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Luke 21:25-28

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

His nickname in prison was Trunk, as in Trunk Full of Guns. It wasn’t a bad nickname to have in prison because people thought you were a little crazy, which helps when you are a scrawny teenager who's never been in a fight. As Trunk tells the story in an Esquire Magazine article ten years ago, it was July 6th, 2003. He was nervous, but determined. He and two teens even younger than him were armed like a militia; rifles, shotguns, machetes, handguns, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Trunk wasn’t going to a range.

They took to the streets at around 3am. After a failed carjacking attempt, Trunk told his would be accomplices to head back to his house, regroup, and rethink their plan. That’s when the police officer spotted them: three young men dressed in black trench coats and armed to the teeth. Reflecting on that moment, Trunk says, the officer: “jumped behind the door of his car and told us to drop them. It was a standoff. I saw that he was shaking. I kept thinking that he must have a family. I was like, 'I don't want to be the bad guy.' I never wanted to be the bad guy. I still thought of myself as a decent person. I was still able to put myself in his shoes. I hadn't gone past the point of no return.” Trunk still had empathy.

When the officer shouted Down, no one moved. But then slowly, Trunk gave the command to put down their weapons. He spent ten years in prison, a best case scenario for him. And oddly enough, Prison is what saved him, because according to Trunk, he had no other choice but to learn how to talk with other people. If he didn’t, he would have been crushed.

Many years later and Trunk now helps people who were just like him: ostracized, unnoticed, and unseen.

When asked if anything would have prevented him from feeling the way that he did or attempting what he did, Trunk said “I wanted attention. If someone would have come up to me and said, 'You don't have to do this, you don't have to have this strange strength, we accept you,' I would have broken down and given up.” If someone had just seen him, really seen him.

The worst sin, says George Bernad Shaw, toward another person is not to hate them, but rather to not see them, which says to them you don’t matter. We have become quite accustomed to that sin. We struggle forming relationships with the people around us. David Brooks in his book, How to Know a Person, which is the book that jump started this whole series, says “we’re living in the middle of some sort of vast emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis. It is as if people across society have lost the ability to see and understand one another, which has produced a culture that is brutalizing and isolating.”

And all sorts of data backs this up. In the last twenty years, suicide rates have increased by 33%. More than ⅓ of all teens say they regularly feel sad and a sense of hopelessness. We are spending less time with friends and more time alone, making us feel more lonely than ever before, especially young people and young mother in particular. Not to mention that the time we are spending with family and friends can feel tense due to our political climate and ever growing distrust of one another.

In Luke, Jesus speaks of a time when there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. There will be distress among the nations, confusion about what’s happening on the earth, and people overwhelmed with fear. When these things happen, our redemption is near, says Jesus.

When we read these texts, often the question is when, when will these things occur? When is our redemption coming? The truth is we are caught up in this in-between time. On one hand our redemption has already come with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet on the other hand, we are still waiting for Christ’s return, for things on earth to be as they are in heaven.

We are living in this already, but not yet time. And Advent captures the essence of that time so well. The Christ child has already come, but we prepare ourselves for when Jesus comes again. Which is why asking when is the wrong question. Instead of asking when these things happen, Luke encourages us to ask how, how shall we live in the meantime?

And one of, if not the best answer, to how we can live right now, in this season when we are so lonely, so quick to dismiss, so overcome with fear of the other, is to raise our heads, look each other in the eye, and truly see each other.

We need to learn how we can know and understand one another. We need empathy. This can all be learned.

But for us followers of Jesus, it is not just some skill set. It is also a spiritual practice, a way of being in the world, one that we have lost along the way. Our schools and universities no longer teach these skills.

And a life of social media doesn’t help, because, as Brooks notes, “social media you can have the illusion of social contact without having to perform the gestures that actually build trust, care, and affection. Stimulation replaces intimacy. There is judgement everywhere and understanding nowhere.”

