What can Google earth (and Luke’s gospel both) teach us about the season of advent? 

Growing up, the most amazing picture I think any human being had ever seen was taken by the Apollo moon program.  Entitled “Earthrise” – it was a picture of earth as ‘rising’ over the surface of the moon taken by the astronauts who were standing on the moon’s surface.  For the first time, really, we as a world, saw our planet as ONE, and as this small, fragile ball, adrift in the vast ocean of the universe.  Now that same view is available instantly, online, in this wonderful tool called google earth.  You start out in space, looking at the entire planet below you.  With a click of a button, the outlines of nations appear.  Another click and the great weather patterns of clouds and storms appear.  With another click you can begin to zoom in.  And keep on zooming in – from the grand perspective of earth as seen from ‘off world” to a view of your street, then house, then even back yard.  It is a great way to give you perspective about your place in this world.  

What Google earth does with our geography, Luke the evangelist was doing with our history, not using computer images, but verbal ones.  He wanted to set the birth of Jesus into this kind of cosmic perspective.  Let’s start with the big perspective – the 15th year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar.  He was the world power. Zoom in a bit – Pontius Pilate as governor – zoom a bit more – Herod and Philip as local mayors.  Zoom more – religious climate of Annas and Caiaphas.  And finally, Luke takes you deepest down -  to a single ‘point’ in the history of this world – John the Baptist…   That is the perspective that he wants to set your heart upon.  That is the FOCAL SPOT for speaking about the arrival of the messiah.  A single figure named John.   

He doesn’t seem like much, does he.  A lonely voice without a public relations machine to back him up, crying out in the WILDERNESS.  He’s not even street preaching here, is he?  Not finding a busy corner in the middle of a bustling metropolis.  Nope!  But there, in the wilderness, there in the place where people will have to make a choice to go out and see him, John begins to herald the messiah’s coming.

One voice, crying out.  One single, lonely voice saying: Don’t miss it folks!  He’s coming. Be alert and aware…

The word John brings is simple.  Don’t listen to the voices that say YOU DON’T MATTER.  Don’t trust the words of the world that say you are too small to make a difference.  Valleys will be filled in.  Mountains will be torn down.  Things will become smooth again, if you lend your voice, your heart, your love to make a difference. 

You have probably all heard the story of the little boy walking along the shore of the sea, one by one throwing starfish back into the ocean.  An older, wiser man said to him – kid – you’ll never make a difference.  Look at this beach – there are thousands of starfish that are going to die here.  You won’t make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things.  The kids smiled- “That might be true, Mister, but it makes a heck of a difference to THIS starfish…” 

Both Google earth and Luke’s gospel teach us a lot about this season of advent.  Google earth teaches us it is always important to see who we are in relation to the whole.  Luke’s gospel invites us to trust that whatever we do makes a difference, even when it seems so small in comparison to the needs of the world, so small in terms of the span of history and worlds.  Like John the Baptist – God has put us in on this planet, here in the middle of the United States, in a state called Missouri and a city called Normandy and a parish called St. Ann – there to make the ways straight, and the paths smooth for all his people. 

Spend a bit of prayer this week with that practical question:  What has God put in my heart to do to prepare for his coming?  What ONE thing, no matter how small, is GOD inviting me, in the grand sweep of my own time and history –to make sure I accomplish?