The Beginning is Near (Luke 1 & 3)12/8/2024
begin by orienting us within the framework of Luke, because each gospel is written a particular way for a particular audience in a particular place. Matthew, we know, was written by and for Christian Jews who’d broken communion with Pharisee-led Judaism; and Mark’s addressed a community of readers within the Roman Empire but beyond Palestine and the reach of Jewish Customs. In contrast to both of those, the Physician Luke is a highly-cultured, well-traveled Gentile convert, educated in classical Greek philosophy, literature, language, and logic whose general audience are Greco-Roman Gentiles. More specifically, though, according to the opening dedication of his gospel, he writes to and for the Most Excellent Theophilus, a high-ranking man of considerable wealth and status — possibly a governor or other political leader — who’d been financially supporting Luke’s dear friend the Apostle Paul, and who had learned a little about Jesus, but needed some assurances from a trusted source. And having himself investigated everything carefully from start to finish, Luke sets out to provide an orderly account of Jesus’s life and ministry, with a literary elegance and artistry his highborn friend and wider Greco Roman audience would appreciate. It is, in equal measure:
And that story begins with the parallel origins of two cousins whose twin stories set the stage for all that’s to come. Today we meet John the Baptist. Like Isaac and Samuel before him, and Jesus whose immaculate conception is foreshadowed here, John is miraculously conceived by the barren Elizabeth and her very old husband, Zechariah the priest. Months ago, on Luke’s narrative timeline, the Angel Gabriel came to Zechariah as he offered incense in the temple, bringing news of joy that Elizabeth would bear him a son who would be named John.” But Zechariah is afraid and doubtful, and so Gabriel silences him. And the priest is mute, unable to speak, until the child is eight days old and, after writing down his name -- John -- he is filled with the Holy Spirit who opens his mouth to sing the song we hear in today’s first Gospel: A song in praise to the God who Saw, favored, and Liberated God’s people according to God’s covenant with Abraham; it is song of Prophetic Sight over his son who will be “the Prophet of the Most High God” preparing the way for the Merciful Liberator who will make straight their way to Peace. Imagine for a moment you are Theophilus, reading this story for the first time, and you are utterly submerged in this mystical, divine dreamscape Luke has expertly crafted. Consider what visions his imagination may be conjuring as the Angel of God comes and goes with promises of the impossible from the Creator on High; as a barren woman conceives a Spirit-filled son; as a mute priest is given the Language of the Holy after nearly a year of silence; as prophecies are spoken and sung about material liberation that comes from divine, cosmic, eternal sources. Hold on tight to that vision, because now Luke is going to catapult us 30 years into the future to meet John the Baptist for the second time. We’re no longer in Zechariah’s prophecy where the rising sun from heaven shines down on those living in death’s shadow, guiding them to Peace the same way God led Israel through the Red Sea. Instead, Luke brings us into a very particular time and place, where specific people in specific positions of power now cast that shadow of death. He names Names and positions that both his ancient and modern readers will recognize, not just to provide necessary historical data and context so readers know when and where this is all really happening. But also to set up and prepare us for the coming showdown. So I want us to notice: that by naming Emperor Tiberius, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, and the high priests Annas and Caiaphus, Luke is giving us a whisper of the voices at the center of the power structures, that will, from this moment onward, send both his characters and readers alike hurtling toward the devastating and violent ends of both the prophesied cousins. And in order to understand “how we got here” when we get there, we have to go to the wilderness, far away from that center of power where John the Baptist is just one of many radical leaders, zealots, and separatists, who gather there to organize, plan counter-Imperial actions, build community, and practice ritual cleansing and baptism on the margins of society. Which is to say, Nothing about the wilderness itself or even a proclamation of baptism is especially unique or radical for the time. And yet we know that John is unique, and that his particular proclamation of “a baptism of repentance” is how and why Luke identifies him as the the voice crying out in the wilderness, Preparing the way of the Lord, in fulfillment of both his father’s and Isaiah’s prophecies. So it is critical that we understand what it means to be baptized in and by Repentance — not least because that word is loaded and fraught and has, like so many other words translated from Biblical Greek and Hebrew to English, been misdefined, misused, abused, and turned into a weapon of threats and condemnation in signs that say, Repent! Turn or Burn! Which are, crucially, the precise opposite of its Biblical meaning and John’s -- which is this: The Beginning is Near. So let’s talk about this word repentance. In Greek, the word is metanoia — and right here, you’ll remember, it is chosen by Luke, the Gentile, who is speaking to other Gentiles who are fluent in Greek and for whom metanoia in its most basic sense, simply means “To reconsider and be open to changing your mind.” It is not, as the Oxford dictionary suggests, about regret or remorse, much less about avoiding punishment or eternal damnation. It is about looking at something differently and considering a different perspective. Certainly for John, whose message is not one of militant resistance or separatism, “but [one of] social transformation and collective renewal,” (Troftgruben) the meaning of “repentance” is bigger, but it is still not, nor has it ever been, about remorse or damnation or any other kind of threat. Instead, what he is preaching is an intentional, practiced, all-consuming, immersive shift in perspective so disruptive and upending that it not only changes the mind but transforms the person, such that Mountains look low, valleys are high, and the crooked straight, because that is the kind of sight all flesh will need in order to see Salvation when He comes in flesh. Do you hear what I’m saying? He is calling people to flip onto their own heads and spin around in circles until they’re so dizzy that the straight line they now walk looks like a laughable disaster to everyone around them, even though they know it is the way to Peace. If they are going to see and not miss salvation when He comes, they’ve got to practice looking at everything upside down and dizzy. They’ve got to listen closely to the One who prepares the way of the Lord when his message of a baptism into repentance for the forgiveness of sins, is drowned by the voices of other wilderness zealots and militants preaching a baptism of revenge and condemnation of sinners. They’ve got to resist both the gravity at the center of power and the violence at the margins, stay at the river, in a counter-cultural community of repentance and forgiveness, so when Liberation comes to walk among them, they recognize and are ready to receive him. All these years later, this is still what Advent is about: Practicing the kind of transformed being that prepares us to recognize our Liberator and become his inverted Kin-dom. And so, beloved of God: May the Spirit who came to John the Baptizer in the womb and in the Wilderness come also to you. May she disrupt our expectations, agitate and invert our understanding, and transform us wholly, so that all Flesh can see Salvation when He comes to us in Flesh. Amen.
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