Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 5, 2021:

Malachi 3:1-4 or Baruch 5:1-9

Luke 1:68-79 (Luke 1:78)

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

In this week's Gospel, we see and hear John the Baptist proclaiming the good news. We'll see him in different contexts throughout the liturgical year. Luke gives a rather tame introduction--no locusts or wild honey. But he is living in the wilderness, which has led me to think of the role of wilderness in the lives of believers.

Many of us have been trained to assume that some day, we will arrive at a point where we will be so successful, that we will feel no pain.  We will have everything we need because our faith will be so strong that God will provide it for us.  Somewhere, we misread the Gospels as telling us that God will get rid of all suffering.

How then, do we cope with the sorrows that will visit every life?  

It's in these times that the idea of wilderness seems essential to our understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  Here the wilderness is not a geographical place, so much as an emotional one. Can we even hear this good news in the world we live in? We like to think that we're connected, but I've been wondering about all the ways that our technology keeps us disconnected. We text each other instead of having conversations. We get our news from so many sources, at every hour of the day, that we may go numb. The human brain was not made for such misery. Maybe the wilderness in which we find ourselves is one of shallow connection where our roots whither.

Maybe the wilderness space is less about our emotional life.  Maybe we feel that we're in a wilderness because of a lack of resources.  We don't have enough money to pay for necessities, much less gifts. We've lost loved ones, and the holidays remind us of those holes left by loss. We remember a time when we liked the holidays and we've lost that person who approached the season with wonder and joy. We have too much caretaking to do and no one taking care of us.

Listen to the words of John the Baptist again. Listen to God, who often calls to us from the wilderness. Let the words fill your heart with hope: "The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Luke 3: 5-6).

Your salvation is at hand: your grieving heart will be comforted, your anger and irritation will lift, the planet will heal itself as it always does, the community of God is already here, but it is also being created.  You will find what you need, in ways you didn't expect.

Glad tidings of good news indeed.