Advent 2B Wilderness: the Entrance Way to Hope
Featured contributor Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie
Wilderness, desert, valleys, mountains, hills, grass, flowers, flocks, heaven, earth, fire, river, insects: the lectionary readings are full of images from the more than human world. Every year the second week of Advent tells us a different version of the wilderness prophet John the Baptizer and the themes of water, wilderness, and repentance speak powerfully to the realities of pollution, extinction and human-caused climate change.
Commentary
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Isaiah has many references to wild plant and animal species from outside the urban environment. In Isaiah wilderness is an ambiguous place but not always hostile. Hillary Marlow says that in Isaiah, non-human creation has a separate identity and an inherent positive value, in some cases God prioritizes the non-human world over humans.
These words from second Isaiah are good news of repentance and return to a people captive and captivated by Babylon. The poetry of chapters 40-55 is filled with hope and joy for a new future because the exiled elite are permitted to return home. Persia maintained colonial control but people were allowed to return to their land as long as they remained loyal to Persia.
Verse 1 The double imperative to “comfort, comfort” the returning exiles is then expanded upon in motifs from the more than human world, each with stark contrasts.
Verses 3-4 The command is to make a way in the wilderness. The most direct route between Babylon and Judea would be through the Syrian Desert. High and low geographic landforms are to be brought to the same physical level suggesting social and economic levelling as well. Coming out of captivity through the wilderness echoes the Exodus.
Verses 7-8 The narrator/prophet speaks in the first person pushing back against the divine command to comfort an inconstant people. The recurring biblical motif of faithless or inconstant people as ephemeral plants (Ps 103:15-18; note Matthew 6:30 and last week’s Isaiah 64:6 like a leaf) is intended as judgement or chastisement, but neglects the reality that an ephemeral lifecycle is a very successful botanical strategy. Ephemeral plants take advantage of brief favorable (usually wet) seasons and endure harsh dry or cold environments in seed form. This form of temporal escape also helps avoid predation. Contained in the metaphor is a reminder of survival tactics in harsh conditions and the realities where success is not counted at the individual but species (or community) level.
While ephemeral, grass is also necessary for grazing sheep in a pastoral economy.
The breath, wind, spirit of God, feminine in gender is the same breath over the waters in Genesis 1:2.
Verse 11 The divine warrior of the preceding verse uses that mighty arm to gather up lambs warming them skin-to-skin echoing the tenderness of the opening verses. The repeated metaphor of God as Shepherd, best known from Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34 is rooted in relationship, care and interdependence. The complex interspecies dynamics and wisdom of flocks and shepherdcraft is excellently examined by So Sinopoulos-Lloyd.
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The author promises a community tired of waiting, that Christ’s return is real, coming in a divine understanding of time and calls for a (re)turn to goodness, to lives of holiness.
Verse 8 conveys the cosmic span and relativity of time
Verse 10, 12 The apocalyptic the language of cosmic destruction and cataclysmic disaster indicates not the end of the physical universe but the imminence of great political or spiritual event. The language of firey destruction may be borrowed from Stoic philosophy, but it resonates with escalating “seasons” of smoke and wildfires caused by rising global temperatures but also by the commodification of forests for lumber and the eradication of Indigenous fire stewardship practices.
Some politicians and policy-makers believe that if the world will end with Christ’s fast-approaching return there is no reason to preserve or protect it so unpacking the apocalyptic can have very practical consequences. Christians can anticipate Christ’s coming however we understand the timeline, not in terms of the end of creation, but of a coming Kingdom and a renewed creation that we are called to be partners and participants in.
Verses 11-13 In “God’s someday” righteousness will feel at home on earth. If we are called to live in expectation and watchfulness and to repent (all core Advent themes), what might that look like in terms of our participation and culpability in global climate crisis?
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Each of the gospels begin with the Baptist but Mark is the most abrupt, there is no birth narrative, the gospel begins abruptly in wilderness and water.
Verse 1 The first verse in the gospel does not contain a main verb: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” it is more of a title that echoes the beginning of Genesis.
Verses 2-4 Although Isaiah in the Hebrew has the voice crying “in the wilderness make a way” the gospeler follows the Septuigent such that the voice is crying in the wilderness emphasizing wilderness as the place of transformation.
Bill Wylie-Kellermann suggests John may have cut his teeth on Isaiah 40, tutored in a desert community with a rigorous manual of discipline like the eschatological purists of Qumran. Luke 1:80 hints that John was raised in the wilderness. In the tradition and history of Israel, the wilderness is the time of preparation, the place of testing and repentance. It is the time to travel light, stripped of excess baggage, vulnerable in emptiness. It is the place of powerlessness where we are fully and perpetually at the mercy of God.
Verse 5 Ched Myers observes that in Mark’s baptism narrative those coming out to John are baptized in the Jordan (Gk en); however in Verse 9 Jesus is baptized into the river (Gk eis ton Iordanēn), a prepositional distinction with theological and social significance. While theologians usually understand Jesus’ baptism as divine empowerment “from above,” we could just as well argue he was being en-spirited from “below” through a deep submersion into his beloved homeland, grounding him in the storied Jordan watershed of his ancestors through which Creator still speaks. Being initiated into the sacred, wild spaces of a land groaning under Roman imperialism prepared Jesus for his campaign to liberate and heal his people and place.
