Scripture Lesson

From the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 40:

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. ³A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

From the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1:

¹The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ² As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; ³the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” ⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

"Repentance and Peace"

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

As many of you know, this year the First Congregational Church of Stoughton has once again become a Teaching Parish. A Teaching Parish is a church which serves as a field education site to a student in seminary. This is a ministry which was begun here many years ago by Pastor Emeritus Ernie Geigis, and I am delighted that, after a long hiatus, we have reclaimed this ministry and have Steve Aucella working and learning among us this year.

As part of being a new Field Education supervisor, I am taking course at Andover Newton Theological School, which Steve is attending and from which I graduated almost ten years ago. It has been wonderful to go back to that beautiful campus at the top of the hill, and to see how things have changed over the last decade, and also how things have remained the same.

One of new additions to the campus is the Peace Pole, which was dedicated several years ago. The words “May peace prevail on earth” are written in several different languages on the Peace Pole, becoming an enduring and tangible prayer of the entire Andover Newton community and all who visit “The Hill.”

When we think of the word “peace,” what may come to many of our minds is a world without war or conflict. I think it is safe to say that all caring people want peace in this world this Advent. The war in Iraq has raged for almost six years and has claimed the lives of more than 4200 American soldiers. Relations between India and Pakistan are unstable after the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. There are increasing political tensions between Russia and the West, and peace in the Middle East remains elusive. And on this Sunday, December 7, many of us are remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor which happened 67 years ago today.

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Peace, on which we light the Candle of Peace and await the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, whose arrival the angels announced with the words, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards all!”

And every year on the second Sunday of Advent, this Sunday of Peace, we hear from John the Baptist. No matter whether we are reading from the Gospel of Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, John’s voice cries out in the wilderness, telling us to “prepare the way” for the coming of the Messiah. Although John’s message seems too strident, too confrontational for this Sunday of Peace, this season of love and good will, the fact of the matter is, we can’t have Christmas without him.

John comes to fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah [40:3-5]: to "prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways be made smooth."

Isaiah wrote these words to the ancient Hebrews while they were in exile in Babylon. They had been captured by the Babylonians and taken far away from their homeland, far away from their much-loved city of Jerusalem and from their beloved temple. The ancient Hebrews to whom Isaiah spoke could not return home from their exile in Babylon until all the obstacles which blocked the way back home were removed.

When Isaiah wrote these words, there were soldiers specially designated to go ahead of a traveling king to smooth out the road for the monarch's chariot. They leveled hills, filled in ditches and removed all obstacles in the king's way. “ Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.”

In this morning’s gospel lesson, John the Baptist lifts the imagery of Isaiah’s mountains and valleys and crooked and rough places from the very real physical geography of Palestine and places them in the spiritual geography of the human soul. He calls not for a clearing of roads, but of hearts. The Judean wilderness is a place unfit for a king, and so is the human heart when it is untouched by repentance.

And the reason we need to repent, says John, is because we have separated from God, and from God’s people, from God’s creation, and from God’s purpose for our lives. In other words, we have all sinned. I know we hate that word “sin.” But the Scriptures tell us that "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and there is no truth in us" (1 John 1:8).

In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word for repentance is metanoia, which means literally “to turn around.” If sin is separating or turning away from God, then repentance is turning back toward God.

We hear John’s call to repentance every Advent, and every Second Sunday of Advent I am in this pulpit preaching about separation from God and turning back to God. And it’s because, as we begin this new church year, we all need a clean slate and a new beginning. And as much as we cringe when we see John coming, he speaks the inconvenient truth: peace and repentance go hand in hand. Peace and repentance; peace and being in a right relationship with God; peace and walking in God’s light; they are so interconnected that we cannot have one without the other. Peace can come only through repentance – turning away from division, turning away from indifference, from whatever it is that keeps us separated from God and from one another. And turning toward God.

It reminds me of a sign I saw on the marquee of a church a few years ago – “No God, no peace. Know God, know peace.”

So many of us are without peace this Christmas season. And it’s not just an absence of peace in our world, it’s an absence of peace right here in our hearts.

What has turned us away from God and from each other this Advent? Maybe we have some relationships that need mending. Maybe God has been calling us to act and we've been hesitating. Maybe we need to let go of something or someone we've been hanging onto for too long. Maybe we have some unhealthy habits or addictions we need to deal with. There are mountains and hills in our lives that need to be torn down, pits and potholes that need to be filled in. All the obstacles that keep us estranged and separated from God are to be cleared away, filled in, straightened out, smoothed over.

I think we probably all long to find some peace this Advent. And so, over these next few weeks leading up to Christmas, let us prepare the way for the coming of Christ by leveling the hills of our hearts, by filling in the valleys our failings, by smoothing the rough places of our regret, by making a highway in the desert of our divisions. Peace in this world starts with peace in each individual heart, and we can only find peace by turning away from everything that is contrary to the way God wants us to live and by clearing away everything that stands between God and us.

In these last few weeks leading up to Christmas, may we all prepare the way for the coming of Christ by repenting, by turning toward God, so that we can know God, and through knowing God, we can know peace. Amen.