The Second Sunday of Advent
Year C

On the Wild Side

Readings: Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

There is a hymn that is well loved in this parish. “Oh Lord, my God,” it begins, “when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made.” It goes on to talk of the signs of God’s power and about the beauty of all that God has created. “Then sings my soul,” the author goes on to say. “How great thou art!”

The thought resonates in our souls. We learn about God’s greatness through our experience of God’s creation. We learn so much about God through the wilderness experiences of our lives.

I think back to some of those experiences in my own life. Some of the most memorable for me come from my time spent in the north when I was a young and adventurous teacher. I remember getting off the train in Moosonee and smelling for the first time the unmistakable odour of the north. It is a mixture of the freshest air you can imagine combined with the pure smell of nature.

Then there were my trips into the wilderness. One in particular stands out in my mind. We went by canoe up the Fort George River, one of the largest watersheds in North America, and site now of the James Bay Hydroelectric project. We made camp by some rapids. While our guide was fishing for our meal, we went exploring. I had the feeling as I tramped through the bush that I was the first person ever to set foot in that particular spot. That feeling still creates in me a sense of awe.

Wilderness experiences do that for us. They give us time to reflect on all that God has created. They give us an awareness of God’s greatness, of God’s power. We step back and say, “My God, how great thou art!”

The image of wilderness resonates in us in other ways as well. Wilderness times speak to su of loss and confusion, of sorrow and difficulty, of chaos and disorder. We do not choose such wilderness times. They happen. No doubt many of you are going through such times right now in your personal lives, times of illness, despair, emptiness, loneliness, fear, insecurity.

When we come into such wilderness times in our lives we want, above all, someone to help us find our way. We want someone to straighten the road, to level the hills and make the way forward clear to us. We want a Saviour.

That is where John the Baptist enters the scene. He lived a wilderness existence. He lived in solitude but had companionship with eternal things. In the wilderness he watched stars blaze in the night sky. He saw the sun rise. He felt the heat of the day. He experienced thunder and lightning. He watched the rain soak into the dry earth. There in that wilderness place, he meditated and prayed. He listened to the voice of God. His whole soul responded to that voice. In his speech was certainty. His message was straight. He spoke the truth.

From his wilderness place, John gave baptism a new meaning and a new urgency. His baptism called the people to repentance. He called them to turn their lives around, to change, to grow, to live in new ways. He called them to a vision of God’s kingdom here on earth. It was a call that he himself knew. He recognized his own need to change and grow, to change for change, to change on a larger scale.

It is a call that goes out to us still today. There is urgency in John the Baptist’s voice as he calls out to us over the ages. He calls us to change and to grow, knowing how badly our world needs that to happen. It is a call to change profoundly, to change for freedom, for justice, for peace. It is a call for revolutionary change.

And we need it, for these are wilderness times. We live in a violent world. The statistics about violence against women are staggering. Many women have little opportunity of seeking justice in a safe and secure environment. It happens in countries all over our world, but it also happens close to home. Last Wednesday was the anniversary of the Montreal massacre of 1989 in which fourteen women were brutally murdered just because they were women. We carry with us also the knowledge that a young woman lost her life in a shooting in September at Dawson College, also in Montreal.

There are many other violent acts that go on in our world, hate crimes against people of colour, hate crimes against gays and lesbians. Such crimes often go unreported and so statistics about such crimes may be even greater than those about women. The news is filled with terrorist acts, war … the list goes on. People are not yet free to say what they think, live what they believe, develop their gifts.

We live in a hungry world. Despite the fact that there is more than enough food to feed the world, millions of people go hungry. Every day, twenty-five thousand of them die many of them children. We need to repent of our wastefulness and greed. We need to change the way we live so that others can survive.

We live in a spiritually hungry world. Many young people find the church irrelevant. They may be looking for spirituality, but they are not looking for it in mainline churches. These are wilderness times in our church. That too means that this time in our history is not only an opportunity, but rather a necessity for us to change and grow.

During Advent we enter a wilderness time in our lives. It is a time to walk into our hearts. It is a time to notice what changes need to take place in our lives. It is a time for us to be part of the process of healing so that Christ can be born, not only in our lives, but also in the lives of those around us. Christ will carry out his mission through us as long as we permit him to fill the emptiness, tear down the obstacles, straighten the crooked paths, and reach out to touch others through us.

It begins with our own personal conversion. It begins with each one of us looking at our own lives. What barriers to God’s love need to be razed? What changes need to take place in our lives? How do we learn to live our lives intentionally? How do we live as God is calling us to live, authentically and faithfully in the world?

It continues in our congregational life. We all bring gifts and talents to this church. Are we affirming of one another in ministry? It is not enough for a few people to bear the responsibility for the whole congregation. Let us all ask what God is calling us to do. There are many opportunities for ministry in this parish. The question is, what am I willing to do to further the work of Christ in this parish?

It goes beyond our four walls into the world in which we live. We are neighbours, not only to our closest friends, but to those who are in need of God’s love. That is an endless job. We all need to ask what our responsibility is in furthering the kingdom of God.

It is by embracing all that the wilderness has to offer that we will begin to see it in all of its richness. We will once again exclaim, “My God, how great thou art!” T