Prepare The Way Of The Lord
Isaiah 40:1-11 2 Peter 3:8-15 Mark 1:1-8
I have no first hand recall of the events
of December 7, 1941. That day was six weeks before my
birth. Never the less, what happened on that day shaped my life
and sits as a monument, a memorial, to a pivotal point in time and
destiny in my mind. I come today with that on my heart.
Something I do remember from my childhood is the proclamation of the
street preachers who stood on the corners in the downtown shopping area
in Waco. Shouting what seemed like fearful words to a young
child, their presence was more often ridiculed and parodied than
welcomed and their preaching likely had little impact. A favorite
phrase shouted into the wind was ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’
For me, the Isaiah prophecy, with a parallel echo of its words in the
opening sentences of Mark’s Gospel, conjures up images of those street
preachers from long ago. What is the more remarkable is that for
me, the parody has become a type of reality. I hear the call of
God going out to us – as individuals and as a church – to prepare the
way. While I seriously doubt that standing on the street corner,
shouting “Repent! The Day of the Lord is near!” will prepare the way; I
do think we are to take this message out into the world, outside those red doors. And I believe that is the Advent message.
But in my mind, two questions immediately crop up – What is the Way? How are we to prepare the way?
The words of Isaiah suggest an answer:
Every 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.
We find the way in the grinding down of the mountain, in
the valleys, along uneven ground, in the rough places of our
lives. I may love an adventure but find that I tend to resist
change; I like a challenge but am always ready to complain when I don’t
get my way; I want to grow but cry out when I hurt. The places in
my life that have opened new doors, which have lighted my path, which
have led me into a deeper walk with God have, in looking back, been the
hard places.
While preparing some thoughts about the Way for today, I found a poem I
want to offer to you shortly. However, I first need to tell you
about the man who wrote the poem. He was a Jesuit priest, Pedro
Arrupe. Pedro Arrupe was born 101 years ago last month – his
birthday is celebrated in November by the Jesuits – as he served as
their Superior General from 1965 until 1983. A fascinating and
controversial man, his story is illuminating and in fact, his story
speaks to the things that are on my heart today.
Born in the Basque region of Spain, he was in study for medicine when a
visit to Lourdes in 1927 changed his life and led him to enter the
novitiate for the Jesuit order at the age of 19. Five years
later, Franco expelled the order from Spain and Pedro went on to
Holland and then to the U.S. to complete his studies. In 1937 he
went as a missionary to Japan. On Sunday, December 7, 1941 in the
U.S. (December 8 in Japan) Fr. Arrupe was celebrating the Feast of the
Conception of Mary when the Japanese military came and arrested
him. He spent over thirty days in solitary confinement -- a time
of suffering and lonely uncertainty. When the guards came to
release him, he thought they were taking him to his execution but
experienced a deep inner calm which deepened his radical trust in God.
After his release, he became master of novices in Japan at the
novitiate located on the outskirts of Hiroshima. There, on the
Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 1945, another life-changing
experience would transfigure Fr. Arrupe’s life. Shortly after 8
AM, a blinding flash of light caused Fr. Arrupe to go to the door to
investigate. Knocked to the ground by the blast which followed,
in the coming hours, they would see thousands of injured people, men,
women, children, streaming toward them, away from the center of the
city. Using his earlier medical training, he converted the
novitiate into a hospital and turned the novices into nurses as they
cared for some 200 of the injured in the weeks which followed.
It must have felt as though Peter's description of the day of the Lord
was being fulflled in a literal way. However it might have felt,
it seems that experience was to be a Damascus road event in Fr.
Arrupe’s life.
For me that silent and motionless clock has
been a symbol. The explosion of the first atomic bomb … is not a
memory; it is a perpetual experience, outside history, [one] which does
not pass with the ticking of the clock. The pendulum stopped and
Hiroshima has remained engraved on my mind. It has no relation
with time. It belongs to motionless eternity.
As one of his biographers noted, were it not for Hiroshima,
there would not have been this visionary mystical pioneer named Pedro
Arrupe. Hiroshima placed him at the juncture of modern history
and with Christ on the cross. Arrupe’s words, more or less:
Hiroshima is like a latter-day Sword of
Damocles hanging over mankind. Its sinister light, capable of
destroying the retina of anyone staring it in the face, is an
illuminating power greater than that of the X-ray. In the midst
of so much destruction and confusion, the dark mystery of atomic
radiation reveals the fleshly futility of that which disappears like a
shadow, and the solidity, firmer than bone, of spiritual values.
Atomic energy, in destroying matter, discloses its instability, while
making the spirit stand out with its features more strongly pronounced.
Atomic physics confronts us with the limits of the material
universe. It impels us towards searching for the very root of
being and matter. When will the day come when we discover that in
the core of person there lives a divine reality? On that
day, when man discovers through the light of faith God in himself and
in his fellowmen, and sees this God does indeed live and is a God of
love, wars and violence will cease and hatred will be no more.
God will be seen as the cause of true union and human happiness.
On that day will be born a new humanity - that of the children of God.
Prepare the Way of the Lord, make straight the paths… Then
the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it
together…
Pedro Arrupe saw himself as chosen to be there when the world
broke. He saw a divine vision of humanity at this breaking as had
Paul, Augustine, Lincoln, Tutu, Mandela, and Mother Teresa.
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you
are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you
will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you
read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with
joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide
everything.
Time will not permit a fuller telling of Pedro Arrupe’s
story but let me say that he is one who lived out his life as one
tethered to the Cross of Christ. And so it is I come to the poem
that led me into the life of this remarkable man.
Recall the questions: What is the Way? How are we to prepare the way? – here is Pedro Arrupe’s answer:
Teach Me Your Way, O Lord
Teach me your way of treating others – sinners, children, Pharisees, Pilates and Herods, and also John the Baptists.
Teach me your way of eating and drinking, how to act when I'm tired from work and need rest.
Teach me compassion for the suffering, the poor, the blind, and the lame.
You who shed tears, show me how to live my deepest emotions.
Above all, I want to learn how you endured your Cross.
Teach me your way of looking at people:
the way you glanced at Peter after his denial,
the way you touched the heart of the rich young man
and the hearts of your disciples.
I would like to meet you as you really are, since you change those who really know you.
If only I could hear you speak as when you spoke in the synagogue of Capernaum or on the Mount of Beatitudes!
Give me grace to live my life, within and without, the way you lived your life, O Lord.
Amen
The Rev. John Dryden Burton
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
December 7, 2008