16 January 2022 at Saint William & Saint Elizabeth Seton Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 62, 1-5 + Psalm 96 + 1 Corinthians 12, 4-11 + John 2, 1-11

As I have said over and over again when we proclaim these words of Jesus, we must ask, “What does this mean?” not “How did he do that?” At the same time, we must remember that in John’s Gospel there are no “miracles”. That word is never used. There are “signs”, and this is the first of seven. Remembering that helps in asking the right question, “What does this mean?” In John’s Gospel, these signs, like road signs, point to something. In this case, the signs point to Jesus, and they suggest that there is more here than meets the eye.

In our own reflections, this event may have had several different motives: respect for his mother’s request, kindness to host, care for people, approval of a happy occasion, or even some suggestion of a Eucharistic preview. These are all worth some reflection, but what happened because of this event is probably the most important thing in John’s mind and comes clear in the last verse: “The Disciples began to believe in him.” The bringing of people to faith may well be more important and more significant that changing water into wine. After all, we might ask ourselves, what’s more important, Faith or Wine?

Wine is often an important part of any great celebration. They didn’t drink water. It was not clean in those days. Water was for washing. That is why those jars were there. So, when the wine runs out, the joy is over, and for those hosting the party, it’s a shameful embarrassment. In some ways, that’s the way it is with life these days, there is not a lot of joy, and given the conditions in most of this world, there is not much to celebrate. Wine won’t change that, but Faith will. I like to imagine that Mary and her son were in a rather respectful argument. When he calls her “woman”, the term he uses is the term often used to describe Israel, God’s own bride. John uses that term in this incident to describe God’s people who have run out of joy. In the argument with his mother, he says it’s not time, and she says it is time simply telling the servants to do what he tells them. 

So often, we are slow in responding to the needs of others with the excuses that we don’t have time, or that it’s just not the right time. We put off making changes that might be important or make a difference in this life waiting for the right time; and when it comes to conversion, to changing our lives, or our priorities, that time never seems to arrive.

As we step into this new year, we might let this Gospel and Mary urge us to believe that the hour has come. It might well be the hour when we come to believe that it is time to speak up, shape up, and maybe act up for the sake of people who live without joy or peace or hope. It might well be time to listen the Gospel, look at Christ, and do whatever he tells you. When that time comes, and we can decide when it is, all will know the joy that God intends for all God’s people.

9 January 2022 at St Elizabeth Church in Naples, FL and to Notre Dame Alumni Mass in Naples, FL

Isaiah 42, 1-4, 6-7 + Psalm 29 + Acts 10, 34-38 + Luke 3, 15-16, 21-22

The Baptism of Jesus ought to raise some questions in our minds about what was going on and what it was all about. It certainly cannot suggest that Jesus needed to be baptized because he was sinful. There is no reason to think, at the same time, that he was becoming one of John’s disciples by that act. This event that Luke reports calls us to listen carefully to the prophet we just heard proclaimed here, and to the voice from heaven that was heard that day. At the same time, this event is a challenge to think more deeply about our own Baptism and what it means in relation to the Baptism of Jesus.

For Jesus and anyone present at that moment as well as anyone who hears this Gospel, there is the Divine approval of the mission Jesus would take up. That moment identified him as the one Isaiah foretold. The voice affirms that what Christ was about to do, the kind of life he was about to show us was right, that it was pleasing to the Father, and it would work even when it did not seem so. From that moment on, power would have little to do with the ability to keep one in control, to overcome one’s enemies, or to eliminate one’s problems. Now power would be the ability to live without control of everything, to be kind to one’s enemies, and patient with problems.  Now, success would have nothing to do with how well one is regarded by others or served by others. For now it would be a matter of how well one serves others. From that moment on, love would have nothing to do with how someone makes us feel. Now love is about bearing one another’s burden rather than inflicting burdens on others.

And what about our Baptism? Surely, the Baptism of Jesus has something to say about all Baptisms. Instead of being focused on “original sin”, perhaps Baptism is about being claimed for Christ our Savior by the cross traced on our foreheads in that ancient ritual. Perhaps, being Baptized into Christ and putting on Christ with a that white garment might actually mean that the Father is pleased with us and what we shall become.  The mission of his chosen one, the one loved by the Father begins on that day, and this day comes to remind and affirm that the mission of Jesus Christ is our mission as well.

