Many ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth. and then formed man and women in his image; Long after the great flood, when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant; twenty-one centuries from the time of the promise that was given to Abraham and Sarah; thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt and Miriam danced in freedom;
eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the judges; one thousands years, (tears) from the anointing of David as king, in fulfillment of the times and years and months and days discerned by the prophets; in the one-hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome; the forty- second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus; while the whole world enjoyed a span of peace, Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the Eternal father, desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and nine months of growth in the womb of his mother "Mary" now in our own times, as we are looking forward,(2016 ) to the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, God made flesh, proclaimed by John.
TEXT; In the fifteenth year of the rule of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip his brother tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, The Word of God was spoken to John son of Zechariah in the desert, scholars calculate that John began his mission sometime between 27 and 29 A.D. The account from Luke gives examples which clarify the meaning of "repentance." for the forgiveness of sins. He went about the entire region of Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance proclaiming which led to the forgiveness of sins, as written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet.
"A Herald's voice in the desert, crying' make ready the way of the Lord, clear him a straight path. Every valley shall be filled
And every mountain and hill shall be leveled. The winding's shall be made straight
And the rough ways smooth.
and all mankind shall see the salvation of
God." Is.40:3-5.
About a month and a half, "Advent" season will be upon us. Prepare to meet your God! Get ready to prepare the way of the Lord. But that's a whole new ball of wax for twenty-century Americans. Who needs repentance? One of the great Advent preachers of a recent day tells of a cartoon in the "New Yorker" magazine which showed a man who had just passed a sign that read, " Prepare to meet thy God!" And so he stopped before a mirror of a cigarette machine to brush his hair and straighten out his tie. And the preacher, who possessed the gift of getting at the vanity of much that we call Christian, said of the cartoon, " it was an acid comment on the shallow, cosmic make-do, which we like to struct around in heavens face, hoping to collect a little credit. Well, that will never do, you know. This was the damnable delusion John the Baptist. had to put up with, and never did, as he confronted broods of pious vipers. in is day. After all they were "Sons of Abraham." If there were any preparation necessary, any tuning-up or shaping-up, it could be done with several small adjustments on the screws of life. But the attitude is still around, the notion that a little brushing up will serve the purpose, spraying with the new dry look, sweeping the dandruff off the shoulders, maybe switching to a new brand of deodorant. who needs repentance? Can't we meet God just as we are? We may be a little fuzzy on the meaning of repentance, but if we have heard correctly we suspect that it involves much more than several small adjustments, and that's what we are afraid of. It comes with empty hands and empty heart and reaches for the grace of God's forgiveness, which is, in fact is the only way a man can be prepared. We know the "accent" of Advent season is repentance. The voice is crying in the wilderness again, "Repent!" The kingdom is at hand! God is breaking through!
Prepare to meet your God, Prepare to meet the Lord."
" Listen then! It seems to be our Cardinal vice today- nobody ever listens. or if we listen, no one hears. "No one ever listens." There are voices all over the world today crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord! We are working with two paragraphs of scripture simultaneously today.
That by itself may be a little more for a "Sunday afternoon." One paragraph goes back"3,000 years, written by a Jewish prophet called Isaiah. The other reaches back 2,000 years written by a Gentile doctor of medicine who is known among us as St. Luke. That does it. Dare we scrape the mold from these two ancient paragraphs and slap them on the faces of people in our century?
What would an ancient prophet know about our problem, or how can a first century physician help?
Is their anything his word can say to us. Perhaps there is, It may depend how your ear is tuned.
Judah was in captivity for " Seven decades," Jerusalem, their Holy City, lay in ruins and the temple of the Lord in desolation. This had been God's judgment on his faithless people who had sinned and not repented, who had tried to use God rather then serve him, who manipulated him to serve their small concerns and who forgot the mission and the purpose he had given them,
or shall we say, He had them on his hands? They thought they had God in their pocket, only to discover that He had them in His hands.
But near the end of captivity the prophet heard a voice, " Comfort, comfort, my people. speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned,that she has received from the Lord double for this prophecy all sins." The voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the lord. Get ready for your God, for He will come and God will act! The God who came to save them from captivity in Egypt, now would come to save then from captivity in Babylon. The ancient covenant that he had made with them, was not forgotten ( Sinai). The mission he had given them was not forsaken. His faithfulness toward them never failed. His love never cooled. His purpose for his people ripened. Today, get ready, God will act. And is their any other way, But, " God's way?" prepared by the Good news of forgiveness, He hasn't cast us off forever?
Historic Details" Almost eight centuries went by before St. Luke picked up this prophecy and pinned the name "John the Baptist on the voice that cried, " Prepare the way but will you notice how he does it? Sometimes we are tempted to ignore details. Luke does not! Luke is telling us that in all history; that Jesus Christ is for the world., that His salvation is for us! We are to repent! Believe! Obey!
To repent is nothing else than to turn in whatever it might be that keeps so many of us here and now from having anything to do with God. To Repent is nothing more than to remove those road blocks, between us and God. Do not put on the act of being sorry, with pleas for grace to make it sound sincere. John the Baptist said it this way, " Prepare the way of the Lord!" he was here to preach a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ, "
He summons us to bend proud knees, to bow stiff necks, to open empty hands, and to receive the Gift. Amen!
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