'On Jordan's Banks the Baptist's Cry' ~ Transcript of Sermon for Third Sunday in Advent

Sermon St Anne's Brown Edge Third Sunday in Advent 2016

Isaiah 35.1-10 James 5.7-10 Matthew 11.2-111

A couple of years ago when the race for the White House began in earnest not too many people took notice of a brash billionaire businessman who had an unconventional hairstyle and an even more unconventional rhetoric.

Yet for many he is seen as their saviour, the one who will make America great again. The one who will deal with the problems of the Mexican drug dealers coming over the borders by building a wall. The one who would see that the steel mills would start rolling again.  The one who would stop mass immigration. The one who would deal firmly with any threat of terrorism even if that meant banning all Muslims from entering the country for a period. 

The seemingly impossible has now happened and Trump is President elect of one of the world’s most powerful nations. We wait to see just what kind of saviour he might be to the American people.   

Some have likened his rhetoric to another leader who came to power largely by the democratic vote. He also had an unconventional hairstyle and his rhetoric was similar. He would make Germanany great; he would bring back jobs and increase Germany’s power across the world.

History we know tells us the result of this man coming to power and being hailed as a saviour, as the National Father.

We have also recently had the death of another leader, Fidel Castro. A tyrant to some but too many others he was their saviour and father of the nation.

Humanities history is littered with those who were acclaimed as saviour, those who would sort out all problems and bring peace and prosperity, even if that meant for a while there had to be fighting and conflict. 

 

It was no different of course for the Israelites. They longed for, wrote about and prophesied about a saviour, a messiah.

They talked about two ages, this age and the age to come, which would be when their God would be accepted as not only King over Israel but of the entire world.  

That is the background behind many of Isaiah’s prophesies such as we heard today. They spoke of the time when the earth itself would be redeemed along with the whole of the created order.

However apart from a brief period during the time of the Maccabean revolt Israel had been ruled by one pagan power after another for hundreds of years.  

At the time of Jesus, it was the Romans as the dominant superpower who subjugated the Jewish nation.

Spurred on by the promises and the prophecies many kingdom movements and would be messiahs sprang up in this fertile ground of resistance and revolution.

They felt that perhaps God was being a bit slow bringing about the age to come, the new heaven and new earth, and so they would help God by fighting his enemies who were oppressing God’s people.

To this, hear Jesus say, ‘they that live by the sword will die by the sword.’  You cannot settle and eradicate violence by using violence.

Into this toxic mix John appears out of the dessert. An ascetic who had a penchant for eating bugs and wearing a camel skin coat.

He also spoke boldly announcing that the Messiah is arriving and the age to come was about to dawn. Many flocked to hear him and then to be baptized by him as a sign of their repentance.

We need always to remember that repentance is more than feeling or saying sorry. It is a 180-degree turn to walk in another direction. That is why John berated the Pharisees.

It was not good enough just to say you are sorry and to be baptized – it required a change of heart and a change of direction.

Some of course thought that John might be himself the Messiah. No, was his reply, I am the one who prepares the way, to clear out the path. I baptize with water he will baptize with fire and with the Spirit.

For his forthright outspokenness, John finds himself a guest in the prison of Herod Antipas, one of the sons of the baby killing Herod at the time of Jesus’ birth.

Understandably John begins to ponder on whether he was right in pointing out Jesus as Messiah.

Many that have been tried, tested, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus have echoed John’s cry, have I made a mistake and got it all wrong. Something that continues to this day to our brothers and sisters even as we are gathered here this morning.

John sends a message to Jesus – have I got it wrong, are you the one who is to come, that is Messiah, or is there another.

Jesus’ enigmatic reply points John back to the Scriptures he knows and loves so well, Scriptures he would have read and studied and pondered from his earliest days.

It is even possible that as boys John and Jesus discussed the Scriptures together, they were after all relatives.

Jesus in particular points John back to Isaiah and the promises made about what Messiah would achieve and accomplish.  What account had John heard about Jesus, healings of the blind and the lame, the poor hearing the good news that they were blessed of God.

Jesus then went on to praise John as being the last and the greatest of all prophets heralding the age to come. John was the final one who opened the door whilst others had paved the way. 

However in the mysterious economy of God the age to come, the arrival of God’s Kingdom with Jesus as King over all the earth, has a now and a not yet.

