There is a video recording of the service, but I can't make it link. Search for "Brixton Hill Methodist Church", and 14 December - the service starts at 20 minutes in.
Today is the third Sunday in Advent.
We’ve lit three candles
in our Christmas Countdown –
er, I mean Advent
Wreath.
Christmas is coming –
only another fortnight!
I
expect you’ve already had some Christmas cards –
we
have.
And maybe you’ve already been to a Christmas
party.
Robert had one during the week.
Maybe you’ve
even finished all your Christmas shopping, and feel yourself well
organised. I sort of am, except for working out who is cooking what
on Christmas Day itself.
But in the Church, it isn’t Christmas
yet.
Not for another two weeks!
Even though King's Acre
is having their carol service today.
Technically, we are still
in the Season of Advent, and the lectionary tells us that this week
we look at John the Baptist.
You may have looked at him last
week, too;
traditionally on the second Sunday in Advent we look
at his role as a prophet. Today, however, we look at his role as the
Forerunner, the one who came to prepare the way for Jesus.
Now,
you know who he was, of course.
Just to recap on his life and
times,
he was Jesus’ cousin, born to Zechariah and Elisabeth
in their old age.
He was the unborn baby who “leapt in the
womb” when Mary, carrying Jesus, came to visit Elisabeth.
We
know absolutely nothing about his childhood, how well he knew Jesus,
whether they played together as kids, or whether they only saw each
other once a year when the holy family went up to Jerusalem.
What
we do know is that, when he grew up, John disappeared off into the
desert for awhile, to study and pray –
whether alone, or with
a community such as the Essenes,
we also don’t know.
When
he came back from the desert, he was a prophet,
just as Luke
alleges that his father foretold:
“And you, child, will be
called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the
Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his
people
by the forgiveness of their sins.“
For the
people of Israel, that was rather exciting.
They hadn’t had a
prophet for many centuries, not a proper one.
And John looked
the part.
He dressed like a prophet, in camel-hide clothing.
He
ate locusts and wild honey, just as they expected a prophet would
do.
He gathered a small flock of disciples around him.
And
he preached God's message:
"Repent and be baptized and get
ready for the coming of the Kingdom!"
Well, you can
imagine, the crowds absolutely flocked to hear him!
Better than
the cinema, this was –
such an excitement.
But what they
wanted was to see the prophet.
They didn’t really want to hear
what he had to say.
Few of them were really willing to
repent,
to turn right round and go God's way.
Not even the
Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.
Not that they interfered
with him, mind you –
could have been nasty, if they had.
But
they didn't want to know!
Very frustrating.
But
there were the other kind of people, too.
People who really did
want to listen to John,
to hear what he had to say and to act on
it.
People who came to him, asking to be baptized in the river
Jordan.
And one day, his cousin Jesus comes to him and asks for
baptism.
And at that moment, John knows that this is the
One he has been waiting for, the One for whom he has been preparing
the way.
And yet he wants to be baptized - surely not!
Surely
it should be he, Jesus, who baptizes John?
John's always known
that when the Messiah came,
he wouldn't be fit even to undo his
shoes and wash his feet,
slaves' work, that.
John mutters
something to this effect,
but Jesus says, "No, let's do
this thing by the book!"
And as he enters the water, the
Holy Spirit comes down on him in the shape of a dove, and a voice
speaks from heaven,
"Behold my beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased!"
And John says, so we are told, “He must
increase, and I must decrease”, and he spends his time pointing
people to Jesus,
as well as preaching the message of
repentance,
of turning round,
of going God’s way.
And
then John preaches against scandal and sleaze in high places once too
often,
and the powers-that-be have had enough,
so they
put him in prison to try to shut him up.
And then the
doubts start.
Is Jesus really the one God was going to
send?
Could John be mistaken?
This is his cousin, after all
–
Aunty Mary’s son.
John had thought so, but
everything’s gone so totally pear-shaped he can’t be sure of
anything any more.
So he sends one of his disciples to ask
Jesus,
“Are you the one who was to come,
or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus
sends John a message of reassurance:
“Go
back and report to John what you hear and see:
The blind receive
sight,
the lame walk,
those who have leprosy are cured,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the good
news is preached to the poor.
Blessed is the man who does not
fall away on account of me.”
