{"id":2154,"date":"2009-12-06T09:08:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=2154"},"modified":"2022-04-12T09:14:40","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T13:14:40","slug":"forces-in-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=2154","title":{"rendered":"Forces in the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Text on Advent 2, December 6, 2009
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Luke 3: 1-6<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke would have loved the movies. Can\u2019t you see the storyboard for Chapter 3?: \u201c1. Long shot of Milky Way galaxy tracking in fast on Planet Earth. 2. With voice over: In the fifteenth year of the Roman emperor Tiberius . . . etc.<\/em> as camera zooms down over the Mediterranean, tracking fast down onto Palestine, now on Judea, now on Galilee, now on desert. 3. DFX mix to crane shot over John at river\u2019s edge to fast zoom closeup to prophet\u2019s face 4. Fade out voice over; fade in loud on Word of God coming to John in wilderness: \u201cPrepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight!\u201d Cut! Print! Rushes tonight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Luke has John quoting from Isaiah 40. \u201cEvery valley shall be filled, every mountain made low . . . \u201d Have you got this picture? The digital effects here are unbelievable. Everything that makes land beautiful\u2014the high mountains and river valleys\u2014are being leveled into one vast flatness. Why? What I am going to tell you now they should have taught you in Sunday School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Bulldozer from Beyond is blasting and filling so that the armies of King Cyrus of Persia can sweep down and destroy Babylon, which has been holding Jews in exile, lo these fifty years. Yes, it\u2019s history. The prophet had been reading the papers. He knew that Cyrus was on the march. It was the fall of 539 BCE^{*<\/sup> and the ancient prophet saw Cyrus as a tool in the hand of his God. Isaiah 40 is a prayer that Cyrus\u2019 shocking, awesome forces blast fast through the desert, so that the exiles might go home. That would be salvation. All flesh shall see the salvation of our God!<\/em> sang the prophet. This kind of concrete war-winning is what he meant\u2014 rescue by armed forces in the desert from bad rulers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n}

Now today, no one thinks like this anymore, right? Imagine supposing that salvation\u2014safety, homeland security\u2014was to be had by means of bloody war between forces in the desert. How primitive. Already John the Baptist was taking the ancient words of his Bible and turning the sound of the sword into a plowshare: salvation he interpreted not as homeland security\u2014 God knows, the Jews of John\u2019s day had no such security; Rome ruled them\u2014but salvation first as a work within oneself, a practice of peace that begins personally, in a transformation of your mind. This <\/em>is the way of the Lord, he declared in the desert. Prepare this way for the Lord\u2014that all <\/em>flesh, not just armored flesh, may see the salvation of our God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when the disciples are working so hard they haven\u2019t had time to eat, Jesus says to them \u201cCome away with me by yourselves to a desert place and rest awhile.\u201d (Mark 6.31) To a desert place, a still place, where forces work whose power is life, forces of utterly incomparable kind to those that make death in the desert. Were these latter prophets fools\u2014this John and this Jesus, just dreamers?\u2014to trust that God has forces in the desert able to overturn all fear? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

delivered at First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, New York<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2009 Stephen H. Phelps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Ancient clay tablets identified as The Babylonian Chronicle <\/em>inscribe this news for what was October 13, 539,BCE \u201c[Our god] Marduk is so infuriated by [our Emperor] Nabonidus that Marduk has called upon Cyrus to bring down the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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