ONCE UPON A TIME FOR REAL

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
"'The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
Every ravine will be filled,
And every mountain and hill will be brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth;
And all flesh will see the salvation of God.'"
(Luke 3: 1-6)

One of the notable things about the Gospel of Luke is Luke's desire to peg events in time, to tell us of the specific context of the story of Christ. In setting the stage for John and his baptising mission, Luke gives us several cross-references. He wants to make sure we know this really happened in a particular time and place.

I have done a lot of studying of mythologies of the world, how they grow. Many mythic stories spring from the human desire to give symbolic meaning to the things of the world around us. Sometimes, real events gain the encrustation of myth: the court of Charlemagne was for a time the core of fictive legends; it is believed that the legends of King Arthur sprang from the actions of a real person; archeological evidence indicates that there might indeed have been some sort of long seige of the ancient fortress of Troy. But there is a certain vagueness around legends of this sort - Arthur and Troy are difficult to peg in a specific time. But Luke, who seems to have been aware that "legendary vagueness" would undercut the reality of the history he was recording, takes pains to give specific references in time.

It's a way of underlining a statement of "This really happened!"

Something big was about to happen, and John came out of the wilderness to instruct us on how to prepare for this big thing.

Repentance. Forgiveness of sins.

It's hard to give up resentments. It's hard to give up feelings of "I was right and Soandso was wrong." It's hard to admit the mistakes we've made. It's hardest to admit when we have intentionally done or said something that we meant to hurt another.

But that's what repentance is. Letting go of our worser selves.

Why do we find that so hard? Perhaps because if we let go of the volume of those acts and attitudes, we know there will be an empty space inside us and we fear what might come in. "This much I know of myself. It may not be great, but at least I know what it is! If I let go of it, will I know what I might become? Will it still be me?" I think that sort of reaction is part of what makes repentance so hard. Fear of the unknown.

It's also hard to forgive sometimes. We want to be sure that the other person knows how much they injured us. We want that acknowledgement that they injured something valuable. There's often even the desire to see the injurer humbled.

But is that forgiveness? Not really. To forgive, we really have to let go of that. To make a space inside ourselves by kicking out that negative baggage of resentment and letting something else, something better come in.

But there is also the matter of seeking forgiveness for the injuries we have cause to others. And that is just as hard. Because it means that we have to humble ourselves, to admit that we have done damage to something valuable, something precious to the Lord.

But if we cannont reconcile ourselves with each other, how can we possibly reconcile ourselves to the Lord?

Paul said that Christ came for that ultimate reconciliation. And Luke reminds us that John went before Jesus in order to teach us how to prepare for the coming of Christ.

I've been learning a lot about humbling myself lately. I've known since my teens that Pride is my besetting sin, so humbling myself is not an easy thing. And yet, in this passage, John reminds us that the low places shall be filled up, the high places brought down, and the crooked and rough ways will be made straight and smooth. And my Pride can certainly been a high and rough territory. Am I readly to be "smoothed out"?

If I want to see the salvation of the Lord, this is what is needed.