Sometimes, I hear people say that the church is no longer capturing the hearts of young people. Perhaps you have felt the same way, and I have shared that thought on occasion. It might be that because we are not speaking the truth often enough, not repeating the message that every person needs to hear again and again: “You are my beloved; with you God is well pleased.” Perhaps it is because something else has taken the place of the mission of Jesus, but whatever it is has failed. Isaiah reminds us today that the mission is to bring Justice, which in God’s mind does not mean that everyone gets what they deserve. Thank goodness, or we would be in sorry shape. It means that those who know themselves to be favored by God even though it is undeserved, have been empowered by the Spirit to be light, to speak the truth, and be compassionate to those who feel like a “bruised reed” fanning into flames the spark of God’s love wherever a smoldering wick is found.

2 January 2022 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Isaiah 60, 1-6 + Psalm 72 + Ephesians 3, 2-3, 5-6 + Matthew 2, 1-12

Matthew is the only Gospel writer to report on these visitors who take center stage today. So, we know nothing about them other than that they came from the east. For that matter, they have come from Miami! What the “east mean” and is it really important to know? Were there only three? It doesn’t seem to be a safe way to travel if they came from afar. There had to have been a whole caravan to support and protect them coming from the east, which in fact is a rather desolate place, east of Israel. In the Gospel, they don’t even have names. Those we use came into tradition a long time later. 

What we can learn from Matthew comes from the contrast he draws between the Gentile and Jewish worlds. Those Jewish scholars of the law knew exactly what this was all about five miles away, and they did nothing while those Gentile visitors were willing to risk a lot to follow the light. Those scholars were content to sit in darkness. They could not be bothered. There travelers were not “kings” no matter what John Henry Hopkins Jr may have chosen to call them in 1868 when he composed that hymn. He was more musician than theologian.

Sometimes when we don’t know something, we have to make up something to cover up our lack of knowledge. If we peal back all of that stuff and simply stand back and look at what Matthew tells us, we can hardly miss the fact that these travelers had a goal and they were willing to leave home, risk some danger, make mistakes like going to Jerusalem in search of a king thinking that this new king might be found in places of power. They had goal, and Matthew tells us about them because of it.

As the Gospel unfolds, it will reveal a Jesus with a goal, and inspire those who believe in him to share that goal. As we know too well, goals make a difference in life. People without them always want more. When that is not enough, they want better, and when better is not enough, they want different. When different is not enough they become sad, their life becomes meaningless, and they become alienated. All the while, what they need is a goal. 

Those magi came because God called them to seek the “King of the Jews”, and so are we. 

They found a baby. We find man or a cross with a sign above his head. If we are going to see a King on that wooden throne, we will have to get our goals figured out. We’ll have to have a goal that gives meaning to life and have the human qualities it takes to stay with that goal through thick and thin. Our goal has to have meaning, purpose, and commitment; all of which are in separable. A busy life might have a purpose, but it does not necessarily have meaning. In Shakespeare’s words, that kind of life is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  One goal and one source of meaning, purpose, and commitment in our lives would be to make every day an Epiphany, a day of showing the world that the Lord has come, and there is a light in the darkness.

1 January 2022 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Numbers 6, 22-27 + Psalm 67 + Galatians 4, 4-7 + Luke 2, 16-21

I have always been just a little bit uncomfortable with the Church’s use of words to name this feast that in my own life-time has had several other names. “Back in the day” I can remember this day on the Church’s calendar as the “Feast of the Circumcision.” Then in 1960 Pope John XXIII removed the term “Circumcision” and simply called this day, “The Octave of the Nativity” which of course means the eighth day when, according to the religious law at the time required the ritual of circumcision for Hebrew children. Because the that ritual of Circumcision also included the formal naming of the child, this date was also called: “The Holy Name of Jesus.” Then in 1974 Pope Paul VI changed the name of this Holy Day to “The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God” which gets us to today. The research of this Liturgical Trivia took longer than the preparation of some homilies! In the end, no matter what the Church wants to call this day, it’s New Year’s Day to most of us.

Father M. Joseph McDonnell was my pastor through my High School years, and he had a custom of not preaching on New Year’s Day, and I always think of him on January 1 with the temptation to carry on his tradition. It was a relief to us all because, as a teen ager in those days, he never seemed to know when to sit down.

With a nod to his memory and tradition, I simply want to propose that we begin this year with a renewed respect for the holy name of Jesus and perhaps resolve to respect that name in our discourse and fits of anger and impatience. I would also propose that we all take another look at our devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. In my opinion the choice of this Gospel allows us to miss the reality of her role as Mother. Luke’s narrative which we just proclaimed does not push us much beyond the Nativity. Her role as mother was far greater than simply sitting back as shepherds came to see her child.