I heard this helpfully explained by using the picture of the D Day landing. As the Allied Forces gained a beachhead, it was the beginning of the end and yet there was still a job of work to be done. 

This what James is picking up in his letter and the passage we heard? We wait as a patient farmer waits for his crop to appear. Remembering of course that the farmer while he waits is not just hanging around doing nothing much of anything. He is busy tending and nurturing the soil in which he has sown the seeds. He will be watching the weather and a number of other things to ensure there is a good harvest.

This is the now and not yet of God’s sovereign reign upon earth, herlading the time that the Book of Revelation talks about when heaven and earth are at last united, when sorry and sighing are no more, when death is ultimately defeated.  A time when everyone will be raised from death and judged, in particular those who have been in position of leadership and authority.

Our task as God’s people is to emulate the work of John the Baptist, although you do not need to eat bugs and wear camel clothes.  

We are heralds of the coming King and the Kingdom. Not just by way of remembering his coming as a baby but remembering why God came wrapped in human form.

The Child in the Crib became the Christ on the Cross and we would do well if all our Nativity scenes had the shadow of the cross falling over them.

People generally like babies and they are okay with baby Jesus, meek and mild and not crying at all, perfect in every aspect.  They may even have a model of baby Jesus in their homes and certainly he will appear in this way in most churches.

 

Then comes the New Year, away it all goes without too much thought about what Jesus did when he grew up.

Christmass is a time for families we say – and to celebrate family life is important. 

Yet this baby Jesus grown up to manhood said, ‘unless you hate your mother and father and your brother and sister you cannot be my disciple.’

What ever happened to baby Jesus as he grew up to make him say such outrageous things?

Jesus came and ushered in God’s Kingdom and offered a different way of ordering our affairs.

The old way was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That way however as someone once said, we would all end up toothless and blind.

Jesus asks us to take the more difficult path of turning the other cheek.

Jesus was able to respond to John’s question by pointing out the fruit of his ministry, the deaf hearing, lame walking and the blind seeing.  

Back to our farmer again...

Question – did you sow spring barley in this field? 

Answer - yes, you can see the spring barley growing.

Question – are the people of God at St Anne’s Brown Edge living out the Gospel and demonstrating that God’s Kingdom has come upon earth and that his will is being done in Brown Edge as in heaven?

Answer?

The first of January in 2017 in on Sunday.

Can I challenge as part of your Act of Worship that morning to make a collective New Year’s Resolution?

What that might be is up for you to decide.

However having spent some time with you in the past year here is my suggestion based around Prayer and Scripture.

I know that you have an Ecumenical Prayer Group that meets regularly. Could you add to this and resolve to become people of prayer? Will you dedicate time to prayer, mornings of prayer, days of prayer, 24 hours of prayer and prayer walking around Brown Edge? Praying like the persistent widow not because God is deaf to your cries but that he may know the earnestness of your heart.

Again, I know you have a Coffee Morning where the Scriptures are discussed, but could you widen and deepen this to involve everyone. In particular during  this Liturgical Year A to get copies of Tom Wright’s ‘Matthew for Everyone’ by way of a common study guide. Will you be a people of God who study, reflect and ponder on the Scriptures, both individually and corporately that you may find what it is God is asking of you at this time as the People of God in Brown Edge?  

Alternatively, you could simply resolve to do nothing, to make no changes, to keep things as they always have been, perhaps as you like them.

However, let me say this, that farmers know that if they keep trying to do the same thing and putting in the same crops into the same field the harvest is going to gradually wither away. That is why what is happening at St Anne’s School on Sunday afternoons with ‘Christmass Unwrapped’ is so very important, endeavouring under God to grow a new and different harvest.

Joshua put this choice before the Israelites;

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."   

If you, as the People of God in Brown Edge chose to serve the Lord and resolve to know God better and to make God better known then I will pledge my whole hearted support to you and offer ever assistance as I am able.

The choice is yours.

Let us pray…

O Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lays the secret of all life, and the hope of all people, we pray for quiet courage to match this hour. We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age; but let its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, it possibilities inspire us, and its vigour renew us. Pour out upon us a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit; make us bold and courageous in sharing faith in both word and deed for your Kingdom’s sake we ask. Amen