Not too long ago, our family made a journey. It was a long journey, and it took the better part of a day to get there and the better part of another day to get back. It was a tiring journey, but it was well worth everything we had to endure to get there. "There" was home, and "there" was a place where we were surrounded by the love of family members, some of whom we had not seen in more years than we care to count. And when we came back, we were not the same people we were before the journey. We felt refreshed and renewed, reassured that, even though "home" has changed a lot since we were growing up there, the love we expected to find was still there in abundance.

Each year, during the season of Advent, the church sets off on a journey. We begin to prepare our hearts and our minds for the coming of the Christ-child, so that this time he will have a proper place to be born. And we think we know the way to Bethlehem. We can find it on the map. It’s not that far from Jerusalem, by today’s standards; shouldn’t be a problem.

But the problem is that so much has changed since our last visit. A whole year has passed, a year that brought many changes in our lives, some of them good, some of them not so good, some of them heartbreaking. The geographic map of life has changed, and even old familiar places don’t seem the same any more. So maybe we could use a little help in finding our way back to Bethlehem this year. That is, if you still want to go.

If we were to ask any of the writers of the gospels how to get to Bethlehem, I think we might be surprised by their answer.

"So you want to go to Bethlehem, do you? Tell you what to do: go on out to the desert, outside of the relatively safe confines of Jerusalem. Keep going till you get to the Jordan River. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s the only river around these parts. You’ll find a man there – strange looking old coot – standing knee-deep in the water, just baptizing folks left and right, as fast as he can. That’ll be John the Baptist. You ask him how to get to Bethlehem. If you want to get to Bethlehem, you have to start there at the Jordan with John. He’s the only one who can help you get there."

They all say the same thing, all four of them – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all say that if you really want to go to Bethlehem, first you have to encounter John the Baptist.

The season of Advent belongs, not to Jesus, but to old weird John, munching on grasshoppers, dressed in his camel’s hair shirt. As much as we might want to jump the gun and start our Christmas celebration the day after Thanksgiving – and corporate America counts on us doing just that every year – Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of Christ. As much as we want to resist the call for quiet self-examination, we must do exactly that. As Dr. Fred Craddock says, "Advent pilgrims on the way to the manger must pass through the desert where John is preaching."

I’m telling you this to make an important point about Advent and our preparation for Christmas. If, instead of relying on the television specials and advertising experts to tell you what Christmas is all about, you turn to the Bible, you are going to have a head-on collision with John the Baptist. He’s there in every account of the story, out there in the desert, standing knee-deep in the River Jordan, preaching his one and only sermon, pointing the way to Bethlehem.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not real anxious to go out there in the desert again. I already know what that weirdo in the camel’s hair shirt is going to say. He says the same thing every year, like a broken record, over and over. What kind of preacher only has one sermon? No wonder he’s out there in the desert. The District Superintendent [Bishop or Regional Minister] probably sent him there because none of the churches would have him! You know what his sermon is, don’t you? "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." That’s it. No cute stories, no three points and a poem, no worn-out, pious clichés. He just stands there, roaring his one-line sermon like a lion. You could probably hear him long before you could catch sight of him. You could hear "REPENT!" echoing off the barren desert landscape. And I don’t want to hear that, especially now, at this time of the year. Don’t you just want to shout at him, "Lighten up, John! You crusty old party-pooper! It’s Christmas, for Pete’s sake! Can’t you see we’re trying to have fun here?"

But, you see, John is a prophet. Now, some folks think that a prophet is someone who can foretell the future. That’s probably because the word "prophecy," in its current usage, refers to predicting future events. And that may be part of what prophets do. But that’s the part that’s easy to take. We can grade them on their accuracy later. What’s hard to take about prophets is what they say about the PRESENT. And what they say about the present is almost always, "You’ve got it all wrong! You’d better repent!"

But prophets rarely disclose anything new or earth-shattering about the present. They simply tell us what we already knew but didn’t want to be reminded of—that we need to change. And change is almost always painful.

There are basically only two forms of religious experience – priestly and prophetic. Priestly religion seeks to uphold the status quo. "God’s in His Heaven, all is right with the world. This is the way we’ve always done it, and we don’t see any reason to do it any other way. It’s always worked for us in the past. Oh, sure, our numbers are fewer as we gather on Sunday morning, but we can’t help it if today’s generation refuses to do things our way. They’ll learn, sooner or later. And when they do, we’ll be here to say ‘I told you so.’"

Priestly religion sees God as the guardian of society, the keeper of the status quo. It reduces religion to rules, rites, rituals, and ceremonies. Do what is required by the norms of society (and the preacher will tell you what those are), live up to your family’s expectations, and keep the rules of the religious establishment and you’re going to be okay, in this world and the next. No wonder cheap grace is so popular. It’s easy! It doesn’t require any deep level of commitment. Just memorize the rules and try not break any of them and be truly contrite if you do accidentally break one or two along the way.

Prophetic religion, on the other hand, sees things not as they are, but as they could be, if we truly seek the will of God for our lives. Prophetic religion demands repentance and change. It takes chances, gives up the security blanket, hates moral compromise. Prophetic religion demands and expects a higher level of commitment to seeking first the kingdom of God. The message of the prophet is not, "I’m okay, you’re okay," but, "I’m not okay, you’re not okay, neither is anybody else, and something has to be done about it."

Priestly religion comforts the afflicted. Prophetic religion afflicts the comfortable. After fifty-three odd years (some of them odder than others) of living and studying the various religions of the world while traveling on my own faith journey, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a time to comfort, and a time to be comforted; a time to afflict and a time to be afflicted. I believe we are living in a time that calls for all the above. There are millions of people in this country alone who are in need of the basic comforts of life: food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, stable families, dependable friends, and caring life partners. It is a time for us to comfort the comfortless.

It is a time for you and me to seek comfort in the place where comfort may truly be found – not in possessions, or wealth, or drugs, or momentary distractions. Neither can comfort be found in overflowing appointment books or endless self-examination. Advent is the time to renew our connection with the only One who can truly comfort us – the God who says, according to the prophet Isaiah, "I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to them" (Isaiah 57:18). Advent is a time to set aside the myth that each of us can live however we want to live with no consideration of the consequences of our actions. It’s a time to realize that "independence" is NOT the ideal we should encourage our children to pursue, but "INTER dependence," the reality that our lives are inseparably connected with all God’s children everywhere on this planet. It’s a time to understand that we live in a world that is governed by one simple moral premise: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."

One theologian sums up the message of John the Baptist in these words: "Repent of the arrogant assumption that you alone are favored, that you are exempt from the moral demands put on others, that being better than your worst neighbors is your salvation, as though God grades on the curve" (Fred Craddock).

There is a time to comfort, a time to be comforted, a time to afflict, and a time to be afflicted. Advent is an "all-of-the-above" kind of season. And it belongs to John the Baptist, who helps us to understand that what happened on that first Christmas 2,000 years ago HAS to make a difference in what happens today. That the world HAS to change. And change can only begin with the person who stares back at you from the mirror.

So, you want to go to Bethlehem, do you? Are you sure? I think it’s only fair that I should warn you, before we set off for the desert to get our directions from John, understand that no one who makes this journey to Bethlehem comes back the same person as they were before. So – do you still want to go?