This is the woman who was at a wedding with her son and told him to do something when there was a problem. She was a bit pushy, and he pushed back as any son might, but he ended up doing something. This is the woman who stood at the foot of the cross perhaps wondering: “What did I do wrong?” as mothers sometimes do when they see their children in trouble. In the few occasions when she appears in the Gospel, she never has a better line than the one John’s Gospel puts on her lips speaking to the servants at a wedding in Cana. “Do whatever he tells you.” That might be our best way to begin this New Year with a resolve to do whatever is asked of us by God without complaint or whining, but joyfully remembering that God has come to live among us, and that truth should change the way we live together.

26 December 2021 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

1 Samuel 1, 20-28 + Psalm 84 + 1 John 3, 1-24 + Luke 2, 41-52

Through the course of his mission, Jesus expands the whole idea of “family.” While the Gospel for today focuses on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it is not long before he asks the crowd gathered around him: “Who are my mother, brothers and sisters?” While sentimentality may like us to imagine that this holy family was the perfect family of all time, we might want to look more closely at what the Gospels suggest.

First of all, this is a family that knows anxiety and fear over a lost child. This is a family that had to flee their homeland for safety in a foreign country where they likely did not know the language. This was a family with a child who did not follow or do what everyone expected. This was a family with a child that brought shame on the family by breaking the rules. This was a family with a child accused of serious crimes. By the end, this is a single parent family. This is a family that practices their faith in the Synagogue and the Temple. No matter how you look at them, this family is just like us. It does not good to distance ourselves from them by imagining that they were perfect with a divine guest, that they never got frustrated, felt frightened, or shared a cross word or two.

I believe that the Holy Family we celebrate today is the Human Family struggling as it does to be inclusive like Joseph who welcomed a child that was not his own, patient like Mary who pondered the things she did not understand without refusal, and respectful of their faith and its practices. Like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we face all the challenges family life can throw at us with an awareness that we have one Father and are, like them or not, we are all brothers and sisters. 

There is no denying the family we have been introduced to by our Baptism. It is the Holy Family of the Church. Claimed for Christ our Savior by the sign of the cross, born again in water and the Spirit, we are one in faith, one in hope, and one in charity. These days when the evil of gossip, lies, privilege, and fear close our eyes and ears to others who are not exactly like us, there is a special challenge and need to celebrate this feast and to draw from it the hope that God who has called us together and created us in God’s own image will stand fast and refuse to be divided into them and us. 

This feast and this Gospel demand that we cultivate relationship within and without our biological families seeking the opportunity to grow wise and holy being enriched by our friendship and fellowship on this earth. Like Jesus, we shall then increase in wisdom and know the Divine favor for which we all long. 

25 December 2021 at St. Peter and St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Micah 5, 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 3, 10-18

I don’t know who first got the idea of staging Christmas Pageants for and with children, but I want you to know that as an old priest and a pastor with parochial schools for way too long, I sat through more Christmas Pageants than any of you could imagine. That experience has led me to the conclusion that I’ll never have to worry about Purgatory. I’ve been there.  

You know how they go, the little ones who can’t be trusted to remember lines are angels with various kinds of wire wings who flutter around and bump into one another looking anxiously around for someone to tell them when to get out of the way. Then there is always the character of Mary. Who plays that role is always a matter of great concern. It’s almost a preview of the anxiety over who will be the Homecoming Queen. Then there is Joseph who just stands around with nothing to say, his face itchy with that fake beard fearful he might trip over his father’s bathrobe. When I was that age, I never wanted to be a shepherd because they had to carry stuffed animals, and I thought that was weird. One time someone thought it would be great to have a real lamb. It got loose. That was the end of the show.

What all this has left us with is some rather odd and off the mark ideas about the details of the Good News we share tonight. We have so often imagined that the whole scene is the consequence of an in hospitable inn keeper who slammed the door in the face of this young couple leaving them alone, cold, and stuck in a stable. I remember another time when the kid who was the innkeeper slammed the door with such enthusiasm that the whole elaborate set fell over. Somehow all of that has dulled our imagination about what it all really means and what Luke was really announcing with this very dramatic event. 