But social media isn’t all to blame. For some the problem is egotism, or all about me thinking. For others it’s anxiety, worry and fear about how others see you. Nothing shuts down a conversation quicker than that fear.

And still for others, perhaps most prominent right now, is the notion that you already know who a person is because of some small piece of information you know about them. They voted this way so they must be like this. They look a certain way, so that means they act and think this way. Some of the generalizations may have some truth to them, but they are also false to some degree, not to mention hurtful.

How can we prepare to welcome Christ when we can’t engage with the Christ who is in our neighbor? How can we sing “What Child is This” when we have no interest in the child of God right next to us.

Afterall, our God is El Roi, the God who sees me. That’s the name Hagar gives God in the book of Genesis. You are seen and known by God. You are loved deeply and understood completely. And if we know how God sees us, then we will know how we ought to see not only ourselves, but others too.

Advent is about preparing ourselves so that we might see, know, and understand Jesus Christ. And the best preparation we can undergo to receive Christ is to see and know others the way God knows and sees us.

When we do so, we are giving others the grace, love, and attention that we have received and that others so desperately need; just ask Trunk.

So this month at Cross of Grace is all about learning how to get to know the beloved child of God sitting right next to you; the neighbor across the street; the family member you struggle to speak with, the stranger at the coffee shop, or the quiet kid who feels like nobody notices him.

This is holy, practical work and we will cover real, pragmatic skills throughout this series. And we will put those skills to practice along the way. On Wednesdays over dinner, we will do some exercises to strengthen our listening, learn how to ask better questions, and how we can grow in empathy.

And then every day in December, starting today, our digital Advent Calendar devotional will reveal an article, a song, a prayer, a reflection, something that will aid us in this spiritual practice of seeing others more clearly.

Because if we can see others the way God sees them, the way God sees us, maybe we won’t be so lonely, our culture won't be so brutal or isolating.

There is still hope. We aren’t past the point of no return. Our redemption is drawing near, if we just open our eyes to see.

Amen.

John 1:6-8, 19-28

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might come to believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent the priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” They asked him, “What then, are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” Are you a prophet? He answered, “No.” “Who are you? Give us an answer for those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

Now they were sent from the Pharisees. And they asked him, “Why then do you baptize, if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” He said, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know; the one coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.” Now, this took place in Bethany, across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

So much of what we think we know of John the Baptist is wrapped up in the very little bit we learn about him in the Gospels…all that stuff about what he wore – camel’s hair coats and leather belts; the things he ate – locusts and wild honey; …and the notion that he was doing all of this baptizing in the wilderness somewhere on the outskirts of Jerusalem, down at the Jordan River. He comes off as kind of an oddball and a kook, really.

So, we get the impression that John the Baptist was a renegade, of sorts. This one voice crying out in the wilderness… this lone wolf preaching and teaching and calling people to change their ways… this rebel down by the river, trying to persuade and prepare the hearts and minds of whoever would listen to him for the coming of this Jesus who was on the way. And that’s all true, I suppose.

I heard someone refer to John the Baptist a carnival barker, once. And I kind of liked that at the time, so I’ve tended to think of him as a hot-head, a loud-mouth, a street-preacher-type like you might find outside the stadium on game day with a microphone and a cheap amplifier – or a bull horn, maybe – with pamphlets about how to find your way to a straighter, more faithful and righteous path, you brood of vipers!

But those guys – those street-preacher-types – are loud and pretentious and more sure of themselves than they should be and more sure of themselves than I found John the Baptist to be this time around. And there’s enough yelling in the world these days… and noise... and anger... and certainty about this or that. And I confess to thinking the most un-Christ-like things when I get scolded by those carnival barking street preachers.

So I wondered, for a change, this time around, if John the Baptist might be different than all of that. And when you listen to what we heard this morning, that seems entirely possible. And maybe just as faithful, too, I’ve decided.

