An Advent Reflection

Jesus and Moses have made it to Hollywood, but few others in their category have done as well.

Very rarely do scenes and characters from the scriptures reappear before our eyes on the silver screen. This scripture passage, however, presents some interesting candidates for this year's Oscar nominations. They would be strong contenders in the categories of animation, screen play, and best supporting actor.

Images of a paradise-regained dance in our heads as the predictions of the prophet Isaiah make us dream of a much better world to come. In our excitement we might feel the urge to call Walt Disney out of his cryogenic existence just to direct the sure-to-be-box-office- favorite. Move over Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Here comes a wolf as the guest of a lamb and a leopard lying down with the kid. A calf and a young lion will browse the fields together. And, the leader of the pack, will be a young child.
The passage from Chapter 11 of Isaiah describes the end time when all will be well. This peaceful kingdom seems to come straight out of a Disney-like imagination. Peace will reign and harmony be taken for granted. New life will come from unexpected places. The remains of a nation, long-dead to the objective observer, will bring forth new life. The stump of Jesse will bud forth, this time, in greater splendor than the first time around.

Hope is the password in the passage from Romans. Even Paul admits, when he is writing to the Romans, what was written before their time still can hold some significance in their lives. "Everything written before our time was written for our instruction, that we might derive hope, patience, and encouragement.…" When Paul's Jewish contemporaries look at Jesus, they are reminded of God's faithfulness. When the new Gentile Christians look at Jesus, they are reminded of the mercy of God.

A cinematographer's dream and greatest challenge would be John the Baptist. When he makes his dramatic appearance in the desert, a new era is ushered in. His theme is as direct as he is himself, "Reform your lives! The reign of God is at hand."

The precursor has an urgency in his message and a no-nonsense attitude in his whole demeanor. He wears a garment of camel hair, a leather belt around his waist, and his diet consists of grasshoppers and wild honey. That combination commands the attention of the masses who come to him to be baptized. What he asks of them, he already is living out himself.

His preaching arouses repentance. His strong sense of who he is and who he isn't only accentuates the truth the crowds have to face within themselves. No longer can the Sadducees continue to ride on the coattails of their ancestors. John calls them to make a personal choice for conversion. Their personal choice would stand them in good stead when the one who was more powerful than John comes.

John is unabashedly servant; servant of the message and the mission entrusted to him. The degree to which he is servant hit me in a new way in rereading this passage from Matthew's third chapter. The words I had tucked away in my memory about the desert scene, when John the Baptist talks of the one who is to come, were "I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals." In rechecking the other Synoptics, Luke and Mark use that phrase. Matthew, however, has John say, "I am not fit to carry his sandals." In the most universal images of who a servant is, "the one-who-carries-things" for their master would be one of the first images conjured up in people's minds. To read him describe himself unworthy of even this, surprised me and showed me a new level of humility from which to appreciate John the Baptist. With this image framed in the lens of my internal camera, I hear the director inside myself saying, "Fade out, and print."

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