Thousands of people had gathered in expectation. No one left the hall, yet, but you had the feeling that it might not be long. The impatient folks on the edges were swaying, moving their weight from one foot to the other, or milling around as though looking for clues to the whereabouts of the main attraction. It wouldn't be long before they started to slip away. Some people checked their watches. Other checked their tickets- had they come on the wrong night; had they come to the wrong place?

Suddenly the lights went down and the announcer stepped out.
"He's running late- his bus is still tied up in traffic," he said with a smile, as though this news was going to pacify the restive crowd. Then he introduced the opening act - some guy from the sticks - and quickly ducked back behind the closed curtain.

A murmur went through the crowd. It was not a happy sound. It was more like the grumbling of the folks who had followed Moses into the desert than like the excited whispering of people who believe they are about to receive good things.

The crowd quieted as the edge of an acoustical guitar body emerged from the split between the curtains. Much of the finish had worn off the top of its sound box and the wire-wound strings had lost their metallic shine long ago. The guitar was the instrumental equivalent of a derelict that eats out of dumpsters and sleeps, without shelter, outside in the rain. Then the hand that held this guitar by the neck slipped through the deep blue velvet fabric, followed by a very muscular arm. The people in the front row could see a tattooed swarm of bees resplendent on emerging flesh that was bare up to a grubby rolled up sleeve. Then the rest of the man parted the curtain, dragging a beat up old chair behind him.

The crowd looked at his muddy work boots, worn jeans and a torn shirt that had clearly seen better days. But before any of their opinions could be voiced, the man sat down and launched into the first song without preamble.

There was no "hello, I'm glad to be here," or "how you'all doing tonight," just a crashing wall of chords that swelled and drew them near in spite of the fury held in the music. No wonder the finish was almost gone from the face of the guitar- it held a river of fire inside it.

And the music burned into their being. It wasn't Gospel, or the blues. It wasn't country or jazz. It was all of them, and somehow, more than all of them. Then the man opened his mouth and the words shot out like arrows that pierced their hearts. He sang the truth of their lives. He touched the places where they hurt most-touched them like a surgeon who cuts out gangrenous tissue without anesthetic so that he might save an arm or a leg…or a life.

His words leveled their pride and then tunneled down to meet them in their memories of their deepest depression. Then he sang them the strength to stand tall, and he set them on level ground. The words of his song called them to live lives that meant something, to be a benefit to others, rather than just taking up space-or taking advantage of others. He laid out a riff that proclaimed that children couldn't inherit a mother's or a father's hard won character- each child had to do their own work, find their own path. He sang true words. Words of life and death, but even better he sang them words of hope.

The music made a long, flat highway in the desert and each person in the crowd felt as though they had been lifted barefoot from hot sand into a shiny new air-conditioned vehicle with a full tank of gas, a bottle of cold water and the promise of better days ahead. Even before the first song faded, the crowd went wild.

By the end of his set, the joint was rocking and the crowd was on its feet, yelling with one voice. They chanted his name, over and over again, and the waves of adoration broke on the front of the stage like water at his feet. "It doesn't get any better than this," they thought,"he should be the headliners!" Then Johnny B. stood. A hush fell over the hall.

"You'all aint heard nothing, yet" he said. "Wait 'til you hear my cousin!

Then he grabbed his guitar by the neck again and dragged the chair off, stage right. A follow-spot crackled into life, drawing the crowd's attention back to the center of the curtains and lighting up the darkness behind them. The crowd leaned forward, silent but full of expectation as another man moved forward from backstage.

The light of the follow spot hit his white shirt and flashed off over his silver tie. Red and yellow computer controlled lights washed across the stage and locked on him, pulsing to the beat of the music as the twelve-piece band behind him soared into the first number. He moved like a pillar of fire onto center stage, then he opened his mouth.

Johnny B. was right. Incredibly this music took up where Johnny B. had left off, and then raised the crowd to a place higher than they had ever been. It was more than they could have imagined, or prayed for. It was like being born again- the whole world was suddenly new. You felt like nothing could touch you, neither the mistakes of your past nor the death that lay in wait for you somewhere in the future. Now was all there was-all there ever would be. The crowd felt alive and invulnerable as thy looked upon the man raised up before them. In him were the words of life and the crowd was feasting on every word that come out of his mouth…

Can you feel how it was? How it was by the banks of the Jordan?

John was not a rock star and Jesus was not that kind of leader of the band. But can you see how a change in venue, a shift in setting, allows us to imagine some of the excitement that was found in their presence.

Presence is the key word. Jesus is not some holy relic, a stained glass image from the past. Jesus is not simply the subject of stories in the Gospel. He is a vibrant presence that is thrilling to encounter-a singer of life and a lover of souls. Jesus is alive and with us. In the stories, in the bread and wine, whenever two or three are gathered in His name- Jesus is with us, now. Jesus is with us in celebration and with us in times of sadness and tribulation.

And the wisdom of the ages is with us now, too. The wisdom of the ages is for us- it, too, is one of God's gifts. Zephaniah was a minor prophet who lived almost 3000 years ago under the reign of a king most of us probably couldn't name. And yet Zephaniah has words that for us that remain fresh and true and useful.

The only way around difficult times, Zephaniah proclaimed, is to go through them, with God's help. Repentance and humility- a willingness to be changed, and a sense of our own limits- can enable us to go forward, into righteousness, even through the most challenging of times. Sounds like the guy on the stage with the beat-up guitar- the man in the camel skins down by the river- doesn't it? Don't the words ring true?

We must hold on and have hope even when things seem grim. A lifeline from the shore is of no use if a person in a rushing river unties it and throws it away. Floodwaters can be a place of death, or of rescue and new life. Those who rise up out of a raging river to be embraced by their rescuer are conquerors, even if they have lost everything other than their life.

Those who leave this life, holding fast to God, rise again,
victorious on that distant shore where there is no more sighing,
and in that time when God has promised to wipe away every tear.

But we still have to start from the knowledge that we are at risk, we are not okay just as we are. Claims to the contrary are the realm of pop psychologists. Pride causes us to pretend that we are perfect. But we are flawed and broken-everyone of us, you and me. We can be blind and weak. We sometimes hurt those we love, and ignore, or disdain, those who different than we are.

While it is true that God loves us just as we are, God also wants better for us.
God wants the injured to be healed and the sick to be well.
That is why John stood in the desert. That is why people came to hear him.
That is why "all of Jerusalem" came down to the Jordan
to get in the water and be cleansed.

Who goes to the doctor? People who know they are sick.
Who went to John? People who knew they were sinners.
Archbishop William Temple once said, "the church is not a home for saints, it is a hospital for sinners." We have the opportunity to come here with humility and repentance- to kneel at the rail and in our pew, and to ask God to change us, to heal us, and to help us become the people he would have us be. And God will come-as a babe in the manger, as a teacher who draws great crowds, as a healer of spirits and as the Savior of our souls. For us he was raised, not on a stage, but on a cross.

That is the Good News. That is the victory that God offers. That is our salvation.
So let us gather with rock stars and prophets, and all the company of heaven
And sing with one voice while the crowd goes wild.

AMEN.