Sung Eucharist and Matins, Christchurch Priory, 9th December 2018
Baruch 5.1-9
Philippians 1.3-11
Luke 3.1-6
Good morning everybody.
You and I have the privilege of passing on the good news of Jesus.
But when we do, we sometimes forget that the story we tell is not yet over. That the play, if you like, has yet to reach its conclusion. That we await the denouement. So every year during Advent, as well as remembering the coming of our Lord Jesus some 2000 years ago, we also try to look ahead to the day when He will return and all will be fulfilled. All will be healed. All will be made right. We live our lives in that stretch of time which lies between these two events, between Jesus’ first coming and his return.
Underpinning the message of God given to John was first and foremost: the Lord is coming. He’s on his way. Now this was the most momentous news for the people that had gone out to hear him. Hundreds of years earlier, the presence of God had left the temple in Jerusalem. And they were waiting and waiting, across the generations, for this presence to return, for God to return to be with his people.
Secondly, John’s message was, given that the Lord is on his way, sort yourselves out! Change where your heart is. Turn away from what you know to be wrong. Turn back to God. Get ready. Prepare the way of the Lord.
It’s important to notice that what comes first is the gracious act of God. And what comes second is the response of his people. Not the other way around. It’s God who graciously makes the first move and comes to us. No matter the mess we’ve made of things.
So, given that this is our moment in the story that is not yet over, in this play that has yet to reach its conclusion, what kind of people are we called to be?
Firstly, we’re called to be patient. By the time the message of God came to John, he was in his early thirties. Not so long for one person to wait perhaps. But he was part of a people, as I say, who had been waiting for the return of God for a very long time. Whilst our wait has been even longer, we’re not having to wait in the same way. This is because we wait both in the light of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Day and in the company of the Holy Spirit, given to the church at Pentecost. So we are called to wait patiently for the return of Our Risen Lord with the Holy Spirit by our side. No matter the mess we’ve made of things, we never have to wait alone.
Secondly, we’re called to be bold. You may not think that you have what it takes to be bold. For example, you may not have a powerful, influential position in society. Most of us don’t, of course. But God didn’t choose to give his message to the emperor, the governor, or the local politicians, not even to the high priests of the temple. Instead, he chose John. God gave John the message and he was bold and proclaimed it with confidence. Same goes for us. We are the people who are called to proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is risen and that Christ will come again. And so get ready! Prepare the way of the Lord! That’s our message too. And as we wait patiently, the Holy Spirit helps us to proclaim it boldly.
Next, we’re called to be hopeful. We are to look ahead with hope, hope that’s rooted in the character of Our Lord who has come and who will return. There is much that is wonderful in this world but we all us know that there is also much that is wretched. Take away the return of Christ from the story we live by, and we lose the ultimate source of hope for both ourselves and our world. For the new creation that has begun in Jesus will be fulfilled for all of creation when he returns. So we are to wait with a clear-eyed hope that doesn’t deny all that is hideous and wrong but which faces it straight on and challenges it, trusting that all will eventually be made good, all will be healed. All will be made right. And as I’ve said to many of you over the years, if it were not for the execution and resurrection of Jesus, this hope would be but deluded wish fulfilment. But Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. With the Holy Spirit, we wait patiently, proclaiming boldly our message full of hope.
Finally, we’re called to be humble. John the Baptist, or John the Forerunner, the Forerunner of Christ, as he’s known in some traditions, was humble. He knew he wasn’t the main act. He knew he wasn’t the messiah, the chosen one of God. He knew that his job was to go ahead, proclaiming the coming of the Lord, to point people to Christ and then to get out the way. ‘He, Jesus, must increase,’ he later says, ‘I must decrease.’ We, too, are to be a humble people. We know we’re not the main act. We know that our job is simply to point to Jesus’ coming and to his return in the future. If we make the message all about ourselves—and we do this every time we end up talking about church rather than Jesus— then we’ve got it all wrong. And it’s not that we are to pretend that God hasn’t given us great gifts and abilities when he has. Beautiful music making, for example. No. As C.S. Lewis said, humility is not thinking less of ourselves; it’s thinking of ourselves less. And we think about ourselves less by thinking about Jesus more. And yes, the Holy Spirit helps us to do this, too!
So in advent we practise how we’re to be throughout our lives. We wait patiently, proclaiming boldly; we look ahead hopefully, practising humility, thinking about ourselves less, thinking about Jesus more. All this we do in the company of and sustained by the Holy Spirit. And we do so because we trust in the character of God who always makes the first move, no matter the mess we’ve made of things. For our role, our part, is to respond by preparing his way. For the story that we tell is not yet over. The play has yet to reach its conclusion. We await the denouement when Our Lord Jesus will return and all will be fulfilled, all will be healed, all will be made right.
And so we pray with all the saints, with Mary the Mother of God and John the Forerunner of Christ: Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Amen.