Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
December 10, 2006
Luke 3:1-6
Salvation
1
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate
was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of
Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—
2 during the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert.
3 He went into all the country around
the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
4 As is written in the book of the
words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all mankind will see God's
salvation.' "
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When you hear a passage like this, do you wonder why Luke felt he had to give us all these names? Emperor Tiberius? Governor Pontius Pilate? King Herod and his brother Philip, who was also a ruler? And Lysanias, another ruler? Those were the political powers. He also gave us the religious ones: Annas and Caiaphas. Why does Luke think we’d care about them? Do you care about the emperor Tiberius? Or Herod’s brother, Philip? He ruled in Trachonitis. So?
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I don’t think Luke cares about these people either. But he used them to make a point. And that is: the word of the Lord DID NOT come to them. It came instead to a social nobody who lived in the outskirts of town where he dressed in animal skins and ate bugs and honey and whatever else he could find. John wasn’t invited to the palaces of these great people -- but what DID distinguish him was that God talked to him, and not to the powerful.
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Maybe one of the messages here is that when we’re too filled with our own sense of self-importance and power -- then God is not close to us. And there’s one more thing for us to think about this advent season: If salvation has to do with discovering our purpose in this life, and finding a way with God to accomplish that, then we need to find the way to our own wilderness. Because the wilderness is where we are stripped of our pride and arrogance. In the wilderness we discover our need for God. And from that place, we might hear the word that God speaks to us -- the word not spoken to the powerful in their palaces, but to the weak and the small in their dust-blown nowhere-lands. Jesus called God’s friends “the poor in spirit.” This advent, may we all become poor in spirit -- as poor as dirt. And may God mix the dirt of our poor spirits with all the tears we have cried in this life -- and shape that mud into the image of Christ -- our true identity. We will all know the meaning of salvation when we look into a mirror, or upon the face of a friend, or stranger, or enemy -- and see the image of Christ.