“When you went out to John the Baptist in the wilderness, seeking a prophet, whom did you expect?” Jesus asked. As we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth, we are presented with same basic question of whom do we seek. Part of the gift of Advent is to remind us that often our expectations of whom God is supposed to be and where God is supposed to be, hide from us precious occasions of God’s revelation that lie very close at hand.
In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist is in prison and his disciples are understandably scared. Will they be rounded up next? John sends word to Jesus who by this time has gathered his own disciples and is well along in his ministry. “Are you really the one we hoped for?” pleads John, hoping he is and fearing he is not at the same time. Now Jesus’ ministry had not been a resounding success by the world’s standards and Jesus could have chosen to become defensive or even gently lower John’s expectations.
Jesus could have made the excuse, “Well, things haven’t gone as fast and as far as I had hoped, but after all, my disciples are not the quality I had hoped for. I have no one who is a graduate from Jerusalem, no budding pharisaic scholar. They are more like the couple of fishermen in the group and not the sharpest tacks in the box. Then I was kicked out of my hometown synagogue and told never to come back. My family thinks I’m nuts, and by the questions I’m continually asked, many who do stick around to listen obviously do not understand my message.”
Instead, Jesus sent word back that there were ample signs out there that a new order was coming, that God’s Spirit was moving, and new visions were inexorably emerging. The signs may seem slow at first, but they would not be held back. The signs of the new age were not going to be thwarted.
Advent retells the stories affirming that God’s gifts to us will not be overcome. Take Mary, a young girl, receiving a strange invitation. She did say yes to the angel Gabriel, but she must have had second thoughts. We can imagine her weeping alone, crying, ”Oi wey! No one will believe my story.” Yet instead of despair, out of Mary come the wonderful words of the Magnificat, “My soul has magnified the Lord.”
Joseph is another of those helpful saints of Advent. Later popular church tradition has mishandled his image. We customarily picture Joseph as a kindly, slow, exceedingly patient older man, who treats Mary as he would his own daughter. A characteristic of people who are cast as Joseph in pageants is that they have stooped shoulders; a beard edged with grey, and can mumble their lines in a gentle low voice. I would like to uncover another image of Joseph. Far from being an old man, Joseph was no more than a few years older than Mary. As a youth, he was generally regarded as a good lad who grew up to be an honest carpenter. He had known Mary ever since they were children, and looked forward to starting a family with her. He thought Mary was someone he could trust. He is informed that this woman to whom he is finally engaged to be married, is in a condition she clearly should not be in. At first he was tempted to break off their relationship quietly and quickly, to put her out of his life, to separate himself from this scandal, and when his wounds were healed, to seek someone else.
Despite his disappointment, Joseph remained open, and then he received an astounding message from God. Joseph did what many in our world find so hard to do. Joseph waited and listened! Then, instead of denying Mary, and rejecting or covering up what seems to be a scandal, running away from the hurt and shock of a strange and unbelievable explanation, Joseph decides to stick around. Joseph decides to accept the strangeness, the unknown and to accept that somehow through all this, the Holy Spirit of God was working. I wonder when Jesus said “Blessed are those who take no offense at me, who can examine in a new light, relationships and possibilities, who are not put off by the newness of the Gospel” if he was not thinking of Joseph in particular.
Yes, Advent is full of strange stories and remarkable responses, a number of which may make us uncomfortable. For we, like many in the crowds that went out to John the Baptist, want to hear what we want to hear and to see what we want to see, and many important things, critical things, get marginalized, ridiculed, or rationalized and pushed off into the background. Advent doesn’t let us do that so easily. Advent unrelentingly brings up stuff in our lives from which we would prefer to hide.
Matthew, writing for Christians largely of Jewish heritage and background, approaches the story in terms of the prophetic traditions and messianic hopes of the past being fulfilled in Jesus the Christ. Matthew, being the traditionalist, begins his Gospel with a Jewish genealogy. Like all proper genealogies of the time, the line is traced through the fathers. And then Matthew does a strange thing. He goes out of his way and specifically mentions four women as being ancestors of Jesus: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba: four very unlikely women through whom God worked, women who in their time would have been hardly considered women of great promise. Matthew continues on, linking the coming of Jesus with a surprise at every turn.
The feast of Advent never ceases to remind us that God works through the real stuff of life. Advent continues to ask whom are we preparing to greet. Who do we expect to find? Even this very day, Advent moves in strange ways, even among the ways of people just like us.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
