to Build Something Better, Together
Epiphany 4A | Matthew 5:1-12
It may be a warm day in the Jerusalem market. A young woman is buying bread for dinner when she overhears something that tickles her thoughts. It’s a conversation about a man saying crazy things. The kinds of things you’re used to hearing from doomsday preachers and the politically connected. Change or die. That kind of thing. This young woman has never been taken in by this kind of talk. It is all conspiracy theories or the rants of lunatics — or worse, the politically expedient.
Something about this one gives her pause, however. It’s that she just heard something like this on her way into the market. And by the time she leaves, she’ll hear about it again. And it is that third time that leads her to follow the whispers out the city gates, into the wilderness near the Jordan, where she discovers she isn’t alone. She is following the lead that thousands of others are too, hearing a call away from the assumed safety of the city. Out to the river.
The message she hears mirrors Isaiah’s words: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” This is what was promised. She anticipates the Messiah’s arrival. And when he comes to be baptized! Then disappears! What is she supposed to do with herself now?
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