Sermon at St John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead - Morning Worship and at All Saints’ Church, Farley – Morning Worship – Sunday 10th December 2023 (An adaption and extension of Sermon 87)
Isaiah
40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may the words which I speak be a
blessing to all who hear them. Amen.
Well, today sees us only just over two weeks away from
Christmas! 15 days away. How has the year gone by so quickly? Are you prepared for the celebrations which
always accompany the event? Cards
written, gifts purchased, dinner plans in place, invitations sent out to
relatives and so on. All done and dusted!
I have to confess that each and every year Christmas creeps up on me
quicker and quicker despite knowing full well that it is celebrated on the 25th
December each and every year and the shops seem full of Christmas decorations
and gifts as soon as the summer holidays are over. This year, in particular, it
has come exceptionally fast for me because I have been celebrating a great
landmark in my life – reaching the age of three score years and ten in late
September – as well as reflecting on my past decades and ruminating on what I
have achieved and what it is that God still has planned for me.
Advent, is a time in our Christian Calendar which often seems
to be neglected because of all the rushing about and planning associated with
the secular festival – which is a pity, as I think it is one of the most
important seasons of our liturgical year – as important as Lent. After all, it is the wonderful anticipation
of God’s incarnation in the form of Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins.
Jesus, the Messiah, was long awaited as he was the subject of the Jew’s long
wait as foretold by Isaiah in our first reading. Advent is a time when we dig
out the Old Testament prophecies to re-affirm our own faith as Christians. For
this reason it should be a time when we reflect on our own frailties and
limitations remembering with certain hope of the incarnation and Christ’s
coming to redeem us.
Today we lit the second of the four Advent candles on our
Advent Wreath – the Candle of Preparation – in anticipation of that celebration
of God’s coming to Earth. “A light to
the Gentiles”, as both Isaiah and later Simeon in the Temple put it.
Isaiah, in our first reading is making it clear that Jesus is
not coming simply as the Messiah of the Jewish people but also for all
humankind. Isaiah, and also the later
prophets, declare: “Prepare the way of the Lord”. Prepare, prepare, prepare – a
theme which clearly leads from and links the prophecies of the Old Testament
right up to the ministry of Jesus’s cousin, John the Baptist.
There is something unusual about our Gospel reading today.
Mark, unlike the two other synoptic gospellers, Matthew and Luke, does not
start his narrative with Jesus’s genealogy or a description of Jesus’s birth or
any visit by wise men from the east – he starts with a description of the
ministry of Jesus’s cousin, John – the itinerant preacher and baptiser living
in the wilderness eating honey and locusts and proclaiming the coming of Jesus
– the Messiah. The character of John is
therefore most significant to our New Testament stories and cannot be
underestimated. John’s ministry is such
a pivotal point between the prophecies of the Old and the ministries of the
New. Isaiah clearly also talks about
Jesus, elsewhere in his writings, when he writes “A shoot shall come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow
out of his roots”. The genealogy of
Jesus does indeed go right back through David to Jesse and back further to Ruth
and Boaz.
Back in the days of Isaiah it was usual, when any king was
proposing to make a state visit within his kingdom or indeed outside it, for
roads to be smoothed for his passage and the route made easily for his
transport – hence Isaiah’s analogy of making the paths straight and rough
places smooth as we heard read in our first reading and which was later quoted
by John the Baptist. Isaiah is clearly talking about the coming of a king but
not a king as he and those to whom he was writing would know or expect him to
be.
John the Baptist, during his period of ministry, repeatedly
used the word “repentance” which is our English translation from the Greek word
metanoya (metanoya) meaning “a change of mind; forsaking old patterns,
habits and priorities; a new way of life”.
I began this sermon this morning
by saying something about how time seems to fly and also even quicken as one
gets older. When I was very young Christmas seemed to take an absolute age to
arrive. As with most children I was impatient for Father Christmas (as we
called Santa Claus back then) to arrive and deposit my toys in the anticipatory
empty stocking. Peter in our second
reading talks about the timelessness of God – his time is not our time and our
time is not his! As Peter puts it: ”One
day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years just like one
day”. It reminds me a bit of being at a football match with 15 minutes to
go and one team winning 1-0. To the
supporters of the team winning those 15 minutes seem like one and a half hours
and to the team losing the same amount of times seems like one and a half
minutes!