Not having been to a Christmas Pageant for several years, I’ve had the time to re-think this scene deciding that the inn-keeper is hardly a cruel and thoughtless human being. In that time and culture of the middle east, hospitality was and still is a very important matter for the Hebrew people. If he sent them to the stable, it was a thoughtful and considerate gesture, because with animals there, it would have been warm. That whole business about swaddling clothes so often thought of as rags for the poor is hardly that. For in those times, it was a way of receiving and wrapping with warmth someone who was welcome and embraced.

This is really a story of hospitality, and while we might at first think it’s about us being hospitable to the Divine Child, I would like to suggest that it might be the other way around. Perhaps it is about God welcoming us into the wonder of God’s new creation which has begun with this child. That story of the Annunciation is really a creation story. God makes something out of nothing by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s creation. The news we share with the help of Luke’s Gospel is that there has been a “restart” to creation. A hospitable and loving God is welcoming those he loves. While we might like to think that we are welcoming the Christ Child, perhaps it really is the other way around. Maybe Luke used the story of a child’s birth to touch the hearts of every parent reminding them of how they felt when that first child was born. Remembering the joy, the unimaginable love, the thrill of emotions that comes when you first hold your child.

I recently read, and I believe it, that the love of a parent for a child is somehow different and greater than the love of a husband and wife.

Think of that tonight. Think about a God who has come among us sharing every human emotion from birth till death. This is a God, revealed by Jesus, not as a remote judge or manipulative creator, but as one we can call “Father.” It is God’s hospitality that we enjoy day by day in this life. It is God’s hospitality that draws us to this table God has spread before us. It is God’s hospitality that feeds us with Divine Food, flesh and blood. Welcome guests in God’s creation do not leave wet towels on the bathroom floor. We pick up after ourselves and treasure every moment we have together on this beautiful earth. Having been welcomed by God we too welcome our brothers and sisters to enjoy a share in the bounty of this precious earth.

For the first time in his Gospel, Luke uses the word “today.” As we hear that word in this assembly it becomes a present call to share the joy of what we find here and gaze with the eyes of faith on what those shepherds saw glorifying and praising God, and then going home changed and ready to tell others. We find Christ today in the feeding place of this Eucharistic Table and also in those around us now with whom we say, “Amen” when we receive the Body of Christ.

We live in the hope of another “appearing”, a coming at the end of human history. Then in one final act of hospitality, Jesus will gather to himself all those who have given him the hospitality of their hearts. 

Remember, it all happened in the night when it was dark as a reminder that the darker the night, the more joyous the dawn. Children of the light, praise the God whose love for us can never be lost. Give glory to the God who calls us all to a new day and a new creation where we can live without fear in a lasting peace that rests upon the power of his love. Give thanks to the God whose gift to us in his Son we celebrate today. Go home tonight knowing how welcome you are in God’s house and in God’s presence, and imitate God’s gracious hospitality. 

19 December 2021 at St. Peter and St. William Churches in Naples. FL

Micah 5, 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 3, 10-18

Two women, one from Jerusalem and the other from Nazareth. One is there at the center of power, and her husband is of the Priestly tribe. The other has no husband and she lives in a place no one would ever have heard of until a visitor comes. They are for Luke, the meeting of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The old had a history of infidelity and idolatry, but it held the promise. The new is the promise and it begins with fidelity to the Word of God delivered by an angel who only appears once in the Old Testament in the Book of Daniel proclaiming the final time, the age of justice.

The only man in the story is silent. All he can do is watch because of his doubt in the power of the Lord. And silent he should be. There is nothing to say in the presence of God’s power from those who question the God’s intention to start creation over again, and that is exactly what is happening with the Annunciation. The Holy Spirit creates something out of nothing. A virgin conceives, and her son is both human, born of a woman and Divine, the Son of God. Now the Old Testament is complete. What was promised has been given.

It all comes to pass through these two unlikely people living at the margins of society. An aging barren woman long dismissed by society, and a young girl not yet married and therefore having no identity at all. Powerless, insignificant to those who hold power and 

have authority, they speak to us today an important reminder about how God works and how the Divine plan for the new creation will be made known. Elizabeth, like Sarah of old does the work of hospitality. She welcomes Mary and her unborn child, and in all humility as the elder, she declares that the child in her womb was secondary to the one Mary bore. Elizabeth become the first to proclaim faith in Jesus, calling him “my Lord” before he was born. Don’t miss the way Luke uses the faith of women to make the major professions of faith. “Blessed are you!” she proclaims celebrating the grace that they both shared: “Blessed are you who believed.”

