HOMECOMING 
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
December 6, 2009
Isaiah 40: 1-11
Luke 3: 1-6
The house in which I grew up, in fact lived in until Jeanne and I were married, was a small 2 bedroom and one bath home. By any standard it was a modest house. What was extravagant about it was that it sat at the edge of 5 acres of pasture which bordered miles and miles of woods in rural Platte County, Missouri. I loved those woods and the creeks that ran through them. I came to know them very well. But, occasionally, as I explored the woods, Daniel Boone style, I'd get lost. Really lost. I can’t remember for sure, but it’s possible I learned a lot about praying for help in those woods. It seemed such a wilderness to a young boy.
So, for years and years whenever I'd read about “wilderness” in the Bible I'd think about a place similar to the dense woods near my boyhood home. That is, until I visited the land of the Bible, Israel, the West Bank. There I found out that the wilderness of the Old Testament and the wilderness of Jesus' time in Palestine was in fact not dense forest. It was not like the Adirondacks or even Sessions Woods. Instead, the wilderness of the Bible was mostly desert, barren terrain, rocks and small mountains and canyons and open spaces with not much vegetation.
I make such a big deal out of wilderness this morning because it occupies such a prominent place in Bible history. Our Gospel reading this morning is an example. In it we have John the Baptist appearing on the scene and proclaiming in the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘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 made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Beautiful words. Timeless words. You’ve heard them a thousand times in one context or another.
To understand the full importance of what they’re about, however, we need to know or remember that in 586 BC God’s People were taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, a country that encompasses much of modern day Iraq. Imagine! Thousands and thousands of Jews and their king, Jehoichim, had been taken prisoner, away from their homes and homeland, their beloved Judah. And what separated Babylonia and the homeland? Same thing that separates Iraq and Israel today: a desert wilderness.
Long story short, some 40 plus years after they were taken captive, a prophet, Isaiah, stands among the people and proclaims a new word from God. And the new word from God is that the people Israel have suffered enough. They're going to get to go home.
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," cries God to the prophet. Words that are not only a beautiful tenor solo in Handel's Messiah, but words that have no equal as words of rescue and hope and pardon and new life for a people who were long separated from their homes and homeland. God, you see, was working out a divine road construction program so to speak to get the Israelites back home. A highway, metaphorically speaking, would be built across the wilderness, altering the natural features of the land, leveling mountains, lifting up valleys, making the rough places smooth. And the way God would do this was through the pagan King Cyrus of Persia who would conquer Babylonia and restore Jerusalem.
Our scripture today, therefore, is an announcement of returning, of coming home. Of homecoming. As you may have noticed over years of church-going, a prominent theme of the Bible is coming home, homecoming.
Dan Wakefield is a man who took 40 modern years in the wilderness before he found his way home. In his popular book "Returning," he describes how he wandered away from God, how his life as an adult became total chaos.
But then, he goes on to write, "I cannot pinpoint any particular time when I suddenly believed in God again. I only know that such belief came to seem as natural as for all but a few stray moments of 25 or more years before it had been inconceivable. I realized this while looking at fish.
"I had gone with my girlfriend to the New England Aquarium, and as we gazed at the astonishingly brilliant colors of some of the small tropical fish -- reds and yellows and oranges -- and watched the amazing lights of the flashlight fish that blinked on like the beacons of some creature of a sci-fi epic, I wondered how anyone could think that all this was the result of some chain of accidental explosions! There had to be a God! Yet. . . to try to convince me otherwise even 5 years before would have been hopeless. Was this what they called 'conversion'?" He continues. "The term bothered me because it suggested being 'born again' and, like many of my contemporaries, I had been put off by the melodramatic nature of that label. Besides, I didn't "feel" 'reborn.' No voice came out of the sky nor did a thunderclap strike me. . . I was relieved when our minister explained that the literal translation of 'conversion' . . . is not so much 'rebirth' but 'turning.' That's what my own experience felt like -- as if I'd been walking in one direction and then, in response to some inner pull, I turned."
Wakefield’s story is not unusual. I suspect there are several among us this morning whose story might sound much the same -- a story of being in wilderness, and of returning -- re-turning. Coming home to ourselves. Homecoming.