In other words, “Hang in
there, mate, you’re doing great!”
And then Jesus tells
the crowd that John is just about the greatest of God’s servants
that there ever has been, or ever will be –
yet while he’s
on earth,
even the least of those in the Kingdom of Heaven is
greater than he is.
Sadly, as we know, it all ends
tragically –
the king’s wife seizes the opportunity to have
John killed,
and he is beheaded.
Jesus is devastated by
the loss of his cousin,
and goes off by himself to pray,
but
the crowd follow him and he has to feed them all,
and then he
sends the disciples off ahead, because he really, really, really
wants to be alone with his Father to try to come to terms with John’s
death –
and ends up walking across the lake to join them,
later on!
I love this story –
the affection
between the cousins,
the respect that John had for Jesus,
but
the fact that John was also human enough to doubt,
and secure
enough to express his doubts.
Because we all have our
doubts, from time to time, if we’re honest.
And that’s as it
should be.
There are times, and I wish they came more often,
when God is as real to us as bread and butter,
when we
couldn’t doubt his existence and his love for us
if we were
paid to do so.
But at other times, all trace of God seems to
vanish from the universe.
Perhaps dreadful things happen,
either personally or on the world stage –
I remember hearing
someone on “Thought for the Day” saying,
on the 14th
September 2001,
that the smoke rising from the collapse of the
World Trade Centre seemed to come between her and the face of God.
I
knew exactly what she meant!
And for John the Baptist, it was
personal circumstances –
being thrown into prison, deprived of
his whole reason for being,
which at that time was to preach
repentance and to baptise people.
John is actually quite a
good model of what to do when doubts strike.
He does absolutely
the right thing –
he goes to Jesus and asks, outright.
And
Jesus reassures him.
But the interesting thing is that Jesus
actually reassures him by saying “Look around, and see what’s
happening!
Look for the signs of the kingdom!”
He doesn’t
just say “Yes, of course I’m the Messiah, you silly little
man!”
Or even, “Don’t worry, mate, I’m the
Messiah!”
What he does is say, “Look, see what is happening,
see how the blind receive sight”, and so on.
And maybe that is
his answer to us, too, when the doubts happen,
when we wonder
whether it’s really a load of nonsense,
whether it’s just
wishful thinking.
Look around and see the signs of the
kingdom.
And sometimes, when we doubt,
it’s good
to come back to those lovely words from Isaiah 35.
For me, this
is one of the most lyrical and beautiful passages of the Bible.
So
often, if I’ve been praying for my church, or in a time of
darkness, I’m drawn back again and again to these words:
“The
desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will
rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into
bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The
glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendour of Carmel
and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the
splendour of our God.”
And so on –
I’m tempted
to quote the whole thing,
but we’ve already heard it once
this morning!
It is such a wonderful promise that,
no
matter how black the present may seem, things will get better.
One
day.
Maybe not in this life, but one day.
Of course,
sometimes it happens that external circumstances get worse and
worse.
John was in prison, and would soon be executed.
We
see all sorts of crime and injustice, terrorism and hostage-taking,
mistrust and suspicion.
We reckon bad things always happen in
threes, which is superstition, but it does seem that way
sometimes!
And yet, and yet, and yet –
there are signs of
the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes very tiny signs –
parents
bringing their children to baptism,
a young couple choosing to
be married in church,
even what I’ve heard described as
“random acts of senseless kindness!”
I personally think
beauty is a sign of the kingdom –
whether beauty in nature,
or in music,
or in words, like these words from Isaiah.
I
don’t believe that there’s beauty where the Kingdom isn’t!
And,
of course, at this very dark time of year,
we rejoice that in a
very few days we will be at the solstice
and the days will start
to lengthen.
It’s no accident that the early Church fathers
put the festival in which, above all, we celebrate the coming of the
Light of the World
at the very darkest time of the year.
Jesus
sent a message to John urging him to hang in there, not to despair,
for there were signs that the Kingdom of God was coming.
And we,
too, can hold on to those signs in the middle of our busyness in the
run-up to Christmas,
perhaps in the midst of sorrow or despair,
perhaps even in the midst of happiness and excitement.
The
Kingdom of God is coming, the Light of the World will come, and there
are signs of hope.
Hang in there!
