Who asked John the Baptist to show up? He seems like an interruption, maybe even an embarrassment to the established religious people – much like you and I might feel when we see some wide-eyed street preacher yelling out for attention. The religious leaders come to John and ask him to explain himself. He doesn’t fit the usual models of ministry. He’s not even there for himself. He is pointing to another. He is pointing to an unexpected future.

         We’re passing through a busy period in our church calendar. There’s a lot to do and to prepare for. Christmas is near. We have to decorate the church and prepare for a concert and a pageant. We have family gatherings to attend and presents to buy and wrap. These extra activities come when we also try to preserve traditions that give our lives meaning. In my house we have the same angel tree top ornament we’ve had for years. It must be placed on the tree last of all, when everything else is decorated. We bake the same cookies. We sing the same carols. With all this energy going into the preservation of tradition, it’s difficult to dream about what might be new.

         Maybe we avoid thinking about the new because most of what has gone on so recently is so bad. Who wants to dwell on the economy or our lack of resources? Who wants to think about war, or global warming, or fractious political debate (the Iowa caucuses are just around the corner!)? More important to us, who has time or energy to imagine how we will go on with the big changes in our budget for next year?

         What John promises isn’t exactly comfort. We know the story of Christmas and we are prepared for the familiar retelling. John talks about change. The authorities challenge him because he advocates a radical departure from the familiar. “I’m not who you expected”, he says, “and the one you think you expect is much different than you imagine.” His words are warnings. “Repent now! While you still have a chance!” He calls the leaders the children of snakes. He doesn’t promise ease and victory. He promises a winnowing and that the messiah will baptize with fire.

         John the Baptist sounds more like the crazy preacher who was telling us the world would end a few months ago. This time of year we carry no sense of dread (except maybe about distant family we might have to put up with.) This is a season of hope and celebration for us. John the Baptist points to a very different hope. We are not waiting for the perfect tree or the best meal. We are not searching for the perfect gift. John is preparing us for our salvation. This is more than the completion of all our aspirations. God wants to give us more than a solution to our current problems. The promise given to us is new life. We are promised an end to sin and the transformation of our lives.

         This is an entirely different thing to prepare for. Most of what we unconsciously take on during these days is likely to keep us from being prepared for this very thing. Our nerves are frayed and we are tired and spent. In contrast, the prophet Isaiah imagines a new city of God. The future city is glorious because of the righteousness of the inhabitants. The blessing is that God will renew the people and not just the wealth or power of a nation.

         Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” There is nothing in there about rejoicing only when times are good. Paul doesn’t define them by their numbers or their budget or their prestige. God’s will for us is the depth of our faith and the transformation of our lives. He continues, “Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.” Paul does not envision a model that will work for every church in every place. It is their responsibility and ours to discern God’s will for us in this place and at this time. We have to make daily decisions to hold fast to the good and abstain from what is evil. Finally, he blesses them. “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”

         Our calling is difficult but not impossible. God calls us to change us for the better. We are not hoping everything will work out. We don’t know this. The building, the budget, and all the ways that we have defined ourselves are not the end to which we are striving. God desires our transformation into saints. All the rest is a means to that end. So we should not be surprised that we are challenged to live differently. We should not be surprised that we may have to let go of many things that we hold dearly. We are not being punished: we are being changed. God is accomplishing the very thing we need.

         We are called to rejoice. It is no discipline to rejoice in good times. Our souls are transformed if we can rejoice when times are hard. It is easy to give thanks when we have plenty. It is different to find thanksgiving in times of stress. We are learning to trust our money less and our God more. We are learning to seek righteousness instead of popularity. We are seeking the will of God instead of what makes us happy. This is the path towards what we are promised. We are being sanctified entirely. Our spirits and souls and bodies are being kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls us is being faithful. God is working in us.

          This weekend we celebrate our independence. Many of us have a day off – literal freedom. We may participate in patriotic events or watch fireworks. We might just stay home and take it easy. We think of freedom as the absence of restraint. We are free to do what we want. If we look back, even at our own history, we see that freedom requires as much as it allows. Charles Kingsley, an Anglican priest once said, “there are two freedoms – the false where a man is free to do what he likes; the true where a man is free to do what he ought.

         Very early in our nation’s history, the founding leaders learned that a declaration of freedom was only the first step in obtaining it. They began to wrestle with questions we have yet to answer. There is no pure freedom. We cannot preserve freedom without laws and institutions to protect it. Someone has to pay for it, and it will involve an agreed-upon infringement of freedom.

         We do not celebrate freedom from responsibility. To be free we must be ready to protect the weak. We have to set aside our personal desires to support the greater needs of the whole community.

         Jesus offers us an easy yoke. He is approached by the disciples of John who asked if he were the messiah. Jesus is reflecting on the ministry of John with the crowd. He realizes that they did not accept the message of John or of Jesus. They are like children singing songs in the marketplace. John had a serious tune and they called him crazy. Jesus played a joyful tune and they called him a drunk. Both John and Jesus offered a new way of living a life with God. The old way of following an ever-growing list of laws, as interpreted by a religious aristocracy, had become a yoke that was too heavy to bear.

         Jesus, the carpenter, knew how to make a good yoke. He knew how to fit a yoke to an animal so that its burden would be easier to bear. Jesus offers us a new yoke – but it’s still a yoke. We would like to throw off our burdens. Jesus wants us to bear a different one.

         Paul (in the letter to the Romans) wrestles with his own inability to live the way he knows he should live. Paul knows that the law (the teachings and traditions) is true. The very fact that he can’t obey all the law proves that the law is good but powerless to help him. It’s not enough to know right from wrong. There is only freedom when we can choose right from wrong. Paul continues using imagery from the world of slavery that was common in the Roman world. No one can free a slave but the slaves’ master. Who frees Paul? Jesus is Paul’s new master who can free him from the body of death – the endless cycle of wanting one thing and doing another.

         I think that this is the yoke that Jesus offers us. It is not easy in the sense that it is without weight or difficulty. The burden we may be called to bear may seem impossible. For many who hear this, the yoke is the cross. Christians die because of their faith. Jesus doesn’t say it is easy, but that it is easy to bear.

         We know this in all the choices of our lives. Whenever we act to please others or live our lives according to someone else’s plan, we are burdened and crushed. Life becomes drudgery. If we ever have the freedom to choose what we will do, especially in order to help the people we love, then that burden is much lighter. If I become a lawyer because my father wants me to be a lawyer, then I will be miserable and unhappy no matter how much money I make. If I become a teacher because I love to teach, or a parent because I love children, then I will accept all sorts of sacrifice to do the thing I love for the people I love.

         This is that sort of burden. Jesus calls us to take something on. We are called to set aside all the baggage we think we ought to carry. We are invited to let go of all the cultural expectations that we think we ought to do and take on instead the burden of following him. It is not easy. It will cost us time and money. We will set aside prestige and power in order to become servants. We will have fewer things and more people will have a legitimate claim on our attention and our resources. We may be more bound but we will be more free.

         As we celebrate our independence, it is good to think about why we are free. We are free to do the good that God desires of us. We are free to set aside our own needs to serve the legitimate needs of others. We are free to stop thinking about our own ego and become willing servants of God. In doing so we not only serve others, we let go of burdens that have never helped us in the past. As we become more and more the servants of God, we become more free in our spirits. The more we are bound to God the more free we become, until we are truly free and at peace.