Like Elijah, he lives in the desert and like Elijah; he is dressed in a garment of camel hair with his loins girded with a girdle made of leather.

We now have two intermeshing stories, one about Elijah the greatest of the prophets in Jewish belief and John the Baptist in this latter day.  Both proclaiming the greatness of God: both preparing the way for a coming and, NOT coincidentally, both clad in the same clothing.

Matthew, in his writing has adopted the style and the clothing of the great leader and hero of the Jewish faith and transported a similar figure into the time when he is writing.  Every good Jewish reader would grasp the significance easily and those who were not Jewish would have the account of the Baptist at their disposal to read as they prepared for the birth of Jesus.

Don’t you think this would make a good movie?  First Elijah running about challenging the followers of Baal, accusing the King and his followers of seeking advice from false Gods because Israel has forgotten the true God.  Now flash forward a few centuries to John out in the desert, challenging people to repent of their ways and turn to God because there is one coming who is greater than John who will, baptize with water and with fire.

Then, just so that you won’t miss the point, the film flips back through the centuries to the prophet Isaiah, charged with restoring hope within a battered and conquered nation.  Talking with King Hezehiah, Isaiah launches into some poetry and says; “a voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground shall be made level and the rough places a plain.  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  (Isa 40:3-5)

The people in Matthew’s time heard that a similar message was being proclaimed out in the desert so they came to hear and when they arrived they found this skinny little guy, standing in the river looking like a throw back to some past culture.  It’s strange and powerful.  Not only is the message they are hearing familiar but the one delivering the message looks like the prophet they heard of long ago.  Could it be Elijah?  Maybe!  But the words he is speaking are Isaiah’s.

Isn’t that what good preaching is?  Remembering, recalling the words given before, yet we often hear, he’s such a nice person, but he uses the words of the prophets.  He tells stories from the Bible.  We want to hear what he has to say.  John wasn’t original.  He told the stories and proclaimed the message he knew because he also knew they are relevant for every age and every culture and they need to be retold over and over again.

Circumstances change, events change, the speed of how we do things change the destructive power of the weapons we have change but the way people feel and the needs that people have do not change.

Maybe that is why the people came to hear John the Baptist.  I suspect in our day and age, John would be besieged by television reporters who would show his picture and blare his message on the evening news and little more would come of it because the talk shows would trivialize the event and the person.

John is so different.  Most self -appointed prophets stand on a street corner.  They get in your way.  They create a stir, until they’re arrested.  They confront you right when you’re on your way to lunch or an afterwork drink and you don’t want to hear their message.  John is out in the middle of nowhere.  If you want to hear him, you have to go to where he is.

One more observation: the gospel always begins with a messenger - an angel whispering in Mary’s ear; three strangers coming to the home of Abraham and Sarah; the still gentle voice of a breeze speaking to Elijah on the mountain; an angel speaking to Zechariah and Elizabeth.  It still happens.  A committee comes to a successful pastor and says we have a challenge for you.  The gentle soul that comes and says, our emphasis is wrong.  The youth who say, where is the challenge to serve God?  The indefatigable worker who says, forget about parking lots and fresh paint, let’s help people who are hurting.

The messengers are called and they prepare the way for the presence of God in a new manner.

But have you noticed; there is no Church building, no synagogue, and no temple where John the Baptist is.  Barbara Taylor brilliantly points out, those who stayed in the Church, missed his message.

My dear people that is a problem with Churches.  Frequently, churches get so involved in being Church that they forget that the Church is an instrument, a gathering, and a body of people to HEAR and DO the word of God.  Most Churches that I know about are no longer driven by a dream or a vision: giving things away, helping others is secondary.

The role of most Churches that I know of is determined by the mental image of the leaders.  It is determined by who they think they are or what they want to be.  The budget, not the potential giving but the actual support drives the program, no matter how sincere or visionary the boards and committees may be.

Visions and dreams are scuttled in favor of balanced budgets.  It’s very sad.  This congregation proved what happens when a people seize a dream.  $11,000 was raised in just two Sundays to help those in need at ground zero and not one penny of that amount was in the budget.  Budgets are gestimates, we need them but dreams and visions ought not to be cut out of programming before they have a chance to be responded to and embraced.  People give to dreams and visions: they dutifully support budgets.

The greatness of Elijah and John the Baptist is that they held before their people a dream, a vision of a better day when a leader would usher in a new and visible way of living wisely and faithfully.  But prophets and visionaries don’t sit too well with the masses.  After an initial burst of enthusiasm and impetus of followers, most quickly fall into their own pattern of living safely and the prophets are disregarded.  Elijah is replaced by Elisha and carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot.  John the Baptist is beheaded and his head was brought on a platter and given to Salome, who had just danced a seductive number: she gave it to her Mother, the wife of Herodias.

My movie would end here with a series of pictures of boarded up Churches, dead.  They never got the message.  They were too busy trying to be a Church.  And right next to a boarded up Church, I would have a wall with some graffiti on it and some kids sitting there taking drugs.

Then I’d switch the camera to a poor household, wracked by unemployment and scrimping out some poor meals on a little burner.  I’d have a tired looking Doctor, weary from work on a hot day looking out at the people still lined up to see him.

Then I’d switch the camera to a wonderful party, filled with laughter and as it broke up, the camera centers on the huge mounds of food on their way the disposal or the garbage can.  I’d show two committed lovers deep in sorrow because one was dying with Aids and the parents refused to acknowledge the validity of their son.  And I’d show a lovely Church, filled with people unmindful of the misery just yards away.

As the camera pulls away and the scene fades, there is a weird little character standing in the middle of a river saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  Then Elijah and John the Baptist would walk slowly away and vaguely, like in a mist we could see them joined by another rejected leader, Jesus, of Nazareth, who was crucified, and arm in arm they walk into the sunset,… weeping.