Verse 6 To a first century Jewish audience this physical description was as recognizable as: red suit, white beard, big belly, reindeer. They would know immediately that John is being compared to the wilderness prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8). (1 Kings 17:4–6)–who was fed by ravens and who encounters God in the still small voice in the wilderness. Elijah was expected to return to usher in the Messianic age—an era of justice, healing, equality and abundance. This prophetic geneology contrasts with kin lineage of Matthew and Luke and resonates with the reality of those whose deepest connection is to chosen family.
Verses 9-13 These verses are not included in the lectionary but the role and presence of water, wilderness and wild animals are worth examining by the eco-justice preacher.
As Jesus is baptised into the Jordan that same word is repeated, the dove (divine as bird) descends into him and he is driven by the spirit into the wilderness—each “into” emphasizing that what happens to Jesus at his baptism, doesn’t come only from heaven but that he is grounded in strength that comes from the water, from the creatures and from the land. Unique to Mark in the wilderness Jesus is “with the wild beasts,” we don’t know if they threaten, observe or like the angels “wait on him.” The verses echo Isaiah 43:19-20 with water and wild creatures in the wilderness.
Preaching and Teaching Ideas
Wilderness as the Entrance Way to Hope
Every Sunday during the Lord's prayer, I say the words, “protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” Although it's hard to be hopeful with all that's going on in the world, Advent is our liturgical season of joyful hope. Today's second reading from 2 Peter tells us that we are to wait for the fulfillment of God's promise for “new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”
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Isaiah tells us, that “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord” and Mark's gospel suggests that John the Baptist is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” So, Advent is also a wilderness time, a time where we too, prepare the way for the Christ to be born again in us.
For the Jews and early Christians, wilderness was a favourite place for great expectations. Wilderness was a reminder and a symbol of the expectation for a repeat of great miracles like the parting of the Sea and manna from heaven. The wilderness was also the favourite place for preparing for new acts of liberation. John the Baptist begins his work of preparation in the wilderness. Later, we see that Jesus undergoes his testing in the wilderness before setting out to spread the good news. The wilderness is the entranceway to hope.
St. Mark has John the Baptist eating what the wilderness provides, locusts and honey. By this, the Evangelist is really reminding us of the age-old tensions between living by farming and building settlements on one hand and living simply by hunting and gathering the food that nature provides on the other. In today's terms, we are called to consider the very serious question of whether the globalized values of international city dwellers are not only marginalizing the rural peoples but threatening the well-being of the planet and all its inhabitants.
When someone deliberately returned to the wilderness to live off the land, that act was a challenge to the lifestyle chosen by others. John's behaviour was a challenge, a call to repentance. It is a call to examine our lifestyle choices. Throughout Israel's history, the alternative lifestyle called people back to a sense of God in the natural world and to a way of trust that inevitably sought to live with the land not against it.
Jesus called for the same repentance as John. But Jesus carried the confrontation into the settled areas of Galilee by living the lifestyle he followed and invited his followers to share this lifestyle. They were to live simply. By calling many to abandon wealth, land, and family, Jesus was subverting traditional values and calling for a radical reassessment of priorities. At one level his challenge could bring dislocation but at another it invited a new and different relationship to land and to people. Jesus' vision of God's reign included a right relationship with creation, a synergy such as we find in today's Gospel.
The lifestyle confrontation that the good news brings is an opportunity for us to be part of the good news for the Earth and all creation. We can't all move to the actual wilderness hunting and gathering but we can all simplify our lives and most of all, slow down. Advent is a time to take the opportunity to enter into our own wilderness spaces and prepare the way for the Godseed within us to flourish; a wilderness place where we prepare and wait in joyful hope for Jesus to be born again in our hearts, so that by our actions, we participate in fulfilling God's promise of a renewed earth, where justice is at home.
Repentance and Climate Change
There is some tension or cognitive dissonance in the hillbilly wilderness prophet proclaiming that “every hill shall be made low” particularly for those who have experienced human-caused disasters or extreme events like fire, floods, storms and landslides.
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Some of these crises occur where humans have dramatically altered the landscape: -pumping out a lake to make farmland, forcing through roads and tunnels then clear-cutting hillsides, -we might rightfully be suspicious of this message. But some commentators claim that what John says in gospels about hills and valley is actually a parody of Roman imperial construction projects -expansion, conquest, colonization.
In the wilderness by the water John is “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
Sin and repentance are not popular notions these days—in part because the church has made sin about what people to in the bedroom and not in the boardroom, what happens in the sheets rather than what happens on the streets. But biblically sin is much more about communities and nations than it is about individuals and repentance is a fitting topic for the climate preacher.
