Saturday Night Theologian
10 December 2006

Malachi 3:1-4

One of the most basic characteristics of horror movies is the anticipation that something dramatic is going to happen. The music takes on sinister overtones, the light dims, the characters look about nervously. In a scene like this, everyone, both the dramatic characters and the audience, knows that something will happen, they just don't know exactly when or what. Whether it's Jack Nicholson carrying an axe in The Shining, Leatherface carrying a chainsaw in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the shark attacking the boat in Jaws, the anticipation builds as the characters get ready for the inevitable event, but somehow when it happens, they're not prepared for it. Often it's still more than they were expecting. Malachi talks about the impending Day of the Lord as an event that will occur suddenly, and even those who are ready for it will not be fully ready. "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple." Even though the faithful anxiously await the Lord's return, his appearance may well be more than they bargained for. "Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?" Those who long for God's intervention because they think that it will be a day of judgment for their enemies might just be in for a rude awakening. God will refine humanity like a refiner's fire, the prophet says, until they offer gifts of righteousness to God. On the Day of the Lord, the righteous have nothing to worry about, but it will be a different story for the self-righteous.

Luke 1:68-79

What are the names of the people who attempted powered human flight before the Wright brothers? Who was the man who built the first car using an external combustion engine, rather than an internal combustion engine? Who invited Martin Luther King to Montgomery to speak about the Montgomery bus boycott? For every important innovation in the history of humanity, those who have made great breakthroughs have been preceded by others who tried and failed, who laid the groundwork for success in some way, or who saw the potential that another person had to address the problem at hand. Occasionally such people receive a certain amount of credit. Thus, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus is widely recognized as an important predecessor to Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation, and James Boswell is famous for the biography he wrote about Samuel Johnson. In most cases, however, we know those who are famous, but we know little or nothing about those who influenced, discovered, or formed them. John the Baptist is well-known as Jesus' forerunner in the gospels, but we actually know next to nothing about him. In fact, in Luke's gospel John the Baptist is off the scene before Jesus begins his public ministry, since Luke describes his arrest before telling about Jesus' baptism. Moreover, Luke never explicitly names the person who baptized Jesus. The reasons for John's virtual disappearance from the gospels are twofold. First, for all his importance in his day, John was completely overshadowed by his contemporary, Jesus of Nazareth, at least as far as early Christians were concerned. Second, since those who followed John the Baptist apparently formed a group that rivaled early Christianity, Christians might have de-emphasized John's role as Jesus' predecessor. In light of these facts, the fact that Luke mentions John the Baptist at all is a testimony to his stature and significance. The poem that his father Zacharias speaks in today's first reading from Luke is similar in many ways to Mary's Magnificat, recorded in the same chapter in the gospel. After praising God for sending the promised messiah, Zacharias describes John's role in the enterprise: to go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give God's people the knowledge of salvation through forgiveness of sins, and to enlighten those who dwell in darkness. Perhaps it is human nature for us to long for fame and prestige, but most of us will never achieve it. However, it may be that we can help prepare someone who will be the next Martin Luther, the next Martin Luther King, or the next Mother Theresa for his or her place in the limelight. In the library of Prague are three medallions. The first shows Wycliffe striking a spark, the second shows Hus lighting a fire, and the third shows Luther carrying a torch. Without Wycliffe's and Hus's efforts to reform the church, Luther might never have succeeded. Maybe God will call some of us to a life of recognition, but we need to be willing to strike the spark or light the torch for someone else to carry, if that's what God asks us to do.

Philippians 1:3-11

In the spring of 2005, Sergeant Logan Laituri had already spent fourteen months in the combat zones of Iraq, and he was home on leave. While he was home, he had what he describes as a conversion experience. Although already nominally a Christian, he felt the call to "live radically for Christ." Since Jesus taught that his followers were to love their enemies, he could not reconcile shooting Iraqi insurgents with his understanding of Jesus' demands on his life. He filed for conscientious objector status, and he volunteered to serve on the front lines in Iraq, only without carrying a weapon. The army declined to grant him conscientious objector status, so it assigned him to a non-combat unit, and he served the remainder of his time there, then left the army. However, he wasn't finished yet with the Middle East. After leaving the army, he volunteered to be a member of a Christian Peacemaker Team, striving for peace in Israel and Palestine. His ultimate goal is to be a missionary in the Middle East so that he can show people his love and God's love, regardless of whether he wins any converts to Christianity. When Paul wrote the Philippian church, he began with an extended greeting to Christians in the first church that he had planted on European soil. This is how Paul describes his prayer for the church in Philippi: "that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God." Paul says that love, the love that comes from God, will lead them to a knowledge of how to determine the best way to live, and once they determine God's path, Paul urges the to follow it. The best way to live is not always the most popular way, or the way that everyone else is living. For Sgt. Laituri, it was a lonely and difficult path, but it was one that he firmly believed that God was leading him to take. Hating our enemies is easy, loving them is hard, but loving them is exactly what God calls each of us to do.

Luke 3:1-6

Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanius, Annas, Caiaphas--the author of the Gospel of Luke goes into a lot of detail to specify the precise historical setting when John the Baptist, and by implication Jesus, began his public ministry in the region near the Jordan River. Why does Luke go to so much trouble to describe every major ruler in the vicinity, plus the precise year of the Emperor Tiberius's rule? Luke does so because he wants to put the public ministry of John, and especially Jesus, in a firm historical setting. This is important for him because Luke sees Jesus as the center of history. Before Jesus came the Law and the Prophets, and this period ended with John the Baptist, hence John's exit from the pages of the gospel before Jesus' public ministry begins with his baptism. After Jesus will come the Church Age, the beginning of which Luke describes in the book of Acts, beginning on the Day of Pentecost. In the center of history stands Jesus, towering over the landscape like a colossus, with one foot firmly rooted in the prophetic tradition and the other planted in the church. For Luke, Jesus joins the two periods together, but he also transcends them. He is a prophet like John, but he is more than a prophet: he is messiah. He is the inspiration for the church, but he is more than just its inspiration in a metaphorical sense: he literally sends the Holy Spirit to empower the church for its task in the world. Today Jesus continues to straddle old and new, law and grace, the Spirit-led past and the Spirit-led future. Jesus is looking for followers who will likewise invest themselves in the nitty-gritty of history in the making. There are too many Christians who are ready for heaven or ready for Christ to return, but Jesus calls us to set those interests aside and invest ourselves in the sometimes difficult, but often rewarding, world of history.