We pick up this Gospel today, just days before we celebrate the Incarnation once again to be reminded that God has consistently chosen the weak and the marginalized over people of influence. The Word of God speaks to us today again about how God works not to instruct, but to motivate and awaken us. We are not really people of power or great influence. They are off in citadels of power like Washington, Rome, Moscow, and all those capital places of wealth, influence, and power. We are the little ones of history whose names will hardly be remembered when they vanish from tomb stones. Those people of influence will have their monuments for a few generations, but not much of what they do lasts very long.

It takes people like Elizabeth and Mary to make a difference. It takes people like you and me to allow God’s plan to be fulfilled. Those apostles Jesus gathers are a perfect example. Not one of them was really influential or particularly gifted except for the gift of faith and willingness to follow Jesus Christ.

The Gospel today warns us to be careful about feeling privileged allowing us to look down on others who are different, powerless, poor and helpless. We might very well end up standing in silence as God works through them to accomplish what we do not. In some ways, the story we proclaim here today is our story. It is the story that God works through people like us right here in a small town on the Gulf Coast or anywhere people are willing to listen the news brought once and for all by an angel. Like those women of faith, we ought to risk believing that God’s promise is being fulfilled within us and by us. When we do, the privileged will simply have to be silent enough to perceive that God is working in spite of them. When we realize that God has chosen us, there will be peace not brought by diplomats and their treaties or ceasefires, but by forgiveness and a love that is rooted in respect. It is then that we shall truly be Blessed for we have believed that what was spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled. 

12 December 2021 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Zephaniah 3, 14-18 + Psalm (Isaiah) 12, 2-6 + Philippians 4, 4-7 + Luke 3, 10-18

There is plenty of reason to hear the words of the Prophet this morning and move his message into some kind of “Archive File” thinking that he was speaking to someone else a long time ago. One obvious reason for doing so is that there is plenty reason these days not to rejoice. Facing life for too many easily makes rejoicing just too much of a challenge. Personal, family, church, and social conflicts are way too many, and we constantly facing our weakness, our sinfulness, and our helplessness. For some this experience seems to explode with violence, hateful talk, blaming, and name-calling and fear. 

It cannot be so for people of faith. Even when inflation soars, food banks struggle to feed the growing number of hungry people, and a pandemic lingers we do not surrender what faith can provide. Even with political corruption, racial injustice, and with our borders becoming unwelcoming places of conflict, we do not surrender to resentment, frustration, exhaustion, and impatience.

The words and spirit of our liturgy today and even the color of this vestment are reminders that a new day is dawning. This isn’t pink. It is the color of the morning sky.

All of this is the church’s way of stirring our hope that despite all failure in the past God is here. God is working. We will not fall apart or fall into despair. It is so easy to convince ourselves that we are victims and powerless. So, today the living Word of God reminds us to rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS.

There is an indestructible power greater than the power of ambition, greed, and selfish individualism. Without it, we might cling to misery and apathy believing that we can’t do anything except moan and complain shrugging off everything that troubles and keeps this world from peace by thinking or saying: “That’s just the way it is. No, it isn’t. Discord and some suffering are part of life and cannot be controlled. Yet, we cannot fail to see that what we long and hope for is something we already have.  In the old days we called them Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity. We call them virtues because they give strength. They hold up the week and encourage the powerless. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit which we too often fail to draw upon.

Faith that God’s creation is not finished, and neither are we. Faith brings an assurance that God has things under control even when we do not. Hope keeps us looking forward not backward. Confident that the Kingdom of God is in our midst, and Jesus Christ has not abandoned us because he promised to remain with us always. Charity or “Love” allows us to see the beauty and goodness that is all around us and treasure the companionship of those who love us and care for us as friends. 

With these virtues, there is nothing to fear and no need for anxiety as St Paul says to us today. It is time to rejoice because faithful people live with Joy. We can forget about what happens tomorrow and beyond living this day in peace. We can control what we can and forget about what we cannot. If we don’t there will be no joy. We are God’s friends, and we have been given the Virtues we need, and it is time to accept them as a tender and loving blessing. Doing so will make it easy to shout for joy and to sing joyfully rejoicing always in the Lord.

8 December 2021 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Genesis 3, 9-15, 20 + Ephesians 1, 3-6, 11 + Luke 1, 26- 38

With this great feast we are called to step out of our ordinary daily routines and pause for these few minutes to let the Word of God remind us of God’s plan for creation. Paul puts that plan in plain and simple language as he writes to the Ephesians. God has chosen us to be holy and without blemish. God destined us for adoption which in the society and culture of that time meant nothing more than a completely new existence. In that world at that time, when one was adopted, their entire old identity was wiped away. If there were debts, they no longer existed. If there was anything in the past that could spoil the future, it was gone.

