Anticipating...
I’m sure it won’t come as any great surprise to any of you if I tell you that I was as a baby very well behaved, which of course I am today as well ! I didn’t cry very much at all and I apprently listened when people spoke to me or made the sort of funny noises people often make to babies and I smiled quite a lot of the time too !
I responded well when people made noises ! I’m no great scientist but I know that sounds are heard in many special ways – often people will talk to children before they’re born and the unborn child often moves as a response; or playing music can sometimes calm down a child kicking in their mothers tummy.
Words and sounds can make a big difference and that is something that was well known around the time of our gospel reading today (Luke 3:1-6). The Jewish people had relied on prophets sharing the word of God with them for many years and the words of these prophets had been shared down from generation to generation, but it seemed that God had been silent for around 400 years since the work of the prophet Malachi.
People were desperately waiting for a voice, but it seemed there was silence. And then along came John the Baptist – first we’re told of the time John the Baptist was speaking – in the 15th year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberias – Luke also puts in place a number of other important leaders, and then simply adds, ‘The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.’
Those are quite incredible words – God who had seemed to be silent for 400 years, was now making himself known through this rather strange character who had rejected the lifestyle into which he was born and moved out to the wilderness to become the messenger promised in the Book of Isaiah (40:3-5) – John was the ‘voice crying in the wilderness’.
And his ministry marked the beginning of a whole new period of history- Benjamin Franklin once said "'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." At this time of year I think it’s also appropriate to add another certainty, and that is that where there is glitter, it shall go everywhere!
But there is another certainty as well and that is the certainty of change !
Only 20 years ago, the first text was sent by mobile phone – now many people can’t live without texts it seems. I also saw something recently about a person now in their 50’s who had asked their grandmother some years ago what were the biggest changes she’d seen in her life. He wondered whether it would be aeroplanes, television, cars but it wasn’t any of these things, it was that all the children now had shoes…
Huge changes have been made and they will continue to be made – some we will like, some we won’t, but it is certain change will happen.
But when we’re thinking of radical changes there can be none bigger than the birth of Jesus – John the Baptist was offering a message calling people to repent for the things they’d done wrong, because a Saviour was coming – a Saviour who would fulfil the Old Testament prophecy and ensure that ‘every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth.’
This incredible change – the prophecy and preaching of John and the birth and ministry, and death and resurrection of Jesus would leave the world as a very different place, and it would leave all people with a need to listen to the message of Jesus, and to respond.
And from that time 2000 years ago people have listened and have responded – they have listened to people speaking out for Jesus, they have listened to the voice of God, as St Paul did, and they have responded. In the reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (1:3-11) we are given an example of that response… Paul, who had persecuted Christians and who had probably lived a fairly prosperous sort of life had listened to God, and changed his life completely.
He had gone to all kinds of places preaching a gospel message and here as he wrote to one of the churches he had helped to start, he was in prison – but he wasn’t depressed or broken. He knew he’d not failed in his ministry. Even now in this letter sent from prison he wrote of rejoicing – it was a message of hope and a call for the church to continue to proclaim the gospel in word and in actions.
And in this advent time as we wait with joyful expectation we recognise too our need to repent even today for the things that we get wrong… but we’re not called to repent and sit in a darkened room ashamed, but to repent and accept God’s forgiveness and go out as his followers determined to do as Paul did and share that gospel message.
In advent we think of themes such as joy, hope, peace and love – things that can transform a life and even the world.
John the Baptist gave a message which was frightening in many ways – ‘repent or face the consequences’ – but he did it believing that people would listen – they would see his work, and the sacrifices he had made and they would listen to his words and they would know this was a genuine man of God – a man who had a message to share and who should be listened to.
And that was true of Paul – they knew about his change of life – they knew he had gone from being a persecutor of Christians to being persecuted as a Christian. And people responded.
We may not all be people who are called to a ministry quite like John the Baptist or Paul, but we are people who are called to be Christians in a world where Christianity can often seem pushed out into the wilderness, or where the Christian message is neglected or ignored.
There are two things we can do when faced with such dangers – we can allow ourselves to become enclosed in our churches, praying together, worshipping together but afraid to look and go outside celebrating a Saviour born for all people, or we can go out proclaiming that that Saviour has come into the world and left the gift of salvation for all people who turn to him…
It is an incredible message that we are called to be ambassadors for. John the Baptist and Paul were early missionaries in the church – for 2000 years people have proclaimed the gospel in words and actions, some remarkably with incredible stories of courage and wisdom and determination, but many in much more simple ways – by trying to live as Jesus lived, by trying to love as he loved, by trying to show the joy and the peace and the hope and love that he offers to all people.
Advent is the start of the Christian year, and it’s a start because we are called to seek and experience afresh the love of God; to experience his grace, his mercy, and to feel his peace and joy, and to know the hope he offers to us all – hope that will guide us through every situation, knowing that we are surrounded by God’s love wherever we are and whatever we’re doing…
Advent Sundays traditionally have those themes of hope, peace, love and joy attached to them, and as we watch the news or read our papers it’s easy to believe that these qualities are being obscured by a world where conflict seems all too common, where people live day by day without hope or peace, where people seem unloved and joy seems something so distant…
But another theme of advent speaks into this powerfully. The theme of light and darkness are big advent themes... As I’ve said, darkness is all too common in the world today, and sometimes in our own lives, but light always defeats darkness – the smallest light will always break into darkness….
As we prepare for Christmas in these often uncertain times, we can be hopeful because Jesus delivered hope; we can know peace, because the Prince of Peace loves us and loves this world; we can feel love in the relationships we have with those close to us, and with God who has revealed to us in the form of his Son, incredible immeasureable love and we can be joyful, because light always overcomes darkness…
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