John The Baptist proclaimed that someone was coming. Someone so spectacular that it was not enough simply to just wait for him to arrive. He called upon the people to be honest with themselves. To step back from their daily routines and prepare their hearts to receive the one whom God was sending, who would redeem them from their sin, and offer them new life. He challenged them to repent; and embrace the Son of God.
Indeed, there are many amazing and wonderful things about this season of Advent and Christmas that has now begun.
So what can we find at the core of it all?
I would like to offer another slightly different view: that in a very real way, we all are or we all can be John The Baptist.
We sometimes wander in the wilderness when we lose sight of what is right and good in the world.
We often get mired in the darkness of refusing to notice and care for the least among us that appear on our streets in the presence of starving children, homeless and the mentally ill. We wander in darkness as we decimate and desecrate our planet in the name of money and wealth.
We MUST be the ones, crying in the wilderness, against evil and injustice, along with John the Baptist.
We are not messiahs; we cannot save the world, but what we can do is be like John the Baptist, bear witness to the one who can save the world.
We can bear witness that there is one greater than us, who can make the sick well, the wounded whole, the blind to see. One who can bring us, with the Holy Spirit, through the wilderness to the Jordan River and beyond.
So perhaps this Advent, let us now and forever bear witness to all…especially those who are hopeless, sad, who do not know.
Let us bear witness to the one who calls us out of the wilderness to a life of love, forgiveness, joy and grace.
