2nd Sunday of Advent
"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.''"
“For [God] is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap…” (Mal 3:2b)
Thank goodness this fire did not take away any lives… No one is quite sure how it got started. It may have been a fisherman who kicked a lantern, some have wondered. Whatever made for an opening for that fire to start, though, this fire completely took advantage of it. Hundreds, and hundreds of acres of mountain forest were consumed—up and around lakes, up and over creeks, through logs, over rocks, past waterfalls and hiking trails…at a height of 3,000 feet. This fire blew and was stoked by warm August summer winds, burning over 1700 acres of forested land. This fire that happened in 2007 had been needed for some time—for over a century, there had not been this kind of blaze. But once it was over, the nearby residents and the staff and community of Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state, gave thanks that this fire had not only spared the village, but also had brought the local firefighters, forest preserve staff and village staff into a closer communal bond than they had ever shared. And because of that fire, little sprouts of new green plants and trees now are emerging through the forest floor of ash, as the soil has been leavened and cleared out for new growth, and new life for the next one hundred years.
“For [God] is like a refiner’s fire..and like fuller’s soap…”
Delmar’s cleansing could not have come at a more opportune moment. Here he was with his buddies, all of them jailed criminals, on the run, with no one but each other, the shame of their crimes covering them as much as the black filth that covered their bodies from not having washed for several weeks. But then, as they rested in the forest, out of nowhere, white-robed people of all kinds began to walk past them…5, 10, 25, 50… and they were singing…about going down in the river to pray, and the good Lord showing them the way”… And Delmar, captivated by it all, desiring to be set free from his criminal past, and seizing the moment, rushed down to join them in the river, and was baptized by the minister, along with all of them.
Coming up out of the water, he said to his two pals, “Well, that’s it boys, I been redeemed! The preacher warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight-and-narrow from here on out and heaven’s my everlasting reward!” Everett, his friend and skeptic, said, “Delmar, what the hell are you talking about?! We got bigger fish to fry.” Delmar had none of it. “Preacher said my sins are warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Beaufort!” “I thought you said you were innocent a those charges,” Everett said. “Well, I was lyin’,” Delmar admitted. “And I’m proud to say that that sin’s been warshed away too! Neither God nor man’s got nothing’ on me now! Come on in boys, the water’s fine!” (from O Brother Where Art Thou, 2001)
“For [God] … is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap…”
Two stories, two promises, two transformations. Both the same God. God indeed is that fire—like the one that swept past Holden Village—that all-consuming raging fire that comes and burns its way into our lives and it can overwhelm us. Fire, like God, is dangerous stuff. But this fire, God’s fire, does not come to destroy us, to consume us. God’s fire comes to take all of the impurities out of us, to refine away by the forgiveness of our blemishes, our brittleness, our imperfections, to burn out of us all that keeps us from blamelessness. God loves to come and do this firey work in us—God loves that challenge of refining us as a whole people, straightening us out and making us right with one another. God loves to be that melting, shaping, burning desire that draws us together, even when so much of us wants to resist. There is no stopping this fire from bursting into us and overwhelming us, from making us closer to fine, closer to God and closer to one another.
And God is that soap, that water that cleansed Delmar, and that washes us clean too. God doesn’t transform and forgive us just through the strength and might of fire. God does it with gentleness—the gentleness of a bath in water, with the tenderness of a mother’s hands scrubbing away to clean clothes at the water’s shore. God’s soap-and-water-cleansing…are close, they are personal, they are tender. God will not stop washing and cleansing us, will not stop scrubbing until we are completely clean, completely scrubbed off…when we can be wrapped in a warm white robe of righteousness.
The strength of God, and the gentleness of God…two aspects, one God. This is the God who Malachi heralds to us as he prophesies about a messenger coming like a refiner’s fire, like a fuller’s soap. (3:2-3) And this is the God who is in the process of refining and cleansing this world for Christ who is coming. We will not arrive at a point when we as people will ever be completely pure, completely blameless; but God sends us Christ who comes to be one of us, dwell with us, not to make us perfect but to make us righteous before God.
In this Advent time of anticipation and frenzy, of preparing the way for the Lord—at home and at church—where do you see God’s refining and washing already taking place? How is God finding it challenging to carry out that work of fiery refining and gentle washing in us that God so loves and wants to do? Where do you with John the Baptist cry out to see our starving, grieving, injust world refined and gently ushered into the kingdom of God? God loves to get into the midst of that longing, that refining work. God loves to get into the midst of those tests, hardships and challenges we cry out against and that we come up against—whether it’s how we will make it through this season without a loved one’s presence, or how the ELCA will stand together amidst churches withdrawing mission support over decisions at last summer’s churchwide assembly, and how our own church will both care for this aging building but also make sure it is being used as a tool to build God’s ministry and mission.
God’s got us in the fire this season. And God’s got laundry soap all over us, scrubbing us in our baptismal water. God’s strength and God’s gentleness are making our pathways straight and smooth to receive the coming Christ, who will bring us to that day of completion, where all flesh will see the strong one, the gentle one, the Jesus one of God. For completing that refinement is the work that God loves to be about. Come, Lord Jesus, come, and do your strong and gentle forgiving, restoring work among this world you love so dearly. Amen.
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