December 7, 2003

Second Advent

Luke 3:1-6

When I was in college the computer was just coming into common usage. I was a history major. Amazingly enough, history was changing. With the advent of the computer vast amounts of data could be processed quickly. Historians began putting town records, births and death information, bills of sale—all kinds of statistical information into the hopper for analysis. Suddenly history was expanded from the study of a few influential political, social and intellectual persons to an interesting expose’ of what life was like for ordinary individuals. Important understandings began to come to light and powerful conceptions that had been taken as true began to be challenged. While history had always been about those who lived in the spotlight, now we were beginning to see the people in the wings…and in the audience.

I can’t help but think that the evangelist Luke wasn’t a bit ahead of his time as his gospel zeros in on John the Baptist.
“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 Phillip ruler of the region of Iturea 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.”

Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Phillip, Lysanias—these are big names.

Tiberius became emperor on the death of his stepfather Augustus in 14 A.D. The fifteenth year of his reign would thus be 28 or 29 A.D. Luke further tells us that Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea (26-36 A.D.), and that Herod was ruler of Galilee (4 B.C - .39 A.D.). Luke could have done better at this point. He could have specified that the Herod he is here talking about is Herod Antipas, not Herod the Great. Herod the Great was ruler of all Palestine at the time of the birth of Jesus. After Herod the Great's death in 4 B.C. his kingdom was divided among his three sons, Herod Antipas receiving the region of Galilee. This was the Herod who would soon behead John the Baptist. The rule of Judea was inherited by Herod the Great's son Archelaeus. Archelaeus, soon proving himself to be utterly incompetent in ruling this territory, was deposed by the emperor Augustus in 6 A.D. and replaced with a succession of Roman governors, of whom Pontius Pilate was the fifth.

Next Luke mentions Herod the Great's son Philip who ruled northern transJordan from 4 B.C. to 34 A.D. Lysanias is otherwise unknown. Annas was high priest from 6 A.D. to 15 A.D. but continued to be influential long after this time. Caiaphas was high priest during the ministry of Jesus.

All of this is historical record. All of it can be taken for granted because it can be documented six ways from Sunday. Of all this important information, of all these historical documentations in this lesson—the really important information comes in the next sentence.

The word of God came to John, son of Zacariah in the wilderness.

God passed by Herod and Pilate and Phillip and Annas. God’s word came to John in the wilderness.

The importance of this observation is twofold.

First, God comes not to the mighty and the powerful and famous. God comes to John, son of a second rate priest of the temple who had, perhaps affected by the religious reality of his father, left the mainstream culture to embrace a monk-like existence on the fringe of society. I haven’t thoroughly researched it, but I dare say outside of the Biblical narrative we have no historical record of the existence of John. Why it’s only been in the last century through archeological evidence that we came to know anything much at all about the community of religious dropouts of which John was a part. To a secular world John does not exist. He’s a nobody. He hasn’t trounced across the stage of history.

I wonder how many of us will be known in a hundred years. In five hundred years will anyone be able to prove our existence. Does it matter? The word of God came to John and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming… The validity of his existence was not that he left a footnote in a dusty history but that the word of God came to him and he responded.

God’s word comes to us. How do we respond?

The second very important observation about this passage is that Luke goes to great lengths to make us understand that God’s word does happen in history. The Word became flesh. God entered history at a particular instant, one special moment and that has made all the difference. A lot of contemporary mystical spirituality would suggest that we find God within ourselves; that if we look deeply enough into our own tarnished souls we will find the eternal. This kind of religiosity begins and ends with our own private yearnings and hopes. Christianity on the other hand would affirm that at a particular time in a very particular, concrete life God opened a window onto eternity. And what we see through that window is God’s limitless mercy and love.

So the evangelist Luke in a very short passage links eternity and history. God enters the world. God enters the world not with fame and glory, but in the words of a fine preacher James Allan Francis, through one solitary life. Perhaps you’ve read or heard this snippet from Dr. Francis’ sermon but I think it bears repeating. He writes:
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself... While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of humans upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

Amen.