Voice
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6

December 10, 2006


Advent is notorious for being non-eventful. Our primary activity is waiting. Or being watchful or listening or hoping or rejoicing and wondering. Yet, something does happen continually and not just confined to the calendar of Advent, a voice, a voice crying in the wilderness and other places.

The Christian Church is one gathered community of the People of the Book. We are in love with the Word, the written word especially. The size of our worship bulletins measure our devotion for we prefer to print things out. Since almost the earliest of days in our Christian history, we have gone to great lengths to write down what we believe in all the various creeds and confessions and statements of faith. Seldom do we bother to memorize the Nicene or Apostles Creed anymore. Is there anyone here in the United Church who knows the New Creed by heart? To bludgeon the point home all the more, the new Statement of Faith passed by this summer’s General Council and amounting to 12 pages is not about to be recited in worship, let alone by anybody’s memory. The other Peoples of the Book still have many who know the Torah by heart or actually compete in huge festivals to see how well one has committed the Qur’an to memory.

We adore the Word, but it is its voice that we lean and strain to hear. Worship is essentially an aural experience: music is sung, prayers are uttered often from the heart, we listen to the scriptures being read, and the sermon is preached, but preached to be heard, not to be read.

Hearing the tones and accents and rhythms of the voice of a respected teacher or public figure is among the most emotionally satisfying experiences for a human being. To hear a particular voice can pick up your spirits and drive you to redouble your efforts. It does not have to be a particularly beautiful or impressive voice; just full of character and an appealing grasp of life.

And to be sure, to hear a dreaded voice can paralyze you. I have one personal case that crossed all the media, a graduate school professor. When he sent back my papers he would write his criticisms in red ink in a kind of angry cursive. I could hear him yelling at me for my inadequacies, I could clearly hear his voice through the red ink of his pen. In whatever medium, we don’t want to hear such voices.

But then there is Ernie Harwell. During my youth he was the broadcaster of all the Orioles games on WBAL Radio. A few years later he moved to Detroit and has called the Tigers’ games for decades now. A few years back it was a joy to hear him announcing the World Series, for I heard the voice that taught me baseball. However, it was my mother who truly heard Ernie Harwell’s voice.

My mother did not know a thing about baseball, so as my brother and I became enthused she started to learn. Games generally weren’t televised then, so we listened to the game on the radio. Many nights we would come back to the house and turn on the radio midway through the game and wait with bated breath for the score. My mother did not have to wait that long. She could tell by Harwell’s voice whether the Orioles were winning, losing, or tied. She was right 95% of the time. I never figured out what there was about his voice that she could tell that there was no score, or a 1-1 game. But time and again she was correct.

It is that kind of voice that can move mountains. John the Baptist is the subject of both of our lectionary readings today and his voice out of the wilderness possessed a strangeness, yet clarity that those who heard him could drive out of their minds. He drove Herod and his wife Herodias’ minds wild to distraction. For us it is his humility that he is only a voice, not an ego, that allows us to be attracted to him. Strangely, but clearly John points to another voice, a voice of completed and perfected humanity, a voice higher than the angels. Who cannot listen to what such a voice like that will say, even “Repent!” We do not resent John’s forthrightness when his words carry the accent of truth, when we hear his voice and know that is the best, the only thing to do.

I can’t get away from that hymn, “I heard the voice of Jesus say,” because as an adult it hit me that I have not been allowing myself to hear Jesus’ voice, so busy was I with my own theories and conclusions and decisions about the way things ought to run. I was listening to my own voice way too long and my voice created too much static for hearing what the voice of Jesus had to say. I do not believe I am alone in listening to the wrong voice.

That’s one good reason why Advent is event-less, because it would be all too easy to get entangled and busied in the details of some significant Gospel event and clog the air waves of our soul with our tired out interpretations. But this time each year you can clear the channels and listen for what Jesus is saying afresh, and hear something you’ve never heard before. There is nothing better to do, and you know what happens when you hear something you’ve never heard before, good news shifts all your thinking and acting. Repent originally meant to turn around and head in another direction. Listen now for something you’ve never heard before.

“I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘I am this dark world’s light; look unto me, your morn shall rise, and all your day be bright.’ I looked to Jesus, and I found in him my star, my sun; and in that light of life I’ll walk till travelling days are done.” (verse 3)

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan