John the Baptist is the central figure of the Advent season. He proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, we are told in today's gospel. Biblical scholars now believe that he was in fact a member of a radical religious sect called the Essenes who operated in the Judean desert and on the shores of the Dead Sea. Loyalty to the old religious institutions of Israel was waning; various radical groups emerged from the ashes of those institutions to live the monastic life in the caves of the Judean hills, or else to live their lives as wandering preachers.
John the baptism seems to have been a wandering preacher, operating mainly in the Judean desert, a barren land devoid of all distractions. He drank no wine or strong drink and existed only on locusts and wild honey. But what are we today to make of the Baptist's imagery and message? What does repentance mean in our context today? More to the point, how does the message of John the Baptism help us in our preparation for Christmas time?
And that central image of today's gospel is of course borrowed from the prophetic books of old Testament. The imagery finds its way into our first reading from the prophet Baruch: "God has decreed that the flattening of each high mountain, the filling of the valleys to make the ground level so that Israel can walk in safety under the glory of God." Now that image means very little to us today, unless we are aware of its context. In the ancient East, the visit from a distant ruler had many attractive side-effects. For a start, the ruler always brought gifts to his subjects, purchasing their goodwill. But before the king ever arrived, a way had to be prepared for him. Israel is a mountainous country. These mountains made travel all but impossible. So before the king could visit his scattered subjects, some major tasks had to be completed. The local chief had the responsibility of building a highway, of constructing a new road, a road that would facilitate the visit of the king to his remote subjects. This entailed the levelling of hills and the filling of valleys. All obstacles between the king and his people would be removed. The king would have ready access to his people, and they to him. He could swiftly come to their assistance in times of trouble. He would no longer be a remote firguehead but would be by their side in their hour of need. But the tribe must be willing to construct the highway, to level the hills. Only then can the king make his visit. The tribe must be willing to make the preparations.
But, as the Christian message spread beyond the hills and valleys of Palestine and Judea, those same hills and valleys were lifted out of the local terrain to become features of the universal Christian imagination. Just as the tribes of old were enriched by the visit of their king, the Christian family is enriched by the visit of the infant king at Christmas time. But we too must, like the Judean tribes, must be willing to make the necessary preparations. The mountains and the valleys are no longer external, geographical features. Rather they represent attitudes within us, and sinful outposts, that are hostile to the message of the saviour. They represent our fears and our obsessions, our grudges and our addictions, our prejudices and our unforgiven hurts. They represent the internal obstacles that impede the path of the saviour on his journey to change our hearts.
It is almost a cliché now to say that we have destroyed Christmas with our vulgar commercialism. The world of commerce has hijacked this great feast and used it to further its own financial ends. As society loses its religious sensibility, commerce rushes in to fill the resulting void.
We have surrounded the feast now with such mountains of material dross that we will have difficulty in recovering the original message. This is but another mountain that Christians must lay low. The Baptist's clearest message was contained in the way he lived: God is found in simplicity. Happiness depends on our learning to trust him alone. He, or it, will never be purchased.
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