By Amy Butler
I’ve been sticking with the Gospel texts assigned by the lectionary for sermon-writing these first three weeks of Advent even though John the Baptist and I have a kind of rocky relationship history. I just have always resented how John intrudes on the season with images that seem to detract from the whole soft-starlight-shining-on-a-peaceful-stable scene. But Matthew’s story of Jesus’ coming, as you know, is filled with all kinds of details about John, most of which do not facilitate the writing of the sort of sweet little pre-Christmas sermons generally preferred this time of year.
Rather than avoiding John, I decided to view Matthew’s texts as a challenge this year. It’s good discipline for me to spend some time with John, struggling to understand a little more about why camel hair and locusts relate in any meaningful way to Advent. Or anything, really. And I am happy to report that what has happened over the course of these three weeks is nothing short of a Christmas miracle: I’ve started to like old J.B.
In fact, I think I might even love him.
It’s not that I’ve suddenly begun to think of insect-eating as endearing. This change of heart, oddly enough, has to do with repentance. John’s always harping on repentance — it’s the theme of all his sermons. And I just have never thought of repentance as a topic in the top five on my list of favorite topics for preaching anytime, much less during Advent. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see that there’s a whole lot of hope and expectation in the kind of repentance John’s preaching about. And hope and expectation sound a lot like Advent to me.
See, the way John talks about repentance, it’s not a nice little feeling of being sorry and trying to do better next time. The powerful word he uses calls to mind the complete reorienting of your life — a stopping right where you are, turning all the way around and moving in a completely new direction. Repentance. That’s what really got me this year.
It’s a hard thing to reorient a life — to turn in a different direction, to repent, when you can’t see what’s up ahead. It takes courage. And faith. It takes looking as hard as you can for a little spark of light that might show you what’s next. It takes believing with everything you can muster that the unknowable path up ahead is a better way to live than even what feels safe and familiar.
I was telling my spiritual director about my newfound affection for J.B. and she gave me a repentance assignment. Sit down with your journal, she said, and look back at your life. Write about everything you feel and know, all that you can see from this vantage point. Mark the sadness and joy, all the pain and success, regret and happiness you can see from there. Then, get up and turn around. Turn your chair all the way around. Sit down again and write about what’s ahead. What can you see? What can’t you see? What scares you? What fills you with so much joy and anticipation you can hardly breathe? Write it all down.
It was a powerful exercise, a new way to look at repentance, an Advent gift to me from John.
So, I think I’ll pass it along. A little gift of repentance for this Advent from my newest favorite Bible character. Happy holidays!