DECEMBER 10th, 2023 PASTOR DON PIEPER
The Return Of Elijah LUKE 3:1-6; 7-18
“REPAIRING THE WAY”
I love how Luke writes his gospel like a skilled investigative reporter, unpacking the five W's of a good sleuth: Where, When, Who, What & Why. They're reminiscent of the questions a mother might ask her son: “So where did you go last night?” Nowhere. “Who did you see?” Nobody. “What did you do?” Nothing. “How long do you want to live?” (Forever?)
So went the conversations in my home growing up. Luke, fortunately, provides us with far better and more illuminating answers. As he notes as he began his gospel: “Having used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples, I have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, in order to write an accurate account for you...” (Luke 1:1-3)
So in order to unpack the relevance of John the Baptist and his ministry, Luke begins with the when question. “It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor, Tiberias Caesar: Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Phillip of Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler of Abilene and Annas and Ciaphas were high priests.”
(Luke 3:1-2)
Noting who was ruling when and where was a common way of dating official documents in the day. The more names provided the more accurate the date being identified. As you can see, Luke was being quite thorough. Most significant among those mentioned is actually the least well known, that of Lysanias. He's the replacement of Herod the Great's third son, Archeleus, not mentioned here because in 6 AD he was banished from the realm. By overlapping the times when each of these rulers governed, we wind up with a one year window, 27-28 AD, in which what follows occurred.
That's the when, punctuated by a sentence that then points us to the where: “At this time..., a message from God came to John the son Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness. John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized...”
(Luke 3:2-3)
So the where is not a city or isolated location, but a general area at or near the Jordan. A quick look at a map helps us visualize the area in question. John's ministry along both banks of the Jordan, which runs from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the Dead Sea in the south, meant that his baptizing ministry moved him back and forth from the areas governed by Lysanias and Herod Antipas. And his preaching in the wilderness, an area in between the Dead Sea and the country's capital in Jerusalem, put his call for repentance, proclaimed loudly and passionately, within spitting distance of Ciaphas/Annas.
Both the when and the where reveal that John was active in a time and a place wracked by political and social tension. Luke has also just mentioned the who: “John, the son of Zechariah”. That immediately recalls the events we read about last week... There we read about how John, born supernaturally as he was, was as Malachi prophesied, “a man with the spirit and power of Elijah.” (Luke 1:17/Malachi 4:5)
To further clarify John's significance, Luke notes that Malachi wasn't the only prophet to talk about him: “Isaiah had spoken of John when he said, He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord's coming!'” (Luke 3:4)
In John's gospel we see, though, that the 'who' question is not so cut and dry. People still get confused about his identity. I saw a quip that features two guys talking over a cup of coffee. One says to the other: 'So was John the Baptist a Southern Baptist or an Independent Full Holiness Baptist?'
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Another one shows a couple of biblical looking fellows, one of whom is pointing to the hills and says, “Sorry, I'm John the Lutheran. The guy you want lives out in the wilderness.”
John's contemporaries couldn't figure him out either – this locust eating, camel hide wearing, rough-talking preacher from the hill country wilderness. Who is this rable-rousing hillbilly?
“So the Jewish leaders sent priests and temple assistants from Jerusalem to ask John, 'Who are you?' He came right out and said, 'I am not the Messiah.' (They obviously hadn't been listening)
'Well then, who are you?' they asked. 'Are you Elijah?' 'No,' he replied. (He wasn't Elijah reincarnated, as some have suggested. Reincarnation is not a biblical reality.)
'Then who are you? We need an answer. What do you have to say about yourself?”
John replied, 'I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, 'Clear the way for the Lord's coming!'
(John 1:19-23)
John was clearly saying that he was the forerunner to the Messiah the prophets had foretold. He was sent to get everyone ready. This gets us to the 'what' of his message.
Luke suggests that there were at least four elements to John's preaching. The first, which we noted last week, is that which he is best known. As Luke informs us: “John preached that people should be baptized to show that they'd repented of their sins and turn to God to be forgiven.”
(Luke 1:3)
So what does it mean to repent? In light of one guy's confusion, I can tell you that it has nothing to do with scraping your house and applying a fresh coat of paint!
Years ago, I joined a YMCA and talked to a trainer about weight lifting. He told me that should do some strength training. I replied, “Sounds good”. “You'll also need to do some cardio,” he said.
“Great!” I said. Then, looking up, he said, “You'll also need to eat less fats and carbs. To be perfectly blunt, you'll need to change the way you think about food. It isn't recreation; it's nutrition.”
I thought, “this guy is looking to start a fight!” Change the way I think about food? There's a word for that: repentance. The Greek word, metanoia, (repent) means to change the way you think about some thing, how you perceive what matters, how best to experience the fulness of life.
