2nd Sunday of Advent

I was in boy scouts when I was a kid. One of the things we did every year was to spend a Spring weekend trout fishing. We always went to the same spot, which was a small campground near the stream in which we were to fish.

Penn’s Creek is a beautiful stream, fed by countless smaller mountain streams. This means, of course, that the water is bracingly cold at all times, but especially in the springtime, when there’s a good chance that it’s still receiving the last remnants of thawing snow. In the springtime, Penn’s Creek is always full and it runs deep and fast.

One year in particular, me and several other guys decided to go upstream from the campground rather than going downstream with everyone else. And it was at some distance from the camp when we discovered the bridge. It was one of those rope bridges with wooden slats on which to walk. With no small amount of authority, we decided that the fishing was probably vastly better on the other side of the creek, so we decided to take advantage of the rather rustic span before us. The banks of the creek were steep at this point and the bridge was actually elevated substantially above the banks so that it could be used when the water was high.

I don’t know if any of you have ever had to use a bridge like that. They’re perfectly safe, when properly built. But suffice it to say that it can be a rather “dynamic” experience. I was the first one to start across and, of course, things immediately start moving around. But that’s ok, because you can find a rhythm and it’s not bad. The problem was when the people behind me started walking across the bridge. That was when things really started to bounce! And with the racing, freezing creek beneath me? I nearly froze in my tracks. But there was only one direction to go, which was forward. And so, holding on for dear life, I started counting down the number of slats to go

I thought of that experience when I was reading this gospel text from Luke. At first glance, it looks like Luke is just a history buff. He begins a story by listing all of the rulers. Maybe he wants to anchor his gospel story in real time, so that we would know that this is not just some mythological event in a fairy tale land, but a real story that happened in concrete history.

But I think there’s more to it than just an interest in history. We don't realize how it would have sounded to first century ears, because these weren't just innocuous historical figures. These people represented all of the might, the tradition, the power, and the threat of the Roman Empire. These were the people who enforced the status quo. Listing their names one by one was like counting the slats on that rope bridge. One by one they stood in the way of liberation and justice and peace and compassion.

• Tiberius, the self-proclaimed divine ruler of the empire, was able to send his armies at a moment's notice to crush dissent. In Luke’s time, he was building a grand and beautiful city on the coast, designed primarily to extend Rome’s power even farther. There was no way to get away from his reach.

• Pontius Pilate, able to sentence Jesus to death for the sake of expediency and false peace.

• The Herod family, conjoined to Roman power, brutal to any opposition, murdering their own family to keep the throne, and willing to behead the opposition for the entertainment of the court.

• Lysanius is a mystery, but his Greek background, his family's connections to Cleopatra, indicate that his family was at the heart of the political and military intrigue that so often brought suffering to the population.

• And then there are Annas and Caiaphas, high priests from the ruling classes who had a stake in keeping the peace with the oppressor, and they were willing to sell out any voice that gave hope to those who were at the margins.

Without exception, these rulers stood in the way, as the world so often stands against the goodness of the gospel. When we hear this list, it's a reminder that the political and social and economic powers always have and still today often run counter to God's Word.

Where Anke’s mom and dad live in Germany, it’s quite a bit further north than here in Maryland. It’s far enough away from the equator that the change in day light is dramatic. In summer, the sun crests the horizon by 5 a.m. and is still hanging in the sky well into the evening. But by this time in December, the darkness has claimed more hours than the sun. It's dark when the alarm goes off in the morning, and it's dark well before anyone is even thinking about leaving work for home.

In December, life is framed by darkness. Maybe it's the darkness in Advent that makes us take seriously all these barriers that stand in the way of good news straining to reach all people. Our desire for the reappearance of Jesus come from our deep awareness that there is still so much that seems to stand in the way, so many barriers that seem to stretch out before us. Sometimes all we can do is count them, one by one, while we stand stuck in life, unsure how to take the next step forward.

I won't make a list of all the current rulers or leaders that seem to stand in our way today. It would probably get me in trouble. But I bet we could all start counting the things that keep us from getting to the place of peace and healing and forgiveness in our lives.

Certainly in the past couple of years, we might name the power of institutionalized racism. The seemingly every-day reports of racial violence have stolen away our conviction, at least in the white church, that we are moving forward. The truth is we're stuck, and we've not fully realized just how our black sisters and brothers are holding on for dear life.

Or there is the pandemic. A lethal virus doing what viruses do best.

Or there's our changing climate. We watch lakes dry up in some places and torrential rains fall in others.

Or there’s the degradation of our political culture, with both sides fanning the flames and driving us crazy with attacks and counter-attacks, spin and counter-spin.

And I suppose, we could all list our own barriers, too, the things that stir within us that cheat us out of abundant and full lives. Our bodies, refusing to do what we need them to do. Our minds, tricking us into paranoia or deep darkness. Our families that test us. Or simply our daily work that drains us of energy.

Before too long, this all gets so depressing and dark, our days getting shorter and shorter, the night coming closer and sooner. Luke understands this darkness. But his goal is not to lead his listeners into despair, to remind them that they are clinging to the bridge for dear life, ready to crash to the rocks below, but to announce to them that not one of those barriers could keep the Word of God from coming.

"The Word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness." In a tiny, faithful family, on the edge of the empire, in the wilderness, there is nothing less than the Word of God, the breath of life, presence of the Creator. I'm not sure if Luke means this to sound like a creation story or a return-from-exile story or our own story, but clearly he wants us to know that God's power is stirring. It is just over our shoulder, pressing us forward into a new future. The powers of darkness, evil, injustice, disease, and death cannot keep the light of God from shining on our path.

Another interesting thing about Penn’s Creek is that it runs through Penn’s Cave. You can take tours there, but you have to do so by boat. As I’m sure they do in any self-respecting cave tour, at one point, they turn off the lights to show you what cave darkness looks like. There’s literally no light to shine on those cones in the back of our eyes, which makes it impossible even for your eyes to adjust. They leave you in darkness, just long enough for people to start getting nervous. Then they light a match. One small match. And it’s stunning how that tiny light changes everything. Sure, there are still passages going off into the darkness, and there are shadows. But the rock formations, the stalactites and stalagmites are stunningly beautiful in that warm and tiny light. The faces around you come into view again, right there next to you where they had been all along; the other people on the tour. There’s this tiny little community that has experienced both the depth of darkness and the power of just a little light.

I don't know if we're clinging to the bridge or standing in the darkness of a cave, but I do know that we have lit one more candle on the Advent wreath, and the power of that light is changing everything. Even our shadows take on a new beauty when caught by the light. It is making a way in the wilderness, making the crooked straight, and the rough places smooth, and turning the road toward Bethlehem.

To a lot of the world, it might not seem like much. But to us, we see in this tiny flicker of light the glory of the rising sun, the Word of God, the presence of the Spirit, coming to us in real time. We see the view of a future set before us that is filled with forgiveness and peace and reconciliation and love. And right behind us are our fellow pilgrims on this journey, pressing us forward into this new future. There is a community of love, each of whom who has seen this light and heard this voice speaking in the wilderness, a community that is walking with us, counting the steps into eternity. And it turns out, we don't have to hold on for dear life, because the life of the one whose birth we anticipate is already holding on to us.

I know it's two weeks before Christmas. I know there is a lot that stands between this day and that night. Shopping and decorating, stress and family, wrapping and baking, joy and sadness. There will even be shorter days than today. There will be Caesar Augustus and Quirinius; there will be a long and crooked road from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But nothing can stop this birth. The child is coming, and we will be carried to the other side--to Bethlehem, to Easter, and to that moment when all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Amen.