Listen to it.
In the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea
and Herod was ruler of Galilee
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the area to the East…
and so forth.

In fact, most, or all, of the central Biblical stories
of both the old and the new testaments
take place in the context of the turmoil and din
of political instability.

Why should we be surprised?
for it is at such times
that God's voice is hardest to hear,
and God needs most to act.

How can God's voice, for instance,
be heard amidst the clamor and violence
of political failure in today's Jerusalem?

How can we, as a deeply divided country
over a month into a cruelly disputed election
stop the recriminations and name calling
so that concern for one another might prevail
a new dialogue begin?

And, of course, all this is aggravated
by what I perceive to be
a violent commercialism
which has subsumed, even for Christians,
the traditional season of Advent.

I am reminded of a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon
from last week's calendar,
which shows a cross section
of a hive of busy bees
- thousands of them -
and one little bee in the middle
with its little hands over its little ears
crying, "I can't stand all this buzzing!"

I was in a room with hundreds of people the other day,
and everyone was screaming to be heard
in an attempt not to be un-noticed.
No one was straining to hear.
I suspect that after 30 minutes
People left that room
Having heard nothing whatever.

That is what the bee story is about
That is the dynamic responsible for much dysfunction
in our families, our communities, our nation.

So, today, certainly not from such an uproar,
not from a center of religion or learning
not from a holy city, or the halls of political authority,
but from the desert
comes the voice of a prophet, John the Baptizer,
saying, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
"Prepare the way of the Lord.""

And, indeed, John the Baptizer
did come from deep desert

He lived perhaps for a long time
as a member of the desert community of Qum Ranh
- that outpost of Jewish monasticism
on the shore of the Dead Sea,
the place from which came
the Dead Sea Scrolls

And, John's proclamations
echo the words
and recall the plight of the people in ages past
- separated, subjugated, forgotten
in the midst of political upheaval.

Perhaps such insight can come
only from a place of quiet and peace.

35 years ago, I spent 7 months in the Great American Desert;
much of the days alone.
I had all the time in the world
to feel those vast expanses.

The quiet screamed of things beyond concerns of life;
testified to things beyond the limits
of human endeavor.

I've seen the sun break suddenly
above the high desert floor with a brilliance
which lit up flecks of mica and topaz
in the rocks and stones
like a million sparks of fire.

I've seen the mirages of deep desert
shimmer and play
careless of my presence or my flights of fancy.

I've sat by the hour
by the day
and smelled the clean air
and watched majestic mountain ranges
NOT move.

And, I have known
that I was in the presence of God's unspoiled handiwork
and that there was a lot beyond such
that simply didn't count.

We have all heard of "Death Valley".
Few of us have been there
most don't want to go;

Yet, Spanish Christians in the 17th Century
called it,
"La palma dela mano de Dios."

How stunning that in that wilderness
they should see
"the palm of God's hand."

There is an article by Belden Lane
I remember reading in the "Christian Century"
with the disturbing title,
"Fierce Landscapes and the Indifference of God".

I was at once put off by the title,
for my God cannot be described as indifferent.

But, in the article, Lane states,
"What fierce landscapes celebrate
is God's indifference (not to us, but)
to the assorted hand-wringing anxieties of human life."

The wilderness assists us in achieving silence
and receptive emptiness;
It undercuts the incessant self-absorption
which pre-occupies our minds
The wilderness confronts us head on
with the divine sovereignty of God.

Today's first reading
was from Baruch,
- a book of the Apocrypha, written between
the old and new testaments.

It is a story of the scattering of the people
during the political and military disaster
of the Babylonian captivity in the 5th Century BC.

The city Jerusalem had been sacked
the temple destroyed:
the able bodied carried off as slaves,

Yet, God is about to do a new thing.
Arise O Jerusalem;
stand upon the height,
look toward the East and see your children gathering
by the power of the Word of the Holy One.

And, echoing Isaiah's words of the same event,
God will lower the hills
and fill in the valleys
so that his people might find their way safely home.

An interesting contribution
of the scholars adds the fact
that this book was written close to the time of Jesus
hundreds of years later
to remind a people again caught in political turmoil
of the reality of their God.

Likewise, John the Baptizer
uses the same words of Isaiah in today's Gospel
to introduce the coming mighty act of God
in Christ Jesus.

From the quiet of the desert
he calls out to people embroiled in avarice
and fearful political tension
""The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
"Prepare the way of the Lord."
Every valley shall be filled…" and so forth…
"that all people shall see
the salvation of their God."

This is our true Advent tradition
preserved for us, commended to us
by the Church
and by this liturgical observance of Advent.

It is not much understood in a world run wild.
Most think us strange,
but this is a tradition
grounded in a millennia of desert spirituality
and designed to drive us
to utter, receptive, desert silence
by the indifference of God
to our much doing.

In the 5th Century AD
Pope Leo published a book of Advent sermons
none of which mentions
the coming of Christmas
NONE.

That is still God's surprise, you see,
once we have heeded Leo's call
to stand simply and humbly in desert silence
before our God.

That might seem impossible for us much of the time this season,
but that makes it all the more critical to our wellbeing -
that we spend some important time
with these thoughts
in this desert
with this God.

Look for ways to find this kind of space.
Seek in it our liturgies, regularly attended
Find it in the biblical stories of the season
Read those stories by the fireside this Christmas Eve,
and as my grandmother used to say 50 years ago
spend time as a family
doing nothing at all.

We must stand in desert silence
and allow God's indifference to much
of what we think is important
wash us of our anxiety,
free us of our servitude
re-unite us with him and one another,
and bring us home.

Insofar as we can wait in awed desert silence
we will discover
that the indifference of God
to the frenzy of our discourse and our doing -

will turn out,
in the end

to be born to us
and will abide in us
as a new and incarnate spirit
of God's insistent and saving love.