Over
the last couple of months, I’ve been watching the PBS documentary on the
Vietnam War. The documentary is difficult to watch and can’t imagine what it is
like to watch for those who actually lived through the hell of that war.
However, I feel the need to be informed because it reminds me of just how
devastating the human will can be when it seeks to win, to be right, to be
justified no matter the cost.
In
the same vein, watching the documentary allowed me to further shatter the myth
“if you don’t remember your history, you are bound to repeat it.” After all, in
the first episode called Déjà Vu, the United States was fighting the same war
the French fought just a generation earlier. In my estimation, no amount of
remembering or not remembering will save us from repeating the same mistakes
again and again.
Now,
I’m not saying that we can’t learn from our mistakes. However, I am saying that
learning from our mistakes will not save us. Learning from our mistakes can aid
us along but eventually the human will, especially when intoxicated by pride
and fear and self-justification, will devolve into a destructive force.
In
today’s gospel lesson, John the Baptist calls the people to remember their
history, the history of Israel – one that unravels again and again through
human sin. John recalls the words of the
prophet Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The
Baptist is recalling a piece of Hebrew scripture that announced the good news
of the coming of a Savior. Isaiah was announcing that better times were ahead
for the people of Israel.
However,
400 years have passed since this announcement. While the people of Israel have
long since been exiled from Babylon, their land is occupied by the Roman Empire.
As you might imagine, things are a mess in Jerusalem. The scene is not too
unlike the global scene during the Vietnam War.
To
better understand the context of John’s announcement in Mark’s gospel we should
remember that Mark was writing around 70 A.D. around the time the temple in
Jerusalem fell. In 69 A.D., the Emperor Nero died and the Roman Empire saw a
number of assassinations on successive Emperors.
Meanwhile in Jerusalem,
Jewish zealots are waging war against Roman occupation. Other Jews in Jerusalem
are urging the people to just submit to Rome because at least they would keep
them safe. And some of the Jewish elite are serving as puppet leaders for the
Roman Empire.
Ultimately, the people of
Israel are more divided than they have ever been. The days are numbered for the
nation of Israel. They are on the brink of being overrun by another foreign
country. Even more, the supposed Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, has come and gone.
Forty years have passed since Jesus was executed by the Roman government on a
cross at the urging of the religious authorities.
Therefore, Mark wastes no
time announcing the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And this good news is remarkably different than any of the propaganda that they
are used to hearing.
The good news they are
accustomed to hearing comes from Caesar who promises peace and stability in the
region by increased military force via tax hikes. This isn’t good news from the
Jewish zealots who expect another King David figure who will drive the enemy
out of the land by lethal force.
Instead, the good news of
Jesus begins with a call to repentance. The beginning of the good news isn’t
about a call to arms. The beginning of the good news is about a call to turn
away from violence, a call to turn toward humility and non-violence through
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
God is ushering in a new
era, a new way of living, a new way of being through Christ and it starts by
preparing the way through repentance, by preparing a highway for our God, by
making room for a history rooted not in what we have done or left undone but by
what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do to redeem history by the coming of
his Father’s kingdom on earth.
And our participation in
God’s kingdom, in God’s redeemed history begins when we repent, when we stop being
informed by the false propaganda of the world and live toward the eternal truth
of God through the good news of Jesus Christ.
Whether you lived in 70
A.D. or during the Vietnam War or even today, what you see on the local
newswire is human history is repeating itself. Every generation is déjà vu all
over again. Every generation begs to answer the question, “When will the
violence and war and corruption stop?”
While my guess is as good
as yours as to when it will stop, I do know, as the writer of Mark announces,
the beginning of the good news, the beginning of the end to violence, war, and corruption starts with
repentance, starts with making a highway for our God. While our repentance
cannot undo history, our repentance can look to a new history – one
redeemed in the Way of Jesus Christ.
In 1995, Robert McNamara,
Defense Secretary during the first part of Vietnam, wrote in a memoir, “We were
wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.” He
further wrote, “People don’t want to admit they made mistakes. This is true of
the Church, it’s true of companies, it’s true of nongovernmental organizations
and it’s certainly true of political bodies.”
As we consider the call
to repentance, consider for a minute the damage you’ve done and others have
done to you because sins are not confessed. Think of the damage done in this
city, in this state, in this country life, in this world all because human
beings and institutions refuse to admit they are wrong, that they’ve made
mistakes. And this refusal to admit mistakes really does make a mountain out of
a molehill.
While we will never be
able to stop the molehill’s from popping up, we can look to repentance as a way
of stopping the molehill from becoming a mountain. And we have permission to
confess our mistakes through a God who chooses to judge us not for the
molehills we have made but for who he has made us to be in Jesus Christ– the
One who possess a faith that has the power to move mountains.
As I stated in the
beginning, humanity’s need for self-justification is a most powerful and
destructive force. This need for self-justification allows us to do the
unthinkable all in a vain effort to be right, all in a vain effort to win.
But the good news is that
we have a God who is desperately trying to turn this narrative around through
the good news of Jesus Christ, news that we claim when we turn away from our
need for self-justification and toward God’s desire to justify us through the
One who is redeeming history by way of love and forgiveness.
During this Advent
season, you are invited to wake up from the nightmare of déjà vu over and over
again, you are invited to wake up from the nightmare of humanity’s doomed
history by living a life of repentance, a life that brings us out of darkness
into light, a life that shows us the dream of God by following the Way of Jesus
Christ.
You are invited to
participate in a history that is redeemed once and for all through Jesus Christ
our Lord – the One who makes the valley’s high, the mountain’s low, the uneven
ground level, and the rough places a plain so that all the people together will
see the glory of the Lord. Amen.
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