When our children were small, a nice church lady named Chris made them a child-friendly creche. All the actors in this stable drama are soft and squishy and durable - perfect to touch and rearrange - or toss across the living room in a fit of toddler frenzy. The Joseph character has always been my favorite because he looks a little wild - red yarn spiking out from his head, giving him an odd look of energy. In fact, I have renamed this character John the Baptist and in my mind substituted one of the innocuous shepherds for the more staid and solid Joseph. Why this invention? Because, over the years, I have decided that without the disconcerting presence of John lurking in the shadows of our manger scenes, the Jesus story is mush - nothing but child's play, lulling us into sleepy sentimentality.

Woe to a world that tries to silence John the Baptist! Woe to a world that muffles the voices of those crying in the wilderness - crying above the desolation and the despair and the disillusionment of the mess that we have created! Woe to us if we ignore the voices of Ralph Nader and Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, Ed Murphy and Elizabeth St. John! Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it well - the promises and the predictions of Advent are frightening for anyone who has a conscience.

We need to know that when John shows up in that barren desert outside first century Bethlehem, what the people see is a spitting image of Elijah - the wild hair and the wild robe and the wild words of the greatest prophet who ever lived. Elijah was the first big voice to name the failures of God's people. He was the man who dared to tell the truth - about their greed, about their cold-heartedness, about their timidity in the face of evil. And Elijah was the one who predicted that, because of their spiritual sloth, the people of God would crumble into oblivion - losing their land, losing their soul, losing their way in the seductive wilderness of the world. And, of course, everything that Elijah predicted came true - the bloody battles, the arrogant arguments, the social decay, the humiliating exile of Israel's story.

And so, centuries later, when John the Baptist shows up in the shadows of that remnant, he is speaking to a people who have no holy spirit, no holy hope, no holy guts. But, as a mirage from the past, he simply electrifies the crowd. His urgency, his energy, his truth - yes, even his anger - tantalizes their apathy. And, the text tells us, lots of people come to hear him. They intentionally come and subject themselves to a kind of verbal road rage. They open their lives to be judged and scared and harassed - to be driven right off the comfortable, boring highways of their lives. Why? Why do they come? Because maybe, just maybe, in the midst of rebuke - they will repent. Maybe they will be reborn. Maybe they will remember - remember who God is and remember who they are. Maybe, just maybe, John's blunt blast will become a bold blessing.

Repent! This ancient, angular word echoes awkwardly in our feel-good world. And yet, my friends, Repent! is the only kind of preparation called for in scripture during these days and weeks before Christmas. Repent! for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent! for the moment of travail and birth is at hand. And as with any birth - the birth of Jesus, the birth of vision, the birth of justice, the birth of honesty, the birth of compassion, the birth of a new age, the birth of our own embryonic souls - as with any birth, the old must pass away and the startling, demanding, difficult new must come. But fear not. According to John, God will be our mid-wife - coaching our birth, and easing the radical changes that squirming new life always brings.

And so, my friends, John's voice crying in the wilderness of this sanctuary is first and foremost a voice of accountability. To the scribes and to the Pharisees, to the conservatives and to the liberals, to the peasants and to the powerful, to the Jews and to the Gentiles, to the believers and to the skeptics, to the people back then and to us gathered here - to all the odd and varied people who gather in the wilderness, John demands moral and spiritual accountability.

Yes, John is raging at us today. In our me-and-my-Jesus kind of faith, in our me-and-my-clan kind of politics, in our me-and-my-happiness kind of world, John rages at our self-absorbed narrowness. Christmas, Christianity, spirituality - none of this is about me and mine. It is not even about us and ours. It is about God and God's vision. John takes what we have personalized and sentimentalized - and he rips it open, politicizing and socializing the good news of the gospel. The kingdom of God is not contained within the comfortable walls of this sanctuary. It is not contained within the ordered structures of denominationalism. It is not contained within the proud patriotism of America. It is not even contained within the sanctimonious bubble of Christianity. Just because Abraham, or Calvin, or Jesus is our ancestor - this does not mean that only we are chosen - that only we are precious - that only we matter. John tells us that God is even able to turn stones into faithful people. In God's imagination, everyone matters. In God's sovereignty, everyone belongs at the kingdom table. And in God's economy, everyone will be judged - judged as to how passionate we are about seeking justice for all.