Wilderness is indeed a great metaphor for lostness, exile, homelessness. Which makes it all the more fitting that John the Baptist first makes his appearance in the wilderness of Judea. And uses Isaiah's words all over again to announce God's coming in Jesus of Nazareth: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his highway." Days of lostness for all humanity are past! You’re going home!
As Luke tells it, in Jesus God himself is coming down the highway to fetch the lost and bring them home. God once again is building the highways to connect with those in the wilderness so that the one who has been lost can come home. Can come home. Homecoming.
Christmas is indeed a time for homecoming, isn't it? Everyone wants to be home for Christmas, don’t we? And for many people, part of coming home for Christmas means coming to church. Even those who never go to church any other time of the year, have this inner yearning to come home to church at Christmas. There's something in the Church of Jesus Christ that speaks "home." Everyone wants to come home for Christmas.
For those of us who are here already, however, we don’t need to wait for Christmas day. I mean, shouldn’t we consider coming home, homecoming now, today, this second Sunday in Advent?
What do I mean? Well, think. In what way or ways might God be building a highway towards you these days to bring you home from a wilderness or exile?
What might that mean? Or, asked another way, have you felt a yearning recently? Has, maybe a Christmas carol evoked a tender memory that's sparked something inside you'd almost forgotten about and made you long for home, spiritually speaking? Or, what about that recent coincidence that might not have been so coincidental? Some believe that there really are no coincidences.
The Associated Press carried a story a few years ago about a woman in Houston named Ellen. During the passing of the peace she noticed a visitor in one of the back pews and went back to greet him. "Hi, I'm Ellen," she said. And with that he bolted out the door without saying a word.
The following Sunday he returned to church and made this apology: "My name is Bob Price, and I owe you an apology for my rude behavior last Sunday. You see, my deceased wife's name was Ellen, and I had been praying 'Dear God, please send me another Ellen.' "When you approached me and said, 'Hi. I'm Ellen,' I lost it." Within a year, Bob and Ellen were married. A coincidence?
So, what about it: Have you had a recent coincidence, that at the time only seemed a coincidence, that might in fact have really been a God-incident? A seeming coincidence that God might be intending as a part of a highway plan to bring you home from a wilderness way of living?
According to William Willimon, "Wilderness is that place, which is no place, where we lose our way, wander from the path, get lost. Exile is that time when we become enslaved to false gods, serve an alien empire, sell out, forget."
Oh, yes! Especially forget. Have you been there? Done that? You there again this Christmas, maybe?
Professor Fred Craddock of Emory University's Candler School of Theology remembers a little girl from one of his pastorates. Her parents sent her to church, never came with her. They would pull in the church's circular drive, the little girl would hop out of the car, and they would go out for Sunday breakfast. The father was an executive for a chemical company, upwardly mobile, ambitious.
The father and mother were known for their Saturday night parties. I guess everybody got drunk or stoned. But every Sunday, there was the little girl.
One Sunday Craddock says he looked out over the congregation and thought, "There she is with a couple of adult friends." Later, he realized she was there with Mom and Dad. At the end of the service, the invitation was given as it was in churches of his denomination, Mom and Dad came down front to join the church.
After the service, Craddock asked them what had prompted their decision to start a new life.
They replied, "Do you know about our parties?" "Yeah, I heard of your parties," he said.
"Well, we had one last night again. It got a bit loud, a little rough, everybody was drunk. And it woke up our daughter, and she came downstairs and she was on about the third step. And she saw the eating and drinking and said, 'Oh, can I say the blessing?
“God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Goodnight, everybody.” And she went back upstairs.
“The guests were stunned. People began to say, 'It's getting late, we really must be going,... Thanks for a great evening,... Thanks for a good... whatever.' And within about two minutes the room was empty.
"So my wife and I picked up the crumpled napkins, the spilled peanuts, the half-eaten sandwiches, took empty glasses into the kitchen.
And then we looked at each other and my wife said what I was thinking: 'What on earth are we doing? Where do we think we're going with our lives?'"
Homecoming. God had come out for them. God had built a highway for them back to a home with God in it. And God had sent a messenger -- a child, no less. And they turned. And they followed.
"Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low. And the rough places made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."
Behold, here is your God, come maybe this year for you to bring you home.
