FINDINGS II
Advent
II - C - December 6, 2009
Luke 3: 1-6
(Malachi
3: 1-4; Song of Zechariah (Luke 1: 68-70); Philippians 1: 3-11)
 By Harry T. Cook
11/30/09
RUBRIC
Advent, despite the eschatological bent of some of its
themes, is generally a season of positive anticipation especially because those
who attend upon its observance know the whole story. And inasmuch as only
biblical literalists consider the Second Coming as definitely on, though
perhaps as yet unscheduled, the general anticipation tends more to the earnest
sentiments of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's:
I heard
the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace
on Earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
This verse was written by an irenic New Englander during the
height of the War Between the States and reveals some of its author's
pessimism. Not often heard or read are the fourth and fifth stanzas of the
poem, and while not strictly eschatological, they do paint a bleak picture:
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Longfellow recovers in the end as he imagined the bells
pealing, as he said, "more loud and deep:"
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth good will to men.
The poet's robust hope was eventually realized in terms of
the North's defeat of the South and the supposed end of slavery. Longfellow died
in 1882 before the worst consequences of Reconstruction could manifest
themselves.
It is in a similar world in which we live now, with much to
celebrate, with much to regret, with much to guard against, much we do not know
and with much for which to aspire and to work.
WORKSHOP
[Note: Frequently in the paragraphs that follow, "Luke" or
"Luke's" work will be referred to as "he/she-his/her." There exists internal
evidence in the gospel that a woman or women may have had a hand in the
composition of According to Luke. It is a working hypothesis of my current research
and must be taken merely as such.]
Luke accomplished three things in these six short verses.
He/she clearly meant to accomplish two of them: 1) the placement of Jesus'
public career in an attestable historical context, and 2) the connection
between Jesus and the long-anticipated messiah. The third accomplishment may or
may not have been intended. It was to connect the monastic sect of the Essenes
(who probably gave us some number of what are known as the Dead Sea scrolls)
and the arrival of Jesus.
Luke's intention in vv. 1-2 seems clearly to be to give
his/her portrayal of Jesus an historical setting. Luke has some of the names
right. Some of the people he mentioned actually lived and did the things he/she
depicts them as doing, e.g., the governor of proconsul of Judea (Pilate),
tetrarch of Galilee (Herod). We do not, however, have nay idea whence the
marker of the "fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius." The best calculations
seem to make it 28 or 29 C.E. at about the time the Jesus of the synoptic
gospels was said to have begun his public work.
The point we think Luke was trying to establish was that
his/her Jesus was not a mythical character, but one who had actually lived, who
said what he is credited as having said and doing what he is credited as having
done. Luke means to say that his/her Jesus was fully human, which is to be of a
time and of a place.
Luke must have been well aware that the mainstream (what
would later be known as rabbinical) Judaism had not accepted the idea that
Jesus was messiah. Nevertheless he/she evidently believed that in any event
Jesus and the communities that formed around his memory (massaged and amended
as it was by the gospel writers) were together the fulfillment of Jewish hopes
from the inauguration of the rule of God as personified in "the anointed one."
What's more, Luke knew through the study of the Septuagint
that Jewish messianic hopes were pinned on the patrimony of the house of David
(hence Luke's fantastic tale of Mary and Joseph's overland trek to Bethlehem to
answer a summons to a tribal census -- a deus ex machine device fixing it so that
Jesus would be born in "the city of David." Luke strengthened the bond with the
Hebraic tradition by connecting Jesus to Isaiah's vision (40: 3-5) of a
messianic era when "every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hills
shall be brought low," i.e., a social, political and economic level playing
field. As had Mark and Matthew before him/her, Luke made John the Baptist the
forerunner or herald of the messiah as conceived of by Isaiah.
Whether or not Luke meant to connect any of this with the
mysterious sect of the Essenes is unclear. Considerable evidence exists that
would tie the bizarre figure of the Baptist to the Essenes or some like
separatist group whose members sought purity away from the world in preparation
for the battle of the Children of Light v. the Children of Darkness. It is the
baptism part (3:3) that makes some scholars think that John might have been at
least an Essene-sympathizer because the Essenes are known to have made a deal
of purification rites using water.
Could Luke have been saying that the Essenes and others like
them were, to some extent, right about the world -- that it was a nasty place
and no venue for those who would be part of any messianic age or enterprise,
ritual baptism being an inoculation against the world virus? Probably not,
because as Luke's gospel unfolds, it is people who are very much in and of the
material world whose lives will show forth the rule of God: e.g., the woman
"who was a sinner" (8: 36ff), the Samartian (10:30ff), the younger son (15:
11ff), the 10 lepers (17:11ff) and Zacchaeus (19: 1ff).
Thus is this Lucan passage for Advent II-C an attempt to
establish a Jesus as an historical figure in a context of Jewish longing for
messianic deliverance. The relevance of the passage for Christians whose
thoughts may turn to last things is that the ethic of this Jesus is messianic
in that its full implementation could inaugurate and maybe even establish the
kingdom of God or, better and more to the point, a rule of "peace on earth,
good will to men."
The readings from Malachi and Philippians complement the
gospel, with Malachi speaking of "the messenger" whose coming is desired. Be
careful, though, the prophet says, of what you wish for: "But who can endure
the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?" G.F. Handel set that
text to exceptionally appropriate music.
A cleansing of the Augean stables is at hand. Likewise Paul
spoke of the "day of Christ" against the coming of which it behooved his
audience to cultivate that peculiar intention known as "ahgahpay," or
self-giving love, that the way Isaiah (as quoted by Luke) said was to be
prepared would be prepared, as it were, a carefully attended field unto
a rich harvest.
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
Christmastime, which almost effaces Advent in the American
culture, and indeed in many cultures, has its genuine gaiety and its forced
gaiety. One is more or less under pressure to appear happy, whether or not he
or she is under the influence of alcoholic stimulus, as is often the case. Some
fear the coming of the holiday, so redolent is it of both memory and longing.
"I'm dreaming of a White Christmas," "I'll be home for Christmas; you can count
on that . . ." It is not for nothing that the suicide rate increases at this
time of year. Does it in the climes where summer is about to begin with longer
and sun-drenched days?
In any event, the celebration of Christmas with its seasonal
excess of gift giving and receiving, consumption of food and drink does have a
natural downside to it. That is due, of course, to the nagging cognizance of unrelenting
poverty suffered by so many millions of people, who would as soon the assurance
of several ordinary meals in a row instead of a once-a-year basket of largesse
while living from hand to mouth the other 364 days.
That is why the voice still cries in the wilderness -- in
the wilderness of huge cities that for many might as well be arid desert
expanses. The church would do well to temper its understandable joy in
celebrating the nativity of the one its creeds proclaim was God incarnate by
directing a considerable dose of materialism to those at the margin of the
kingdom, so making the crooked straight and the rough ways smooth.
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