Meet John the Baptist today and he would probably creep you out. You might even think he was crazy and in need of medication. Really strong medication.
But not to the people who were flocking to see him in the first century along the river Jordan.
He was a standard issue, first century prophet. He drank no strong drink or wine and lived in the tradition of Elijah as described in 2 Kings 1. That made him a rather hairy fellow because prophets didn’t cut their hair. Eating locusts and wild honey out in the desert, he was totally dependent on God and living off the land.
Prophets didn’t talk about the future. They recalled the past and spoke in the present. They have been described as “truth tellers of the present and past.” And John was out in the wilderness continually prophesying, continually telling the truth.
This was what people were coming out in the desert to see, in the wilderness.
His message was simple, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
The word “repent” is interesting in what doesn’t get translated in the Bible. The word is that in Greek is continuous action. “Repent.” (and keep on repenting), not “one and done.”
Commas and punctuation matters, except in the Greek where they didn’t have punctuation much less spaces between words and everything was written in capital letters for many of the books.
Depending upon where you place the punctuation, it can be as we have it, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord” OR if you go back to Isiah 40:3 where John quotes this from it is punctuated differently. “The voice of one crying: In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.
And the rest of the verse: make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
It is in the desert that we find John. It is in the wilderness where Jesus goes toe-to-toe with the devil in preparation for his ministry. It is the wilderness where things get worked out.
It is in the wilderness where our God is not afraid to meet us and work things out and prepare us for ministry.
Think about the wilderness times in your life. How has God met you there? How did things get worked out? How where you prepared for ministry?
The image of the threshing floor is an interesting analogy for preparation for ministry. It is a concept that we don’t understand because of our urban base of understanding and let’s face it, how many threshing floors will you find in the United States?
Wheat grows on a stem and the grain is in the head. The grain needs to be separated from the rest of the plant. This would be done on a threshing floor.
A threshing floor is a three sided structure that is built in the side of a rise where air comes over it.
So the wheat is put on this floor and beaten. It is the process that separates the wheat grains from the chaff, which would be everything else. But wheat grains are significantly smaller than the rest of the chaff.
So the farmer takes the winnowing fork, which is two pronged fork. The thresher will scoop up the wheat and chaff and throw it up in the air, where the breeze comes over the structure and blows the chaff away and the wheat falls to the floor. It is then collected and made into bread.
Jesus is standing at the threshing floor. There are times when we feel so beaten down, that we too, lay broken on the floor. It is Jesus who picks up – our good parts and our bad parts – and gently throws all of into the air.
And with his holy breath, his ruach, his Holy Spirit, that gently blows our chaff away. This spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. The same words spoken at our baptisms and confirmations.
It is this spirit that blows our chaff into the fire and Jesus gathers the good part of us, which he puts into his granary and uses for his purposes.
The bad parts, the disappointing parts of us are burned with unquenchable fire and destroyed.
And we are prepared for repentance. Continual repentance.
Repentance is much more than saying, “I’m sorry and I won’t do it again.” It is a literal turning around. Do a u-turn. Go in the other direction.
So it is not so much of what we are doing wrong but rather, what do we need to do differently.
God uses the wilderness times in our lives to point out that our way is not the way that God would have us to go and it’s time to change course.
Imagine just what direction God could be pointing us in? Ask ourselves the question what does God want us to do and be in this time and this place.
God has a dream. We hear about it in Isaiah. It is a Peaceable Kingdom. That is the product of God’s judgement. A place where once there was animosity and hate is now harmony. Wolves and lambs. Leopard and baby goats. Calves and lions. All getting along. Lions become vegetarians and share meals with oxen. Children play with snakes and don’t get bitten. All are righteousness and faithfulness.
A place of justice and mercy. A place of hope. A place of wholeness. A place of peace.
God has a dream. The God who can raise up children of Abraham out of stones, will raise up a child out of a manger who grows up to be a man on a cross for the sake of all people. This man’s life, death and resurrection will be for the salvation of all.
So we are called by God to repentance, to change directions, to imagine, to hope, to be a part of God’s dream where the kingdom of heaven is so very near.
Even if it’s in the middle of our personal wilderness. A voice is crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.
God is indeed doing a new thing! This is the time to dream.