Luke's list of powerful leaders points to this realignment of our thinking. It's not only a list to provide the date of John's ministry, it provides a contrast at the heart of John's ministry. After listing all these power-hungry tyrants, Luke states: “At this time a message from God came to John, son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness.” (Luke 3:2) It didn't come to the great rulers of the day or even to those who considered themselves more religious or godly than others, but to a hillbilly dude.
God's message didn't come through the channels of human power but out in the middle of nowhere. The anointed one, God's messiah, didn't arrive in a palace but in a barn. John's call for repentance was centered in a wakeup call to change the way we think about power and what matters.
John's second message was a proclamation based on Isaiah 40: “Prepare the Way for the Lord's coming! Clear the road for him! The valleys will be filled, and the mountains and hills made level. The curves will be straightened and the rough places made smooth. And then all people will see – the salvation sent from God!” (Isaiah 40:3-5/Luke 3:4-6)
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Few stories or details are recorded in all four gospels, largely because John seemed intent on sharing what had been missed in the previous three, but this detail is found in all four – John's message was a proclamation of the prophecy in Isaiah 40. The lines quoted here by John refer to an ancient custom of making highways and cities ready for when their king came to visit. It was still being done when the Tudors ruled in England. When Henry VIII traveled early in his reign, the potholes were to be filled, flowers were to be planted, cities were to be cleaned and lavish decorations adorned.
This is the image John adopts from Isaiah 40. What's uneven is smoothed over, what's crooked and twisted is to be straightened, what's wrong is to be made right. John is calling people to do exactly these things with not only their outward conduct but in terms of their inner thinking. But of the four gospels..., only Luke includes verse 6 - the King in question comes for all people!
Third, John declares that this change of inner thinking should be evident in how we view this salvation sent from God. That is, it's not something one can inherit from one's parents or take claim to based on one's heritage or lineage. This salvation comes one person at a time. “Don't just say to each other, 'We're safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.' That means nothing...!” (Luke 3:8)
This addresses a fallacy still prevalent today, the idea that because our parents/spouse are Christian, or that we were raised in a certain denomination, we also will be saved. But salvation is not inherited from our parents. It has to do with a personal relationship between us and God. As the imagery of the prophetic passage John has quoted suggests: “God will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry each lamb in his arms, holding them close to his heart.” Each lamb must decide.... (Isaiah 40:11)
And fourth, John's message is a call to stand out in our commitment to God and the Way of God which is the metaphor the early church used to describe their commitment to Christ and his cause. The followers of Jesus weren't originally called, 'Christians', they were called followers of The Way, in sync with how Jesus identified himself: “I am the Way, and the truth, and the life!” (John 14:6) How fitting that John's call to action was to “Prepare the Way for the Lord's coming!” (Luke 3:4)
How so? That gets to the fifth question: why. Why does this matter? “What should we do?” To that very question John directed them to think and live in ways counter-cultural to the selfish and immoral norms of the day. Instead of hoarding belongings and eating more than they needed, they were to give to those less fortunate than themselves. To those in positions of power and authority, they were to work with integrity and exercise restraint, living in contentment rather than seeking more.
(Luke 3:10)
As Mahatma Gandhi famously put it, “Live simply so others may simply live.” (Gandhi)
John's answers to their question, what should we do, points us to life style in which we live out Jesus' command to “love your neighbor as yourself”. We do this by putting the needs of others first.
(Matthew 22:39)
We're called to swim upstream in the me first generation in which we live. I read how the French have recently elected a national leader who won under a campaign of “France First!” I wonder where they go the inspiration for that slogan? John's call to prepare the way for the Lord's coming is a call to live contrary to that kind of me first thinking, living in courageously counter-cultural kind of way
At the National Special Olympics that took place in Seattle one year, a group of special needs youth lined up for the 880 race. Some of the youth were Mongoloids and others had misshapen limbs. No gun was used but instead someone yelled, “On your mark, get set, go!”
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Off they went. As they reached the final bend in the track one of them fell down. The other runners suddenly stopped. One by one, they went over and helped the hurt runner to his feet and then as a group they helped that runner finish the race. They all crossed the finish line at the same time. Even those who had been winning went back and helped out. They didn't use their advantage/position of power to cash in, but rather cashed in as role models of John's call to live simply, counter-culturally, preparing the way for a photo finish ending, when “all people will see the salvation sent from God.”
(Luke 3:6/Isaiah 40:5)
What might it look like for you to do the same? Where can you set aside your agenda, your pride, your wishes and wants on behalf of another? How can you adjust what's rough or crooked, uneven or distorted, in your thinking in order to prepare his way in your life – and those around you?