As amused as I was by the recent anti-SUV campaign, I know in my heart that John the Baptist would have approved. I think the answer to the question, "What would Jesus drive?" is clear. The answer is: "Jesus wouldn't drive at all - he would only take public transportation!" Which, of course, judges all of us - those who drive Chevy Cavaliers and those who drive SUVs. Brothers and sisters, anything we do that separates us by power or privilege from other children in God's world, anything that abuses creation or oppresses people or substitutes the comforts of stuff for the comforts of soul, yes, anything that puts our puny selves above the desperate cries of a wounded creation - all of this is contrary to the kingdom of God. And all of this must change if Christ is to be fully incarnated in this world. Far from being hyperbolic, John the Baptist is simply telling the truth.

And so, John's voice crying in the wilderness of a weary world is a booming voice of accountability. And I believe that most of us are here today partly because, like those restless people of long ago, we want to be held accountable. We need to be held accountable. But the good news of our Advent faith is that John's voice of accountability is also a loud voice of hope. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight." John is quoting Isaiah who first spoke these words to the hopeless people of Israel who had shriveled up in the catastrophic captivity of Babylonia. And yet, Isaiah reminds these homeless exiles that God has not abandoned them - that indeed God is preparing right now a way for them to return to Israel, to return to life, to return to God, to return home. In echoing Isaiah's words this morning, John is speaking to the faithful remnant who have returned to the land, but have not returned to the vision. He is saying to them - he is saying to us - that God is building a new highway, a new path, a new way right here in our wilderness - preparing for us a straight path amid the crooked and the confused ways of this world.

In the New Testament the word for "road" and the word for "way" is the same. And of course, we know that for us, who call ourselves Christians, the Way, the Truth, and the Life is Jesus. And what a way it is - this journey straight through and with and in Christ. This Jesus is the mighty one who topples the proud and the powerful. But he is also the gentle one who cradles his lambs and tenderly carries us home. This Jesus is the angry prophet who turns over tables of greed. But he is also the Savior, who unconditionally forgives the prodigal son and the prostitute daughter. This Jesus is the demanding teacher who confronts us with our hatreds and our prejudices and our selfishness. But he is also the healer, who casts out our demons and opens our blind hearts and feeds us with the very bread of life. Yes, Jesus is the Way, the straight and promising path through the treacheries and the disappointments of this world. And he reminds us that daily repentance and daily renewal and daily commitment is what the journey of faith is all about.

A few weeks ago I was part of a clergy gathering at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania. A 4,000-member congregation, the Bryn Mawr church includes some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the Philadelphia area. Part of that experience was listening to a panel of men and women from the business community - all of them elders in the church. They had been asked to tell us, the pastors of this world, what they, the movers and shakers of the world, need to hear from the church. It was a sobering experience. Contrary to what I had expected, these people do not want only to hear words of comfort; instead what they most want to hear are words of confrontation and truth. They want to be reminded in clear ways what the values and responsibilities of our faith really are. They want to be held accountable for the rich gifts and privileges they have been given. Yes, week in and week out, they want to be called to repentance - so that when push comes to shove, in the boardrooms of America, they will find the wisdom to be faithful and the courage to be honest. They want to be able to resist the seductions and the lies that have corrupted the Enrons and the world.coms and the Halliburtons of this world.

One woman on the panel summarized it all. She said, "I come to worship to pray and to sing and to listen. But most of all, I come for the benediction. Because that is the moment that I am reminded who I am. That is the moment when, one more time, I am pushed by God out into the world to be the very presence of Christ." This is the benediction which is used every week at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church:

Go out into the world in peace;
have courage;
hold onto what is good;
return no one evil for evil;
strengthen the fainthearted;
support the weak, and help the suffering;
honor all people;
love and serve the Lord,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This, of course, is just an elegant way of echoing John's very tough, very good news: "Repent! for the kingdom of God is at hand."

May it be so. Amen