Sermon on Third Sunday of Advent (John the Baptist) - All Saint’s Church, Winterslow, Morning Praise Service – Sunday 13th December 2020
Isaiah
61:1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28
Well, once
again may I say how delighted I am to be with you live, so to speak, after an
absence of nine months away from doing actual services. It is especially good
to be here in Winterslow amongst lovely Christian friends as it was here, eight
yours ago, that I gave my first sermon whilst training for the ministry! I think, therefore, it is only appropriate
that I should renew my ministry again here today.
Today we lit
the third candle which reminds us that Christmas is now less than two weeks
away. Normally, we are busy bustling
around the shops and preparing for relatives to arrive, meeting others for
pre-Christmas drinks and so on. What a
difference this year! Like so many of
you I guess you’ve been busy on your computers or other devices ordering goods
and presents on line for delivery to your own home and to others. Many of us have been unable to see friends
and relatives and have had to forgo our overseas holidays and visits in order
to protect ourselves and those we love.
In other words, we have had to make sacrifices in order to save those we
love. Yes, Christmas will be a muted affair this year but perhaps in so being
it will make us and many like us more aware of what this celebration is all
about – the coming of the Messiah, the one who saves us all! Emmanuel, God amongst us.
I mentioned
earlier that this is my first service “in the flesh” so to speak and it seems
so wonderful to be back here amongst you and I wonder whether God felt the same
when he sent his Son, in the flesh, to come down and dwell amongst his
people. I don’t claim to be the Messiah,
I hasten to add, but it has made me realise, as I have sat at home watching the
world tear itself apart, how God must have felt and why he had the overwhelming
desire to get back down into the world he had created. Just as now, back then, the world was a
difficult place with so much wrong with it.
Many of you
will know of my passion for astronomy. A
passion I have had since I was nine years old. During all the years of pursuing
that passion I have seen many wonderful sights in the night sky – the Moon,
comets, planets (especially Saturn), galaxies, nebulae, the Milky Way and so
forth; but the singular most beautiful thing I have ever seen was that
remarkable view of our own planet, Earth, shown to us by the lunar astronauts
from the surface of the Moon. The beauty
of our planet is astounding and the one thing which struck me more than
anything was how absolutely serene and peaceful it looked out there. From outer space there are no political
boundaries, no evidence of war, destruction, famine or other negative forces.
It all seems so positive. It’s God’s own
creation and if you want to get close to God one way, as the Director of the
Vatican Observatory, Father Guy Consolmango, recommends is to study his
Creation in the Cosmos. It is by wondering at the immensity and mystery of the
Universe that we get a feeling for the immensity and mystery of God. Something for you all to reflect upon next
time you look up at the night sky.
But back to
today’s readings. In our first reading,
one of my favourites from the Book of Isaiah, the writer is setting out, in a
beautiful poetic way, Jesus’s job description! It’s a prophecy of the person
God will send down to Earth to put things right:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the
oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release the prisoners, to proclaim the year of God’s favour and the day of
vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn … to give them garlands instead
of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead
of a faint spirit”.
Wow if we
ever needed such words of encouragement and comfort we certainly need them
today. We are all captive prisoners in some way or another – being it lockdown
or captive with our own thoughts and despair.
But we have already had the means to be free of such captivity by the
Faith we have in Jesus Christ as our Saviour – even though times seem so dark.
I have been involved, in my professional life, with reviewing and drafting job
descriptions but this one of Isaiah’s is just perfect. It was exactly what was needed and continues
to be needed today.
John, in our
gospel reading refers back to the prophecy of Isaiah reminding us that one
would be sent ahead of Jesus to “make straight the way of the Lord”. He refers
of course to his namesake, John the Baptist, who we read in Luke’s Gospel was a
cousin of Jesus and who was conceived around the same time as Jesus himself.
Both Mary and Elizabeth were unlikely mothers back then – one being an
unmarried teenager and the other a woman of mature years. His own role, as the
one who was to make the ways straight for Jesus, is remembered especially today
with the Third Candle. He was to prepare
the way for bringing God’s love to us all.
As we know,
John’s ministry began much earlier than Jesus’s. We don’t know a lot about what Jesus was
doing during the first 30 years of his life but can surmise, from many of his
parables, that he had a real good handle on both Jewish family life and
theology and also the commercial aspects of being involved in the running of a
business – Joseph’s carpentry business in all probability. Recent research suggests that he might have
been involved in the building of a new village close to Nazareth. John’s earlier ministry, on the other hand,
is more clearly set out.
John the
Baptist never shied away from proclaiming the ministry of Jesus. He must have been a very charismatic person
for we read that many followed him and were baptised by him in the River Jordan
– even Jesus himself to show that whilst he was divine he had come down in
human form. His own baptism gave a stamp
of authority to all those who had been previously and latterly baptised by
John.
John, in our
readings, is quizzed heavily by people sent by the Pharisees who are trying to
fathom out precisely who John is and what his actual job description is too.
John answers “I am the voice of one
crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord”. He goes on to
say that he is not the Messiah because he only baptises with water, that a
greater person is coming who will have the ability to baptise with the
Spirit. For the Jews, this would have been
quite a revelation for up until that point the Spirit had only been bestowed
upon special people for special tasks.
Now here was a hint that the Holy Spirit might be for all, just as water
had been for all and any who wanted to be baptised.
I have always
found it interesting, and revealing that John begins his Gospel, his story of
Jesus’s life, not with Bethlehem, the shepherds and wise men coming to a dirty
stable, but with the news that Jesus was always there and was coming down to
bring light, life and spirit to a broken world.
Deliberately, he begins at Chapter 1 Verse 1 with the immortal phrase
“In the beginning” those self-same words that begin the Jewish Torah with
Genesis. “Jesus, was, is and is to
come”. Alleluia! What a wonderful
thought and something for us all to reflect upon as we hurry towards Christmas
and may the Holy Spirit be with you all today and always.
Amen MFB/154/11122020
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