We, who are bound here on Earth,
measure everything in terms of the hours it takes for our planet to revolve on
its axis (day) and the time it takes to complete one orbit of the Sun (year);
but I can tell you, from an astronomer’s point of view, time becomes
incomprehensible the further away from our solar system we observe and study.
Time and distance being so vast does not to fit in easily with our own earthly
understanding. The same with spiritual time – God’s time. Peter writes :
“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as
some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to
perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come
like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the
elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done
on it will be disclosed.”
Finally, Peter references the
words of Paul when he says “For whatever
was written in former days was written instruction so that by steadfastness and
by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”
I am sure that many of us make New Year’s Resolutions of
hope. I expect many Christians also make
Resolutions during Lent and maybe even on Easter Day as we think about new
beginnings in the Spring season.
However, I wonder how many of us use Advent for this purpose? Our Scriptures are full of the message of
waiting and repentance. Unfortunately,
we live in a world of “having it now” and not waiting. My mother always had a phrase she used “If it’s worth having, it’s worth waiting
for”. I have, by bitter personal experience, learned the wisdom of those
words. Here is a time for us to take
time out, to reflect on the past year and to think where we could have done
better. Repentance is about turning away
from our sins and turning to God. We
can’t repent though unless we reflect upon what it is we are turning away from
and how, by changing our life, we can be better followers of Christ.
Jesus didn’t just descend from Heaven one day, he was
born. There was a period of gestation
following the Annunciation. At the first
miracle in Cana, Jesus told his mother that his time had not come – in fact
following his birth in Bethlehem it took 30 years before his ministry
began. We know little about his life
before then but can surmise that he was in a period of intense preparation for
his short yet equally intense ministry. Likewise, Advent is a time for intense
reflection and preparation.
I was reminded a few days ago of a quotation from one of my
favourite theologians – the famous and very brave Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He said
“…our whole life is an
Advent season, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there
will be a new heaven and a new earth”.
I think that is an absolutely lovely phrase. Within it is encapsulated the whole essence
of this season – the season of waiting.
We lead a life of waiting – waiting to be called to a better place. It
also reminds us that whilst we wait for that final time, we should be in a
constant state of readiness. Jesus
himself tells us that we do not know the time or the place of his next coming
but we should be alert and in readiness.
We can
become so complacent. I am also reminded
of the taking of Singapore by the Japanese in the Second World War. The British had always assumed that any
attack by the Japanese or other force would come from the sea. Accordingly, all
the colony’s heavy guns were pointed seaward.
The Japanese mounted a land attack across poorly defended marshland to
the north. The British were not prepared
despite thinking that they were. During
their period of waiting for the inevitable attack, they could have taken steps
to prepare stronger fortifications to the north. Likewise, we cannot assume that we can
gainsay God’s plans for us. His timing
is not our timing – just as the British timing was not the Japanese timing.
Bonhoeffer’s
phrase also reminds us that we are here on earth for just a limited time –
something which I have reflected upon quite deeply this year as I reached 70
years of age. As Paul reminded us, we are here to help others and not think
just about ourselves all the time. We are here for a relatively short time, as
the hymn reminds us, and then we are borne away (O God Our Help in Ages Past). We are here just for a season and in that
time we should spend it living the Christian way – the way of Christ. John the Baptist tells us that the best way
to prepare ourselves for his coming is to change so that we become more Christ
centred, more theocentric. But do we
really prepare ourselves fully?
One of my
favourite stories at Christmas is the short story by Charles Dickens – “A Christmas Carol”. I am sure that sometime and somewhere over
the Christmas period, on our multi-channelled TVs, there will be a screening of
it again. It struck me a few days ago
that here is a really great illustration of metanoya or repentance. I am sure I don’t need to tell any of you the
plot of the story but it is worth remembering that scene towards the end of the
book when, after receiving visitations from four spirits, Ebeneezer Scrooge
shows how that terrifying experience has changed him so completely. Instead of
being the mean miserly businessman we met at the beginning of the story, he now
brings joy and hope to the poor Cratchet Family. He has truly repented.
Scrooge
needed to be visited by four spirits, we only need one – the Holy Spirit, which
was left for all of us after Jesus’s ministry here on Earth was completed; that
same Spirit which John the Baptist saw descending during Christ’s baptism, that
hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation and which inspired Isaiah.
As you leave
today pray that the Holy Spirit will show you the best way for you to prepare
for his coming this Christmas and help you lead the Christian life throughout
2024 and may God’s blessing be upon all of you this Christmas and New Year.
Amen
194/08122023
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