Readings:Malachi 3.1-4;Philippians 1.3-11;Luke 3.1-6
What will be the decision by the end of this coming Tuesday? Do we have a view? Either way, defeating the Prime Minister’s deal is a big gamble! The enormous shock to our economy for many years to come if we leave the European Union without any deal – or, we are told, riots on the street if we don’t in the end leave at all! We are living in days of huge uncertainty!
Each year for the Christian, as we journey through Advent we learn how to live through days of uncertainty as we await and prepare, not just for the coming of the baby in the manger, as we remember also, and prepare for the fulfilment of the promise that Jesus will come again – come again to judge the earth.Come again to transform the earth. At a time and in a fashion known only to God.
By the time of Jesus’ birth, for several centuries Jewish belief in an apocalyptic end time to the contemporary structures of empire and society, had been the currency which explained God’s seeming lack of action in a world full of injustice. Here the ‘righteous’ would find their reward in the new creation, a transformed earth. The wicked would be punished. Hold firm to your trust in God!
Jesus himself makes some reference to such dramatic events happening within the lifetime of his followers. The apostle Paul was certainly expecting the Day of the Lord to happen soon, within his lifetime!And advised the young of his day accordingly! If you’re wondering what that advice was, you’ll find it in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church! Down the centuries this imagery has given the Church a powerful tool for controlling its congregations – as seen in the ‘Doom’ paintings on church walls, Notably, in the Sistine Chapel!
How today, in our turbulent world, two thousand years on from Jesus’ crucifixion and the birth of the Church, how does this thinking support us? What is it that we learn through this season of waiting?
First, in contrast to Lent, as we journey through the penitential season of Advent, we are not alone. We are specifically joined each week by particular groups of people and individuals, there to support us. Last Sunday we were joined by the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Old Testament! We remember that they – and we – are chosen by God! We remember God’s faithfulness to them – and to us! Today we are joined by the prophets, who perhaps surprisingly in year C’s lectionary readings, are represented by John the Baptist! A figure we don’t normally associate with the prophets of the Old Testament! Malachi, last of those prophets, addresses the lacklustre exiles returned to Jerusalem.And in particular, corruption in the very Temple. The Day of the Lord is coming – and he comes with refining fire! But first, the Lord will send a messenger to prepare the way. Please note in Malachi, the people will be transformed, not destroyed.
Around three hundred years later, the Jews and Jerusalem are once more struggling to flourish – at least that is, the majority poor. A brief period of independence – but without just rule from the Hasmoneon monarchy, has given way once more to exploitative occupation. The lifestyle of the Greeks and then the Romans is attractive to the wealthy and powerful – including the religious elite, and again corruption is endemic.In response, a group of priests from the Temple have separated themselves from this ‘pollution’ of their religion, forming male monastic communities, dedicated to deep study of Torah. They lived a life of poverty.Following rigorous purity laws, they engaged in baptism and daily bathing – and ate no meat. All in preparation for the cosmic battle between good and evil, bringing to an end the current evil age, and the inauguration of a new golden age by the Teacher of Righteousness.The Essenes, their ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ famously found at Qumran in the Fifties, the Essenes believed themselves to be indeed, ‘preparing the way of the Lord’.
They also raised and educated the sons of priests. Thus it is entirely feasible to wonder, was John, son of the elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth, was he such a boy? Around the year 28 – Luke goes to great pains to establish this date – John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, out in the wilderness, is proclaiming the word of God.Drawing the crowds, this enigmatic man, his clothes made of camel hair, and eating only locusts and honey, is preaching a baptism for repentance on the banks of the river Jordan.
We have no historic record of where John came from before his appearance in the desert. As we study the gospels we can read between the lines that Jesus was himself for a time, a follower of the Baptist, as were Andrew and Simon Peter – in the gospel of John it is here on the banks of the Jordan, that Jesus first meets them. Mark and Matthew tell us that it was only after John’s arrest that Jesus returned to Galilee. And only then that Jesus began his own ministry.
As we read Scripture it is important to understand that prophecy was much more about challenging God’s righteousness, changing the mindset, transforming current social structures and practices, than predicting the future. In their proclamations, the prophets made widespread use of symbolic action, metaphor and story. Our obsession with reading objective facts into the text is a post-Enlightenment phenomenon of the modern mind! Not how those who first wrote down the text understood what they recorded.Nor how the text was later used. Deep spiritual truth was to be found within Scripture as the hearer, entering the story, experienced their own light bulb moment! And the story remained open to new interpretations – as the apostle Paul was so wont to do with stories of the Hebrew Bible. If John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, has been educated by the Essenes, in his own spiritual journey he has moved beyond their thinking – as his own disciple Jesus, in his relationship with God would move beyond John’s thinking.
The priestly Essenes in their horror at what was happening in the life of the Temple, kept a strict lifelong separation from all they considered impure. John went out to call the people back to God – but not by calling for separation. John welcomed everyone. Roman soldier and tax collector included. And sent them back home, passionately – ferociously, challenging change in perspective and lifestyle. God has not abandoned the wicked. Nor is God unconcerned for the foreigner! The last words of John’s message in our gospel this morning: ‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’.
Jesus different again, not only welcomed sinners and outcasts, he went to them, sat and ate at their tables.Which in his society, was public declaration of his friendship with them! For this the religious authorities questioned his recognition as a holy man!
We learn from the prophets and from the Baptist, the importance of deep listening for God’s word to us – as we study our Scriptures, rest in stillness before God. Discover in our own living the depth of God’s unconditional love for us and for all people, all creation.
A love in which we will discover freedom and joy if we trust in God’s purposes for our lives, as we wait on the Spirit’s guidance in each circumstance. Respond always with loving kindness.
If our certainty rests in trusting the love of God for us, we can live peacefully, joyfully, with uncertainty. As Philipp Nicolai, writer of the carol, Sleepers Awake, and about whom we heard last week, living in the midst of pestilence, death and destruction – with hope and joy! As I also think may be the source of Theresa May’s astonishing resilience right now in the face of such fierce opposition to her plans – vicar’s daughter that she is!
Let us pray fiercely – and lovingly – for our politicians as they grapple with the difficult decision making before our country! And for ourselves that we might trust ever more profoundly in the love of God for us. Amen.