Third Week of Advent: What Did you Come to See?

What did you come out to the desert to see? You've heard the rumors of this man named John and of me (Jesus) as well, so what did you come out here seeking? Was it a reed blowing in the wind, a so-called "prophet" moved by every cultural current and whim, or was it someone more authentic with a word that is lasting, solid, and eternal --- like the truth of God? What are you, you who are neither followers of John nor disciples of mine looking for? You heard that John in his way and I in mine proclaimed the Word of God. You heard people calling us prophets. Were you expecting us to be dressed in worldly finery and the trappings of political, religious, or ecclesiastical honor, prestige, and power? Is that what you really hoped for? Is it what you needed? Please ask yourself these questions!!! And please answer them honestly, from the depths of your hearts! What did you travel into the desert to see? What do you need?!

Today's gospel starts out this way with Jesus asking the crowd who have attended both John's disciples and his own to examine their hearts, first so they might understand their own motives in seeking him and John the Baptizer out, and then too, that they might get in touch with their truest and deepest needs and yearnings, needs and yearnings that can only be met or filled by the God who created and completes them as human beings. As it moves along, today's Gospel also promises these folks that they will be surprised and that God's answer to what they were seeking may look very different than they were expecting. And isn't this how it is for each of us whenever God reveals Godself to us? To Jesus' questions then, we might add one more that is implicit in all he says in this gospel lection, namely, "Are you prepared to be surprised by God? Will you allow that?" There is a corollary here too, "Will you receive him; indeed, will you follow him even if he comes as one whose power is manifested in weakness, his justice in mercy, and whose glory is most perfectly revealed in crucifixion and shame?

Jesus' questions are always some of the most important texts in the New Testament. They provoke, invite, and empower us to enter into a process of introspection, self-appraisal, and clarification leading to real conversion. In these few sentences in today's gospel lection, Jesus implicitly focuses us on the ways we run hither and yon looking for "something" to fill the emptiness, something to make sense of our confusion and existential lostness, something that can serve as a means to anchor our lives and still our constant restlessness. 

He calls to mind all the false solutions we substitute for the real thing: power, prestige, the favor of the powerful and honored, wealth, worldly success, etc. and reminds us of how these leave us hungry and thirsty for something more and other. At the same time, Jesus encourages us to recognize that Divine wisdom is not always clothed in the vestments of ecclesiastical or civil authority we usually submit to, for example. This, of course, is one of the reasons the Magi (who, whether they are astrologers or kings or something else entirely, are certainly symbolic representations of the wisdom and power of this world) will offer gifts and bow down to a helpless child. God comes to us in surprising ways that turn our expectations on their heads, even as he reveals and fulfills our deepest needs and yearnings.

As we journey toward the feast of the Nativity of Jesus, it's a good time to let him put his questions to us as well. It is one way the valleys and mountains of our own hearts and minds are either filled or made low and the highway of our God made straight within us --- one of the ways the Kingdom of God is brought near and an incarnate God allowed to take up residence with and within us. As we bustle around in our Christmas preparations what is it we are really preparing ourselves for? What, indeed, have we come out to see?