Advent
December 5, 2021
Scripture Reading: Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Wilderness: érēmos – properly, an uncultivated, unpopulated place; a desolate (deserted) area; (figuratively) a barren, solitary place that also provides needed quiet (freedom from disturbance).
In Scripture, a “desert” (2048 /érēmos) is ironically also where God richly grants His presence and provision for those seeking Him. The limitless Lord shows Himself strong in the “limiting” (difficult) scenes of life*.
My parents retired from the farm and moved to a bungalow in a nearby town with a nice small backyard. Except when he served in the army, my Dad had never lived in town. Furthermore, his parent’s farms and our farm were located on the Great Plains, flat land with a few rolling hills and native trees near streams. My Dad suffered from location claustrophobia if that is possible. So he began to search for a place with more space, and he found it. In February, I did not consider what I might find when I followed the directions to the new location and gasped in shock when I turned into the driveway and saw an in-town wilderness. The home had been vacant for some time. It set at the edge of town a dirt row separated it from a creek that flowed behind. The place was two acres of overgrown brush and weeds. The house still had the furniture and other belongings of the previous owner, and its most recent occupants were varments. I thanked God they were still living in the bungalow and prayed that they would realize the calamity of this decision. My Mom was an avid gardener, and my Dad had worked as a carpenter before serving in the army and then buying the farm.
I did not see this wilderness again until the end of March. I turned into a curving, well-graveled driveway lined on one side by rows of daffodils and irises. Their bulbs had been there all along. Mom just gently discovered them and nurtured them. Rose bushes surrounded the garage door. Cuttings from the boxwood bushes that originated in Tennessee before the Civil War were taken to Arkansas, and then to Oklahoma were planted on either side of the front steps. The lawn was mowed neatly; the back yard was now a well-laid planned vegetable garden. There were also two paper shell pecan trees and one native pecan. The house was repaired where necessary and spotlessly clean.
Our world feels like a wilderness now For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on Earth, good will to men**. But God is with us and will guide us to do a new thing in us*** if we are willing to invest our lives in the work of loving and nurturing one another.
Prayer:
Lord, renew us again as we await the coming of the Christ child and the fulfillment of this promise
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert***. Amen.
*https://biblehub.com/greek/2048.htm
**From sixth verse of Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, See at https://poets.org/poem/christmas-bells
***See Isaiah 43:19
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.