In a moment we will hear the story of Jesus’ baptism, from the Gospel of Luke. The scene opens with John the Baptist at his fullest – in the wilderness, announcing baptism for transformation of heart and forgiveness of sins: “A voice crying out in the wilderness.” Jesus joins with the many people who respond to this call. 

And the question I pose for us, as we hear this story, is how do we hear that voice crying in the wilderness now? What does it mean to us, what is it calling us to, now, as individuals, as communities of faith, in our place and time?

I invite you to have that question on your heart as you hear the story from the Gospel of Luke. Then I will explore that question in a way that I pray is helpful.

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governing Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip was ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trochanitis, and Lysanias was ruler of Abilene, While Annas and Caiaphas held the high priesthood, a word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 

And he went into all the region around about the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of the heart’s transformation, for the forgiveness of sins, 

as it is written in the book of the saying of Isaiah the prophet: 

“A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 

‘Prepare the Lord’s way, make straight God’s paths. 

Every ravine shall be filled 

And every mountain and hill shall be made low, 

And whatever is crooked shall become straight, 

And the rough roads shall become smooth; 

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

…

And it happened that when all the people were being baptized, and Jesus had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Spirit, the Holy one, descended in the bodily form of a dove, and voice came out of heaven: “You are my Son, the beloved, in you I have delighted.”

Luke 3:1-6, 21-22

This voice crying in the wilderness – how do we hear that now? 

What does it call us to now? 

         This character of John the Baptist is so vivid that it may be easy to imagine him calling right out to us. In fact, the writer of the Gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel, takes advantage of this, and he puts John the Baptist at the very beginning of the way he tells the story of Jesus: The curtains raise and – boom – there’s this wild man of God, crying out and proclaiming baptism. And from there, we’re off to the races. 

But the way Luke introduces John the Baptist, he frontloads all this historical stuff that for us is likely to create a feeling a distance. When I gave this reading to Linda earlier this week – “thanks for signing up to be the reader, here’s the reading,” she was like, “Gee, thanks, I get all the words that are hard to pronounce.” We can’t ignore that this is an ancient and foreign setting. “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governing Judaea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip was ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trochanitis …” 

And this isn’t the only time that Luke just has to recite all this historic information, right? Just a few weeks ago we heard the Christmas story from Luke. There Luke also just has to start the story about Jesus’ birth with all this “… August Caesar decreed … when Quirinius was governor of Syria …”. 

I remember the feeling being a kid at church for the Christmas service. Without fail it was when the person talking up front started launching into this history lesson that I was like, “Ugh, this is taking foreeever.”

But for Luke, this is obviously really important. For Luke, it’s worth the time and the attention to tell the story in such a way that we know the historical context for Jesus’ life. This is important to what Luke is trying to get across to us about the meaning of Jesus’ mission, the meaning of Jesus’ message, the meaning of the soul-saving impact of following Jesus. 

What Luke is taking pains to make clear is that this voice crying out in the wilderness is crying out to folks who are under Roman Imperial occupation. He wants us to know who is ruling as Caesar over the empire – Tiberius. Who is the Roman governor ruling over the region – Pilate. Who have the Romans elevated from among the occupied Jewish people to have kingly power over the Jews – Herod. And Luke wants us to know who are the Jewish religious authorities, the high priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, that the Roman Governor has hand selected – Annas and Caiaphas.  

Everyone who heard all this would know that it was Caesar who was supposed to be the son of god. And it was the stories of his birth and mighty deeds that were known as “the gospel,” the good news. And it was the unspeakable brutality of his military might that was said to bring peace to all the world. Those who heard Luke’s story were well acquainted with the terrors that this prince of peace could bring. 

They would also know moreover that it was the temple in Jerusalem and its Roman appointed priests who were the ones who mediated forgiveness and salvation for the Jewish people before God. 

So, Luke is making it clear that this wild man crying out in the wilderness plunging people into rivers for the forgiveness of sins, that he was acting within the context of imperial occupation but also dramatically outside– literally, physically outside in the wilderness, but also spiritually and morally outside. And moreover, what he was calling people to was to come out with him, and join him there outside the religion of empire and its false gods and its violence and its perversions of the true God of the Hebrew prophets. 

