Luke 3:1-6
As one who delights in studying history, I have come to appreciate Luke’s attempt at putting the story of Jesus into a secular historical context. This is not just a way of setting the scene, but also how Luke’s narrative of the Son of God challenges the powers and rulers of first-century Palestine. Of the six verses appointed in the Gospel text for Advent 2, one third of the verses are dedicated to naming men who sat in seats of power at the time that the Word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. This is, indeed, an “orderly account” provided for the Most Excellent Theophilus.
Into this orderly account steps one who is apparently quite disorderly. Both Matthew and Mark describe him as eating locusts and honey, with long (and our imaginations may suggest untamed) hair, wearing camel’s hair. While Luke never calls John, son of Zechariah, “the Baptist,” and completely ignores his outward appearance, I admit that the image of “…the dude with the wild hair and itchy wardrobe” sticks in my head when I think of him. This is a good thing, I think. John is supposed to stick out like a sore thumb among the ranks of the rich and powerful: the disorderly amongst the well-ordered. The son of Zechariah is neither rich nor powerful. On his own, he holds no status or rank, and he does not reside within the acceptable limits of “civilization.” No, John exists on the margins. He doesn’t fit in. And he’s not supposed to.
"John’s proclamation prepares the way of the Lord by sharing the Good News: those on the margins have been seen and loved."
It is not to Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, or Herod that the Word-of-God comes. It does not come to them with their titles, or their wealth, or their power. Rather, the Word is announced by one who exists on the margins, announced on the margins in the wilderness. John encounters people in the places where the rubber meets the road, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. There, he preaches about a Kingdom where the field is leveled for both those who have power and those who have none. Because John himself doesn’t fit in and lives on the margins, he is able to take this proclamation to those who had been told that God only existed within specific boundaries, only accessible to those of high rank. John’s proclamation prepares the way of the Lord by sharing the Good News: those on the margins have been seen and loved. They are given access to a God who wants desperately to be in relationship them, and – indeed – with every person.
For much of Christian history, we have – either knowingly or unknowingly – also favored a narrative in which God’s accessibility is limited to our own “holy of holies,” or to those who hold the high rank. As the introduction of John’s story shows us, the Kingdom of God is to be found most effectively in the wilderness: on the margins and among the people and worlds that exist on the margins. In burning bushes and valleys filled with dry bones, in the leveling of mountains and the raising up of valleys, in all of these places and more: all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
PASTOR JEN KIEFER serves as an Assistant to the Bishop and Director of Candidacy for the Southeast Michigan Synod, ELCA. Previously, she served as pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Dundee, MI and as associate pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lawrence, KS. Pastor Kiefer holds an MDiv from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, where she served as a student assistant to the Dean of the Chapel, and a BA from Kalamazoo College.
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