[Propertalk] Quotables - 2 Advent Gospel - Luke 3:1-6 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

To prepare the way of the Lord means to make choices.  We must decide what we are to focus our lives and days on.  We must decide what we will keep.   
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The most expensive highway project in our national history was known as the Big Dig.  It is in Boston.  It involved building a buried highway through the heart of the city.  It is about 3.5 miles in length and, by the time it was finished, cost a staggering twenty-two billion dollars    Barney Frank, a congressman from the area, said it would have been cheaper to raise the city instead of lowering the road.    

http://day1.org/1610-uncluttering

B. Wiley Stephens 
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Sounds like confession to me and, even better, the absolution where we receive forgiveness. Every Sunday we come to get ourselves leveled. 
If we think we are the high and mighty, confession tells us we are all the same. If our sins make us think we have no value and are the pits, 

the absolution tells us God loves even our condition and brings us up to God's waiting arms of love. If we had gotten so entangled that we don't know how we will ever escape the tangled web of sin we have woven, Jesus cuts through it all and tells us we're straight with God because of the cross and death and resurrection. 

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-9/061210-7-e.html

Walter W. Harms, 2006
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Today, the Word of the Lord is clear. The Lord says to you and me, "Go into the wilderness and become clean. God into the wilderness and be cleansed. Your mind, your imagination, your heart, your actions, your words, your habits. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_a_a_parable_the_city_and_the_wilderness.htm

Edward F. Markquart
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Note: the events that begin to unfold here happened in the 15th year of Tiberius, that is, about 30 AD. Jesus' ministry may have lasted for 3 years, and so he may have died around 33 AD. 
  a.. Tiberius Caesar died a broken man on the 16 March 37 AD, just 7 years after the events that begin to unfold here. Lysanias died the same year. 
  b.. Pontius Pilate was sent back to Rome in disgrace one year before that in 36 AD and died in disgrace. 
  c.. Herod Antipas died a horrible death in 39 AD, while Philip, a good ruler, died in dishonour the same year that Jesus is understood to have died, 33 AD. 
  d.. Annas lived to a ripe old, embittered age, "embittered" partly because he lived to see the line of priests who descended from him preside over the eventual destruction of the Temple and Judaism as Jesus knew it. This included his son-in-law, Caiaphas, who was unceremoniously deposed 3 years after presiding over the trial of Jesus. Caiaphas died a short time later. 
Talk about mountains and hills being brought low! 

http://www.bloomquist.ca/publications/Church%20materials/advent2%20year%20c.htm

L. Gregory Bloomquist
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Try to imagine what it would be like: 
  a.. War is just a memory 
  b.. Hunger and poverty a thing of the past 
  c.. Every human being experiences love and caring community 
Sounds like heaven doesn't it?

And...  when you look at the state of human affairs these days, it sounds impossible... For mortals.
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Nevertheless, this is a time of year for dreaming.  Many of our children are writing lists of all the things that would fulfill their dreams.  The child within us reaches out for the wonder and mystery of this "season of good cheer."  
http://www.lectionarysermons.com/decem_1000.htm

John Jewell, 2000
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>From the very beginning Jesus people understood that a necessary consequence of their faith was service to those who suffered. This understanding survives even today as the Pope made clear in his talks at the United Nations several years ago and as the American Bishops have often done when they excoriated those in our society who wish to blame the poor and the elderly and the immigrants not only for their own problems but also for the problems of the rest of the country. It is not our role to take positions on specific legislation or suggested public policy. But there is a meanness and an anger in American public life today which followers of Jesus cannot accept. 

http://www.agreeley.com/hom06/dec10.html

Andrew M. Greeley, 2006
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