Now we know. Undoubtedly, like all Americans, you have been plagued by the question posed by right-thinking, socially conscious Christians, the question spreading through the nation:

What Would Jesus Drive? The answer, according to The Oregonian, is that Jesus would drive a Godillac or a Christler. Who says the Bible isn't pertinent to contemporary culture?

Today's texts actually address this question. Even the theological movement of Advent enters the question. Advent starts with doom, judgment, and the end of time. That was last week. The discipleship call was to stay awake and be wary, because the end of time would come and we would need help to make it through. We learned that Jesus, the "baby name" we were looking at, means "Savior." This week's baby name is "Savior," which sounds a little redundant. Is there something more, something different, about this week's recognition of our need for a Savior?

The call is different. This week, we hear John telling 1st century Jews to repent, to enter the cleansing waters of baptism and be forgiven, because One More Powerful was coming after him. The gospel writer invokes Isaiah to tell us John's call was about preparation. When we put Mark and Isaiah together, this week's baby name asks Calvin for help. John Calvin the reformer, not the cartoon character with the stuffed tiger. Calvin said that repentance is not what forgiveness is based on. Repentance is, however, the grounds for reconciliation. What he means is that God has already forgiven us. That was the baby-in-a-manger thing, the grown-up-dying-on-the-cross thing, the guy-who-was-dead-and-who-is-now-alive thing. This means that John the Baptizer's call to us is something to stake our lives on. Since we are already forgiven, the point is now to act like it. "Repentance" as the basis for our reconciliation to God means that "Savior" applies to how we live our lives now. "Prepare the way" isn't about standing around and waiting for something big to happen, it's about how we live in the meantime. It's not about what Jesus would drive, it's about following where Jesus goes.

Advent as preparation is not about Christmas-shopping, baking, wrapping, partying. Advent is the season when we prepare for a heinous, dreadful, terrifying thing: the divine in human time and space, the Infinite become mortal. Incarnation! That ought to scare the liver out of you. That ought to make you sit up and think, to think and think again, to change your mind about what is important to you-the literal meanings of the word, "repent." The discipleship meaning of "repent," though, is to act differently, to make an adjustment in our relationship with God.

The meaningful discipleship question is not, "What would Jesus drive?" What kind of mileage Jesus got out of his camel or whether he had a dual exhaust system on his donkey is not the point. Both the Baptizer and Jesus may have been out in the wilderness, but it wasn't to see if Polo had a new line of hair shirts, nor was it to sample the locusts lightly braised in infusion of lavender. The question will never be "What would Jesus drive?" The question will always be "Will you also go where Jesus went?" Wilderness is not a safe place. When God's people go to the wilderness, it is to be tested, formed, called away from a comfortable but sinful past. Wilderness is the happening place for people who need 40 days of fasting or 40 years of wandering, it is the season in one's life when addictions are finally wrenched away, when sacred crutches are let go. Wilderness is where we find the mountain on which the deepest, most cherished dreams of our hearts are laid on the stones and the knife is poised above them, just as surely as Abraham held the knife over Isaac. Wilderness is where everything we once thought true about ourselves is put on the line. I didn't set out to divorce. I'm not the kind of person who declares bankruptcy. People like me aren't controlled by drinking or how much to eat.

Why would Advent need to take a detour into the wilderness? Because, if we are serious about living into our baptismal vows-and that's what "being a Christian" is all about-we've got to ask, "Will I go where Jesus goes?" not "Will I drive what Jesus drives?" Jesus goes to the wilderness, friends. It's where he found John, it's where he received baptism. It's where he faced temptation. Wilderness is an integral part of our lives as Christians. Wilderness is where we come to grips with the honesty required to prepare the way for our Savior. One of Rick's contacts on the Opening Doors committee for presbytery asked him this week if Isaiah's talk about leveling uneven ground was about making the kingdom wheelchair accessible. Yeah. It also reminds us about making our lives accessible to our Savior-prepare the way.

Here's something weird. Remember that I just told you that "wilderness" is a dangerous place? It is frightening to have to come to grips with putting "who we think we are" next to "who God wants us to be." That's a terrifying comparison-who we are versus who God wants us to be-but that's "wilderness" in today's scripture texts in today's living. Being out of that wilderness experience, though, isn't necessarily free of danger. It is risky driving where Jesus would drive. Following Jesus is dangerous business. What if my friends find out I'm a Christian? What if they think I'm a geek? What if I have to be as concerned to feed nameless hungry people as I am to feed my own family? Or be in conversation with people whose first language isn't English? Or take time out of my busy week to pray with other Christians? Or treat disabled people with respect? What if being a Christian is about more than what I do on Sunday morning?

Discipleship is about choices. This baby name is about choices: who you gonna let save you? Who is your savior? Managing the wilderness experience, trusting your keen assessment and objectivity as savior. Or alcohol to save you from pain. Prescription pills to save you from symptoms. A calendar full enough, busy enough to save you from facing your need, your emptiness. These are savior choices. They will affect where you go and how far you follow Jesus. We always have choices. We are never victims of our lives or our decisions. That's the meaning of repentance as reconciliation-accepting responsibility for what we decide. CS Lewis writes, "Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. . . .all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into either a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature . . .To be the one kind of creature is heaven; that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."

Friends, we get to live as if there is no "judgment day." Because we are forgiven, we get to live as if there is judgment day after day. This is good news. It's sort of like the movie, Groundhog Day, where our self-centered, unpleasant hero gets to keep coming back to the same day over and over until he gets it right-until he is a loving human being. This sermon series is only "about names" unless you hear Mark's call as personal, unless "the beginning" he describes today is also effective in your life. There is both judgment and demand in the approach of the Messiah. Advent is the call to take both seriously as you follow your savior. Prepare the way.