The language of sin and repentance can help us to respond to situations of global climate change and environmental racism. We can acknowledge that we are caught up in sinful systems that harm creation and humans that seem insurmountable and not become overwhelmed because we serve a God of love and forgiveness who is greater than those systems, those powers and principalities.
Bill Wylie Kellermann interprets, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” As “A whole new order is about to take shape, and if you want to be part of it, you’ll have to make some radical changes in your lives.” And that is a pretty accurate synopsis of what most of the world faces with global climate change.
In Hebrew Teshuva repentance means to turn around, or change direction. It does not mean feeling bad, it means acting differently. As individuals we can take on spiritual disciplines like driving less or trying to eat sustainably, not because we believe we will change the world but b/c we are determined not to be changed by the world.
But repentance is not about what you must do on your own. We can make community level changes like double glazing the church windows. And we can take bigger corporate actions –like calling for national carbon emissions targets, or joining with other faith groups to divest from fossil fuels and extraction industries. For of these kinds of engagement: individual, communal, structural you can offer or ask for local examples.
This is the work of the baptismal promise that Anglicans call “safeguarding the integrity of creation.”
So we can repent, and like the prophets and matriarchs and John and Jesus we can go to the wilderness. Whether we live in the city or the country, in an apartment or a farm we can take time to look at the sky, listen to the water, pay attention to the plants and the animals of this place and nurture our connection –listen for and heed the voices that are crying there. Ask for or offer examples of what wilderness voices are crying for? Endangered species, polluted oceans, dammed rivers?
Water Is Life
With allusions to Elijah at the Wadi Cherith -a seasonal stream and John at the Jordan the eco-justice preacher has an important opportunity. These passages connect to the realities of pollution, ocean life destruction, storms, desertification, the great Pacific garbage patch, rising ocean levels, and increasing freshwater crises. You might ask your congregation what are local water concerns: the sale of bottled water at the expense of local communities, industrial agriculture and water diversion, water shut-offs, hydro-electric dams marketed as green energy alternatives? Who has access to clean drinking water in your watershed, what forces and structures control that access?
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Christians are used to thinking about baptism as a uniquely Christian practice but John was leader of a Jewish renewal movement based on baptism years before Christianity was invented. John’s baptism was upsetting to both the Jewish and Roman authorities. It threatened the Jewish priesthood because instead of the centralized and expensive sacrifice system at the temple, anyone could come to the Jordan repent and be baptized and cleansed of their sins for free. It threatened the Roman occupiers with strong symbols of political liberation. People came to John in the dessert, and then crossed over the Jordan –recreating the entry of the liberated Hebrews into the promised land. John’s baptism was politically and religiously volatile and he was attracting large numbers of followers. Does/how does thinking about the John/Jesus water and repentance movement help us to think about people’s water movements -like those in Detroit, or South Dakota in our current context?
What does it mean when our sacrament and source of life is so harmed and distorted? In their powerful performance “Wade Through Deep Water” which draws from the poetry of Thomas Merton, Tevyn East and Jay Beck of Carnival de Resistance have the Baptist proclaim “we all must be baptized in dirty water, because all the water is dirty… this baptismal call is a warning that your sanitation will not transform you! Your underground sewer systems do not hide the rising stench of your spiritual decay! This is not a call for more programs or for technological advancement. this is not shopping advice about how to consume responsibly. this is a call to put your face in the mess you’ve made and feel the grief of the waters.”
Water walkers and Indigenous water defenders claim “Water is Life” and Christian environmentalists agree. The biblical narrative runs, splashes, drips and roars with water symbols. In our sacrament of baptism water, life but also death come powerfully together and we have not yet engaged enough-prayed, and washed and wept- with how this brings us to struggles for water justice.
Sources and Resources
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2016/12/15/advent-the-wilderness-in-a-very-small-place/
https://chedmyers.org/2014/07/23/072914archivedwebinarelijahcycle/
http://www.allcreation.org/home/re-placing-baptism
https://www.queernature.org/criticalnaturalistblog/shepherdcraft
https://www.greeningthelectionary.net/448484485.html
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2019/01/10/wild-lectionary-song-of-the-baptizer/
Loader, William. “Good News—for the Earth? Reflections on Mark 1:1-15” in Habel, Norman C., and Vicky Balabanski (eds.). The Earth Story in the New Testament. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002
Author Bios
Rev. Dr. Victoria (Vikki) Marie, is the priest/chaplain of the Vancouver Catholic Worker and a member of Roman Catholic Women Priests Canada. She is the semi-retired priest of Our Lady of Guadalupe Tonantzin Community. Vikki is a late blooming artist, whose work can be seen at SisterSea Arts and she is the author of Transforming Addiction: the role of spirituality in learning recovery from addictions, Saarbrücken: Scholar's Press (2014). The image included in this post is one of her pieces.
Laurel Dykstra is the founding priest of Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community, a church that worships outdoors and seeks to help Christians in the lower Fraser watershed grow their skills for Climate Justice. Laurel’s latest book on interspecies loneliness, Wildlife Congregations will be out from Hancock House in late 2023.