“In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John…”
It feels a little bit like one of these things is not like the other in this list of fancy names that kicked off our Gospel reading for this morning. We have Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod of Galilee, Philip of Ituraea, Lysanias of Abilene, Annas, Caiaphas, and John.
John isn’t just out of place here in terms of name fanciness; John is out of place here in rank.
Luke opens his Gospel with the intention of writing “an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled…so that you may know the truth.” This list of leaders is proof of that effort. In the time before a universally accepted calendar system, respectable ancient historians dated events based on who was in power at the time. Offering six different points of reference is a mark of good scholarship; Luke is proving to his audience the accuracy of his account.
Though, let me also step back and remind us that as modern readers it is important not to read too much into dates. Remember that ancient scholars had a different relationship with historical fact than we do in an age of universally accepted calendar dates. At best, Luke’s list of leaders narrows us down to a ten-year period. Pretty good, for an event that happened two-thousand plus years ago, but still not the sort of precise dating that would get you publication in current historical scholarship.
But Luke is doing something even more important with this account than telling us a date; he is setting for his readers the political framework of the event. The importance for Luke as a respectable first century historian is the context in which John appears. By naming John the Baptist in relation to these men, Luke asserts John as every bit as much of a player on the world’s stage as Tiberius or Caiaphas or Herod. Even the phrasing around John’s call sets his value. “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness” follows all the proper structural identifying credentials for the call of a Hebrew prophet. It is the same form used to identify Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, or any of the other heroes of the faith. Luke’s statements set John as a giant of both religious and political clout.
Which is a crazy claim because nothing else about John screams powerful. The Judean wilderness was not a place of any political value, and the crowds who gathered there poor and inconsequential. This setting is even more unlikely when read along with John’s back story, which we’ll hear in two weeks, how John is the unexpected son of a minor priest and his wife, both faithful and righteous and well past child-bearing years. Herod, who eventually saw John as enough of a threat to kill him, would still have laughed to hear him named in such a list. Tiberius would possibly have never even heard of the Judean wilderness, let alone a minor prophet wandering around it in. And yet Luke places him there, in a list of the powerful, this “voice crying out in the wilderness,” “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord… and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Reading this text in Advent highlights for us the stark unexpectedness of this season. John looks out of place on this list and yet, we no longer know the exact dates of Tiberius’s reign as emperor, or who Lysanias even was, but two-thousand years later we still gather to celebrate that the one who came into the world unexpectedly is still at work in our world today. Advent, like we talked about last week, is not preparation for the remembrance of a historical event, as one might prepare for a birthday party. What we are getting ready for is the birth itself. The coming of Christ into our world. A coming we already experience in water and word, in bread and wine, in life from death and hope in tragedy. Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas were rulers over a specific group of people for a specific time and place, but the One whose coming John announced is ruler over all flesh, king of all time, salvation for the whole world. Luke places John the Baptist in a specific place and time in order to blow up the entire concept of place and time itself, to show for us a God who not just was, but is and is to come, a God whose presence in the world is not just the fulfillment of promise, but is the promise itself.
It is also fitting that we read this text on the morning that we celebrate Mark’s baptism. Because baptism too is an event that blows up place and time. This text tells us that John the Baptist came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This word our English Bible translates to “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means turn around, or to be turned around. It does not mean you making the decision to change direction; it is a dramatic physical re-orientation by a source outside of your control. It is to find your entire life picked up, turned completely around, and placed in a totally new and opposite direction of where you were heading. And this radical reorientation affects not just your future; it changes your past as well. As the Psalmist writes, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” At Mark’s baptism, we proclaim that Mark is a child of God. We proclaim not just that there never will be, but in fact that there never has been anything that could separate God from Mark. In the unexpected simplicity of water and word, we proclaim the advent, the coming of Christ among us today, making all things new, so that all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
The promises made in the waters of baptism, that we are reoriented, that we are made new and claimed as God’s children, is a promise that we can hold onto for our whole lives. This is a promise we can cling to times when we finds ourselves in the wilderness. When the valleys rage deep, the hills tower high, and the crooked places leave him lost and confused. Because we face those times. We all face times of confusion and struggle, fear and aloneness. And in those times, we can look back to this moment and can rest confident in the promise of the words spoken by John from the prophet Isaiah, that God is already smoothing and filling, lowering and straightening, making a way for salvation to come.
This is a promise we can cling to, but it can be hard to hear sometimes. So the rite of baptism too is a challenge for us, dear people of God. A challenge to be that voice crying out in the wilderness for each other. To be the one urging preparation, offering direction, and promising hope in the midst of wilderness. To pray for Mark, and for Valerie and Mark as they raise him, to walk with them in faith, and to be together a sign of God’s presence.
And so, we could rewrite the beginning of our Gospel reading for this morning to read: In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Rick Snyder was governor of Michigan, and Dave Walters the mayor of Battle Creek, when Craig Satterlee was bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod and Elizabeth Eaton the Bishop of the ELCA, the word of God came to Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan and they went into all the region, proclaiming the promise that God’s presence is alive in this world, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Amen.
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