Advent 3, Year C
December 14, 2003
Christ Church, Covington

“The people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts” (Lk. 3:15).

Our Gospel reading today is about a “touchstone” experience. Perhaps you know what I mean. Is there a particular place that is a significant landmark for you? People sometime return to a location, like the place they grew up or where they went to school, or perhaps even their grandparents’ house, in order to connect with their past and to take a fresh read from their moral “compass”. I’m not talking about mere sightseeing, but about a journey that is part of the search for meaning.

Have you taken this sort of trip yourself? Sometimes this touchstone is not a place but a person, a parent or friend or early mentor, to whom one returns for confirmation of one’s choices and for guidance in the right path. Or perhaps this touchstone is an experience or even a book or work of art or piece of music, which struck you once with great power and to which you look now for a renewal of that same force in your life.

What I’m talking about is a phenomenon of return and recurrence, where a place or person or experience is repeated and its power is made present now. Ancient religions knew all about this; ancient philosophers as well. When we connect with a touchstone, we are not just traveling down “memory lane” but are seeking renewal and transformation now.

I remember a vivid dream that I had over twenty years ago as a seminarian, at a time of trial and confusion in my life, which placed me on the lawn in front of the chapel at my undergraduate college. A touchstone of place, apparently, for me, though not one I was consciously aware of until that moment. The touchstone connected me to who I really was and what I hoped to be. And of course, there are other touchstones for my life, in places, persons, and experiences, to which I look for guidance and strength.

It may be that you can point to a number of touchstones in your life, of many different types. I hope so. I also hope you have been thinking about your own touchstones while I speak (it’s one of the reasons I’ve been going on like this), and are drawing refreshment and renewal from them. That’s the “take away” from this sermon, coming right at the beginning: the opportunity to think about these things and to be reconnected.

Our Gospel reading this morning is all about this phenomenon of return and recurrence, the “touchstone” experience. John the Baptist brings his followers into the wilderness, to a particular place by the Jordan river, in order to lead them into the water. It’s strange behavior, now and then, so what does it mean? What John is doing is symbolically returning to that significant moment when the People of God under Moses, purified and united by their forty years in the Wilderness, were led by Joshua through the water at this precise point near the city of Jericho into the Promised Land. The “baptism of repentance” that John calls them to leads them back to that significant point in the story of the People of God when they were obedient to God. The People are in a state of expectation and questioning; John is reconnecting them with their past, recasting their moral compass, renewing their search for meaning.

It’s a cultural commonplace that one can’t go home again. I think I know what that means, that time passes and things change. But I don’t think it means that we cannot reconnect with and reclaim what has gone before, especially those things that have shaped and formed us and made us who we are. If the parable of the Prodigal Son means anything, it means that in we can go home again, when the home is the kingdom of God, the land that has been promised to us.

Notice that John leads them back to this touchstone so that they can be transformed and changed now. “What then should we do?”, the people ask. John responds by calling them to share what they have, and to deal honestly and peacefully with others. The touchstone experience is not about the savoring of nostalgia for the past, but all about the vital reconnection we make with what is truest and best in ourselves and in our relationship with God. Making this connection means measuring what we are by the standard of what we were meant to be, which will lead us to change. Connecting with our touchstone will lead to repentance and renewal.

So what will we do? Today, in this season, in a time of preparation for the coming of the Son of God into the world, there is much to be done to prepare ourselves. We are expecting great things; we are questioning in our hearts. It may be that this church itself is a touchstone for you: I hope it is. But if so, like every other touchstone that we have, it connects us to Jesus Christ. If we connect with what is truest and best in ourselves, then we will connect with our Touchstone, Jesus Christ, and we will be lead to repentance and renewal. We have much to forgive in others; we are in need of forgiveness ourselves. The touchstone experience should lead you in this direction, which is the way of life.

The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.

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