What this feast day urges us to do is call to mind our adoption. What must be affirmed today is the will of God that we be holy which is the whole purpose of our adoption. As with many who are adopted into earthly families, there is often a desire to know about the past, and perhaps that is why we open the third chapter of Genesis today. It’s the story of our past, and it’s not pretty. These verses we have just heard tell of losing our holiness.

Way too often, there is some mistaken idea that holiness has to do with prayers, or some extraordinary kind of service or sacrifice like martyrdom. If that’s the case, most of us in trouble. What we can discover from this great Feast Day is that those who are holy are simply close to God, and everything that is good somehow flows out of that intimate relationship. The truly holy are those are close to God. We see in the verses of Genesis today that the close and intimate relationship those first created persons had with God was broken. Leaving God to begin what is in time a long search for a way to restore that holiness for which we were created.

The woman we honor here today was holy. Her relationship with God made her so. She did not earn it by doing something. Her willingness to accept her calling is a consequence of her holiness in God’s eyes. She does not say, “Yes” and then earn her favor and holiness. It’s the other way around. Because she is already holy and chosen, she is willing to accept the unknown, unimaginable, and maybe frightening request.

She teaches us today what holiness looks like. She teaches us how a chosen people stand open to the sometimes strange and unexpected ways of God. She teaches us today what it means to be adopted, because our past is over and forgotten. We are a new people with what Paul calls a “new inheritance”. As Paul says, now we exist for one purpose: for the praise of God’s Glory. And so we can say again and again: Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be!

5 December 2021 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Baruch 5, 1-9 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 1, 4-5, 8-11 + Luke 3, 1-6

We can’t go any further into Advent without the presence and the voice of that man whose voice cried out in the wilderness. His voice is heard at a time when Rome held all the power, when Rome’s foot was on Israel’s neck. In that list of the powerful Luke includes two whose names might make us shudder because of the violence and deaths they will cause. Herod and Pilot are the names that in these opening verses give us a reminder of what is to come, because we know the end of the story. None the less, John’s voice comes like a trumpet blast out of the wilderness right into time, into history, right into reality. His voice proclaims that God is coming, and that God not only came in the past, and is not only to come in the future, but that God comes now into every moment in every age. Never mind the power of Herod and Pilot, never mind the power of that great Roman Legion, a greater one is coming. 

Having begun with a list of rulers who could not bring salvation, wholeness, and peace. John announces the coming of one who can and who will bring salvation, wholeness and peace. Just because their power and their numbers overwhelmed the people of Israel, that absence of all-out war was far from real peace. 

If we listen very carefully, John is not so much announcing someone as he proclaiming something. He proclaims that salvation has come, and it is for salvation that all people must prepare, and the way to prepare for Salvation is repentance and conversion. He proclaims that healing will come, but the healer must be recognized and people must come to him. He proclaims a season of peace, and it is a peace that can only come from reconciliation and love. 

John is in the desert, not in Jerusalem where his father, a priest, Zechariah, would be found. John is in that place where Israel crossed over from wilderness of sin to the promise of God’s faithfulness. He calls for another Passover. Like the desert days of old Israel, John calls for repentance, for conversion, inviting those who listen to experience what he has experienced, the freedom of knowing that God is about to do something great with them. 

That message is proclaimed today in this place to each of us. God is about to do something great, greater than ever before. To experience that and for God to find us, we must come out of the desert to meet the Lamb of God. There must be about us a constant spirit of change, of growth, of repentance. Acknowledging our sin, accepting the truth of our weakness and failures, we can become what God has called us to be through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not called to be a passive mob of bystanders watching from the sidelines as the world spins past. We are called by John, by grace, by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit to be the spark that changes this world, the fuel of a real “metanoia” as the first language of the Gospel describes it. Metanoia means: “Beyond (meta) the mind (noia). In other words, the change, the metanoia expected of us is far more than an intellectual affair. It is an experience of letting ourselves be lured beyond what we know, beyond our small thinking and any notion that things will just always be this way. They will either get worse, or they will get better because we have done something about it. Metanoia is a new vision of life in which we live with joy every day, secure in the knowledge that God is with us, that Christ as come, and that Christ will come again.