And when people felt that the pull of this call on their deepest longing for the sweet and true Holy One beyond all Name, and when they joined John to be baptized in the waters of that sacred river, and when they committed to – it’s often translated as repentance, but the Hebrew and Aramaic word here means turning and returning, and the Greek work that Luke uses metanoia means a transformation of mind and of heart, a metamorphosis of consciousness. When people responded to John’s call and committed to such a transformation and received the gift of forgiveness, of restoration with their Creator, John the Baptist told them, “This transformation of your life is only the beginning, soon another more powerful than I will come – Jesus – who will baptize you not only with water, but with fire and spirit.” And when Jesus does come, he himself undergoes this radical transformation with John outside the bounds of the established religious powers of Rome and the Temple in Jerusalem. This is the real gospel. 

So, again, what does this mean? 

What were the people then, what are we now being called to? Called from? Called to become? 

Now, we return to these gospel stories over and over as people of faith, because these questions are for a lifetime. For those who are followers of the Way of Jesus, these questions of what we’re called to, what we’re called from, what we’re called to become, they grow and evolve for us as we explore and live through the seasons of our lives. As the Rabbis like to say about studying the Torah – “Turn it, turn it, turn it – it is always new.” Like facets of a diamond, there are always new dimensions of illumination to be discovered. 

The dimension I’ll explore a little more with you now is this idea of being called out from a religion of empire, and called into a transformation that comes from following the Creator God in the Way of Jesus. 

The scholarly resource I’m drawing on here is the work of Wes Howard-Brook, who is a religion scholar at Seattle University, and co-leads a ministry there with his wife. (“Come Out, My People!”: God’s Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond).

Howard-Brook goes through the entire biblical saga and draws out this through-line of the struggle between two very different religious orientations: One he calls the Religion of Empire, and the other he calls the Religion of Creation. 

The Religion of Empire broadly means forms of religion that justify as divinely sanctioned relationships of domination between people and between people and the wider created world. Political and military authorities have special access to god or are gods themselves. And social hierarchies and the ways they assert power are fulfilling some divine purpose. The Religion of Empire takes many different forms across centuries and cultures, but these features stay the same

Against this, is the Religion of Creation, which the Hebrew Prophets proclaimed and which is fulfilled in Jesus and the embodied in the community of Jesus followers animated by the Holy Spirit. 

This Religion of Creation is the relation of the One True God of all Creation, who imbues allthings with profound value and draws us into ways of being with each other that are more loving and just. 

There are endless dimensions to what it means for us to be baptized into this kind of liberation.

The writer of the Gospel of Luke, in how he tells the story Jesus, has a special emphasis on the social impact of the transformation of heart to which John the Baptist and then Jesus calls us. Jesus consistently causes scandal in Luke for how he flips over the ways that lives are valued according to social status. The mighty are torn from their thrones, and the lowly are uplifted. Wealth is a stumbling block rather than a sign of blessing; and high status a weakness, not a divinely ordained strength.

In Luke, it’s right after the Last Supper that the disciples start bickering about who’s the best. And Jesus tells them, “The kings of the gentile people dominate them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one reclining at the table or the one serving? Is it not the one reclining? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-27)

So, when the wild man of God is calling people out of the religion of empire and into a transformation of heart and forgiveness of sins, the valleys we are told will be filled and the mountains that will be made low are likely those of our social landscape and the ways they have formed us. 

The landscape of our own culture has been shaped by forces of domination of certain people over others, and of people over all the other beings in the more-than-human world. And religion has been twisted into justifying it. The religions of empire have not gone away, but just changed form.

All of us have been shaped by this, in one way or another or another. Ways that we have been taught to believe that we are superior, or inferior to other people and to other beings; ways we have been taught to desire status and power and to fear loss of status and power; to be ashamed of low status and power. This is expressed in how we treat each other, and treat ourselves, and treat other beings. This is expressed in what and whom we worship, what are our ultimate concerns. 

These are symptoms of a Religion of Empire. And however much we grow as followers of Jesus, and enjoy some of those fruits of the spirit and become a little more humble and able to see that-of-God in those whom we tend to dismiss, we always have more we can grow into our baptismal call. Social hierarchies and hierarchies between beings continue to shape us and our judgments about the value of different people and of ourselves. And it can just get so tiresome, when it’s not downright deadly, because it is not truly life-giving, and not truly real. 

So, it’s good that there’s Good News, that’s got nothing to do with Caesar. And this season of Christmastide reminds us of the hope and promise and opportunity that comes with Christ born among us.  

We always have the opportunity to hear this call anew, this call out of the ways that a religion of empire has shackled our hearts, this call into the ways of transformed hearts, the ways of forgiveness, the ways of mercy, the ways of justice, of generosity, of courage, the ways of Jesus, born into our midst.  

And for this I give thanks to God. 

Thanks be to God. 

You may view the worship service that include this sermon, here.

Image is by David Zelenka, Creative Commons ShareAlike