What I mean is, John doesn’t pretend to be any more than he is or any greater than what he’s up to – testifying to the light of grace and good news he’d apparently found in Jesus. When the powers-that-be from the synagogue in the big city come asking him to fess up … to explain himself … to give an account for his actions down there by the river … he doesn’t seem to shout or scream. He confesses, humbly, it seems to me; he doesn’t pretend to be anything other than just some guy. He says, “I am not the Messiah. I’m not Elijah. I’m not even a prophet. I’m just one voice, out there in the wilderness, trying to convince people that there’s a better way.”

“I’m just sharing what I’ve learned from scripture … from the prophet, Isaiah. I’m just baptizing with water, because that’s all I have and all I know to do. I’m just trying to give people some hope in something greater than what this world has to offer.”

And this new way of wondering about a humble, compassionate, quieter John the Baptist feels like good news to me. Because I think John the Baptist isn’t just someone we should merely listen to, in this day and age. I believe John the Baptist is someone we should emulate; someone we’re called to imitate; someone we would be blessed to learn from and follow and be more like, in a lot of ways.

And this seems more likely – more possible – when I consider him differently, because I’ve never been as cool or as loud or as certain as the John the Baptist I’ve always pictured and preached about before. And I become less and less cool the older I get – just ask my children. I threw out my camel’s hair coat years ago. I’m good with wild honey, I suppose, but you can keep the locusts, thank you very much. And besides all of that, the “wilderness” of New Palestine, Indiana, just isn’t all that “wild” by the world’s standards, if we’re honest. So when I think about what it would mean to emulate or imitate John the Baptist, I’ve never felt equal to the challenge.

How… here… am I – how are we – supposed to go about “preparing the way of the Lord?” How… here… are we called to go about “making God’s paths straight” for the world around us? How do people like you and me “testify to the light so that others might come to believe” and how do we do it, now, where we are, in the world as we know it, in the days leading up to Christmas? And into what wilderness are we being called to do any of this?

Well, there are relationships in jeopardy that would surprise you. There are kids in the school cafeteria – or in the dorm next door – who are lost and lonely in ways they can’t put into words. There are some illnesses waiting to be diagnosed and others that seem like they’ll have the last word, sooner than we’d like. There are jobs on the line and paychecks that just don’t cut it. There are people in this room holding it together really well on the outside, but falling apart behind the closed doors of their heart of hearts, believe me. (Those social media feeds are a big fat lie a lot of the time.) And there are skeptics and cynics and sinners around every corner – and in our own mirror more often than we’d like to admit it.

And I don’t believe the best way to address all of that wilderness is loudly … or with words at all, even. It can’t be explained away with even the most perfectly chosen verses of Scripture. And it can’t be preached away from the pulpit, or barked into oblivion from the street corner, either.

It might soften, though, with some quiet companionship. The wilderness might feel less desperate with some persistent, patient friendship. It might dissipate with some humble confession about our shared experience and common ground. The wilderness might not feel so scary if we – and others – didn’t have to walk through it alone. And I wonder if all those people were drawn to John the Baptist, because he wasn’t afraid to be himself. He wasn’t pretending to be anything more than who he was. And because who he was – with all of his awkward, strange, oddball ways – was just right for the grace he came to proclaim.

So, maybe we can bring the good news – you and I – like John did. We can be the love of God, crying out in the wilderness, not just with loud words of judgment, but maybe with quiet tears, for a change, of understanding and empathy, too. Like John, we can be a voice for the Word of God that shows up in Jesus, that speaks of comfort for the lonely; forgiveness for the sinner; new life for the dying; hope for the brokenhearted – because we need, hope and long for all of those things, too; just like John did, I’m sure.

I think that’s our call these days … to be one voice … each of us … among many … walking the crooked road of life as we know it in and alongside this crowded, broken world, until the One comes, finally – the One who makes all things new, all paths smooth, all sins forgiven, all life redeemed, all joy forever, all fear relieved, all peace eternal, and all grace for all people in the name of the Father, +Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

The Power of Being Seen

A Voice Among Many