Come Lord Jesus: fill our minds with your word, fill our hearts with your love, fill our lives with your light. Come Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.

The Second Sunday of Advent is always about John the Baptist. Frequently the Third Sunday of Advent is as well. Advent could be a lot shorter if we didn’t have to be visited by John each year. Just about the time when all the neighbors and the kids are out in the yard and we are stringing the Christmas lights, this strange wilderness fellow comes down the street yelling. “Repent, repent!” Today’s Isaiah passage begins with “Comfort, comfort my people.” As Kathleen Norris says, “We know things are bad when we must turn to John the Baptist for comfort.”

The Second Sunday in Advent is always about repentance too. Advent could be a lot more fun if we didn’t have to face repentance each year, especially our stereotype of repentance. Repentance too often has been laced with guilt, brutality, violence and punishment. Recently a man in Springfield, Missouri, needed to repent big time. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife informed him that to make up for his sin there had better be something parked in their driveway the next morning that was bright, shiny, and went from zero to 200 in two seconds. The next morning when she looked out the window she saw a big red bow on a bright shiny new bathroom scale. He had to repent big time a second time. Too many people’s attitude is, “Repent, or else you will fry eternally.” Yet there is none of that here in the Isaiah lesson.

The passage from Isaiah 40 is included in today’s lectionary because it is quoted in the Mark passage, which we also read today. Yet it isn’t a harsh or hard call to repentance. Rather it is a kind, comforting word to a wounded people. Here the prophet says to the people that they have suffered enough. God takes the initiative to gently carry them to a new land and a new life. It is a word to the people after years in exile: “Comfort, comfort…speak tenderly…prepare a straight highway for God…get up to a high mountain, lift up your voice. God comes with might—he will feed his flock, like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.” What a warm and wonderful message. There is no loud, threatening voice of anger here, just a wonderful picture of gracious actions by God.

Mark introduces his gospel with an announcement that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, one coming to fill the office of king. Mark also announces Jesus is the Son of God. From the time of the Exodus, Israel had a self-understanding that they as a nation were the son of God, for God had declared to Pharaoh, “Israel is my first-born son.” (Exodus 4:22) Mark is saying Jesus will faithfully follow God, as Israel has not done.

After this double introduction, Mark begins his gospel with quotes from two prophets of the Exile, Malachi and Isaiah. Thus, Mark is beginning his gospel in exile. Yet he is redefining the Exile as the need for cleansing from and the forgiveness of sins. The statement that the people of the whole Judean countryside, and especially the part that all the people of Jerusalem were going out to John the Baptist to confess their sins and be baptized, may have been a political as well as a spiritual statement. Mark may well be speaking not only of the individual needs of people but also the bankruptcy of the current religious leadership.

Here again we see the crossing of waters theme coming into play. The people had been delivered from slavery in Egypt by crossing the waters of the Red Sea. They had entered the Promised Land by crossing the waters of the Jordan. Elijah crossed the Jordan to be taken to heaven. Elisha crossed the Jordan to succeed Elijah as leader of the prophets. The people returning from exile crossed the Jordan again. The symbolism is that baptism is crossing over from the paralysis of sin to the freedom of forgiveness. Historically the nation had been released from captivity in both Egypt and Babylon. Now, spiritually they were being released from captivity to sin to the freedom of forgiveness.

The passage closes with John the Baptist stating one is coming, Jesus, the Messiah who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. In other words he is saying, it’s God’s will and initiative that people be freed from captivity to sin or spiritual paralysis and live in a free relationship with God and each other. Jesus’ life and ministry are introduced in this way.

During World War II when the Nazis bombed London, English school children were evacuated to safer locations in the country. One might say they went into a form of exile. Several children stayed at C. S. Lewis’ home in Oxford. Lewis opens his book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe with the Pevensie children staying with a Professor Kirke in similar conditions. While playing, Lucy, the youngest child enters a wardrobe and passes through the coats to a new land, Narnia. When she returns and reports to the others, Edmund, the next older child makes great fun of her and repeatedly teases her. Yet soon he also ventures into the wardrobe and Narnia. Edmund is portrayed as being self-absorbed in that he betrays his family because of an extreme fondness for Turkish Delight (a very rich dessert) on which he gorges himself, he teases those the White Witch has turned to stone, and claims he is the King of Narnia. He is a traitor, a Judas type. Though Edmund is not turned to stone, he is paralyzed spiritually by his betrayal of his family.

In Lewis’ story Aslan, a lion, is a Christ figure. Thus the theme for our Advent sermons, “Lion in the Manger.” Some have said the Christ figure would be much more appropriately represented by a donkey, an animal of humility and service. Yet Lewis’ theological stance seems to be heavily influenced by the Gospel of John where Christ is the cosmic eternal God in human flesh. The Messianic role in Hebrew thought was of a strong, powerful and kingly type who would overpower all enemies. So in that sense the king of the animals seems an appropriate analogy for children.

In spite of what Edmund has done to his family, Aslan forgives him, saying to the others, “Here is your brother, and there is no need to talk to him about what is past.” What a grand statement of the grace of God. It is after this forgiveness from Aslan that Edmund repents and tells the others he is sorry and they forgive him. John Wesley would have liked this sequence of prevenient grace. By the end of the story Edmund is wounded on the other’s behalf. He demonstrates a total repentance from wounding others to being wounded for others.

Subsequently, Aslan voluntarily gives up his own life to save Edmund from the White Witch. After Aslan comes back to life he goes to the Witch’s castle and breathes on all the good animals who have been turned to stone statues, bringing them all to life again. This gift of new life reminds us of Jesus in the Gospel of John (20:22). After the resurrection Jesus appears to his disciples, breathes on them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” We just sang of this same renewing spirit in the hymn “Breathe on Me, Breath of God.” It is a prayer:

Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me breath of God, till I am wholly thine, till all this earthly part of me glows with thy fire divine.

The actions of Aslan point to the fact that God melts our spiritual paralysis and revives our souls. That which has kept us in exile from God and each other is overcome by God’s grace, by God’s initiative, and we are reunited with God and each other and experience new life. Repentance is not beating up on ourselves, claiming how bad we are. Repentance comes in turning from a paralyzing self-centeredness, our self-importance, to see God and others willing and anxious to be in healthy relationship with us.

Advent has long been seen as a penitential season. We are called to repent so we can more fully receive the gift of Christ. As we journey toward Christmas this year may we turn from self-absorption, and anything else which paralyzes our souls. Are we frozen in a winter in which it seems Christmas will not come? Does some aspect of life have our souls paralyzed? The decorating of our homes, the sending of cards, the planning for, making and buying of gifts are all activities which draw us beyond ourselves. May God’s grace move in these simple routines to draw us to connect with God and others in new ways.

Repentance in Advent is not so much painful and punishing but a turning to see God’s initiatives already drawing us to new life. Regardless of whatever forces have exiled us from God and each other, know that even now God is acting to draw us to new life.

I’ve told you before about my elderly Aunt Gladys. Her typical expression to every situation, whether good or bad, was to say, “Mercy, mercy!” Nobody is checking to see if you have been naughty or nice. Rather, in the wilderness of hatred and violence that we have made of the world we hear a voice crying, “Open your heart for a gift of grace, God is come to us.” To that we can only say, “Mercy, mercy!”