Advent 2 Year B John the Baptist 2017
Isaiah 40.1-11; 2 Peter 3.8-15a; Mark 1.1-8
“Comfort, comfort ye my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” Isaiah 40.1-2
The powerful beautiful cadences of Isaiah which do indeed herald for us the coming of Christmas;
call us to turn our hearts towards the advent of a new birth, new possibility, new beginnings – Gentle loving words from God to his people. A people in exile, removed from the land God has promised and delivered to them following exodus from Egypt. Words of comfort to a people who have been, not only utterly removed from their previous life, a people who have been left with lacerating questions: Has our God now abandoned us? Does our God still have power to act in this foreign land of Babylon?
As so often when we find ourselves caught in the fire of life’s fierce terrors, the people of Israel here discovered profound new truths about the God they worshipped. Truths so elegantly elucidated by this prophet of the exile! The first declaration that the God of Israel is not simply their god, more powerful than any other god: this God is the only God, God of all the earth .God whose nature and purposes are revealed to them, the people this one God has called to be light to the world! And God has certainly not abandoned them.This one God is coming to their rescue – the rescue of all peoples!
But of course Isaiah’s prophecy is not all simply comfort and hope. Another voice breaks in posing some pretty stiff questions! The flower is beautiful – but it will not last for ever, not even for long. Is not this what human beings are like? Brilliant, dazzling – in the moment, but the glory quickly fading – We, human beings, find it so hard to be faithful to our promises ….
Yet the word of promise goes forth for God remains utterly faithful in his commitment to us.Immediately the command goes out to the messenger of glad tidings: Get up the high mountain! Raise your voice to proclaim salvation! Comfort returns. The comfort of strong arms – gentle and kind as that of a mother.
Mark in his gospel directly applies this call to the messenger as speaking of John the Baptizer. Yet the baptist and his message feel a long way removed from Isaiah’s understanding and loving God!John is in the wilderness, the desert, the craggy broken landscape around the Jordan not far from Jerusalem, preparing the way for the coming Messiah. But an easy road, the rough places ironed out, the arduous climb levelled? Not for those who came out to hear John’s challenging words, and certainly not for the Messiah he heralds. Be this as it may, John became a powerful prophet.Multitudes from all strata of society made the time and the effort, came to hear his fierce call to repentance – and responded! Even the ruler of Galilee, Herod, son of Herod the Great, is fascinated by John, deeply regretting his rash promise to Salome which led to the beheading of the prophet.
Even more astonishing, decades after his beheading, reading between the lines in the gospels and the Book of Acts, the movement John had begun was still going strong, very strong, rivalling even, the Jesus movement.
So who is this Baptist whom we particularly remember and celebrate in Advent, look to as companion on our journey? Luke tells us he is cousin to Jesus, born of a miraculous conception as Jesus own; his mother and Jesus’ mother, though widely differing in age, close friends. Quite probably, Jesus was himself at one time, a disciple of John the Baptist. He declares that no man, no prophet, was ever greater than John. It is from John that Jesus has found much of his understanding about God’s call on his own life. How then did it happen, that Jesus, a beloved disciple, leaves John to start a movement of his own, and John indeed, sending Peter and Andrew to follow Jesus, follow a new master – and, a new teaching?
How confusing it must have been for John’s disciples at the time: Who should they follow? What was this new message all about? For Jesus was definitely not, the austere figure John was. Certainly he went up the mountain to pray, but he enjoyed life too, too much some said! It’s hard for us now with the story neatly laid out at Jesus’ baptism, its meaning carefully explained by the gospel writers, to appreciate the disturbance that the emergence of Jesus, as powerful new leader with a somewhat different message, must have created. Just who should these people hungry for truth, follow?
The liberal who disregarded the purity rules and regulations to touch and heal the unclean? Befriend the outcast. Who declared the Sabbath as gift for humankind, rather than a given to bind men and women into conformity? Or should they follow the fiery preacher calling for strict observance of the Law ?
Jesus begins his ministry when John is imprisoned by Herod .From his prison cell, John sends his disciples to find out just who this man is, this man taking the people by storm, as he travels the hills and lowlands of Galilee; as he makes contentious name for himself in Jerusalem? Can this really be his cousin Jesus?
Life is rarely simple or straightforward. We all know what it is to be disappointed, bewildered, to struggle with our circumstances. To struggle with faith: where is God in all this? I’m not sure I can really believe that! How can I possibly make this decision? Choosing either way could be success or disaster – How do I know what I should do? Letting go of what has been is so difficult.
This is what life is like. Jesus struggled too, with understanding God’s call, God’s mission for him.Struggled alone in that Judean desert following his baptism. How hard it must have been to break free from the Teacher he himself had followed, revered, learnt so much from: was he right – or was it all just a big ego-trip having discovered the pull he himself had on the people?
We know the end of the story: that Jesus was certainly not, simply self-seeking – intense temptation though that was. His willingness to die for us – his prayer for forgiveness for those who tortured him to death, shows us categorically, a different way of thinking and being. The Way of salvation.
This morning we are offered comfort and challenge. Both. We need both. And the example of John’s maturity as a person, his openness to hearing the call of God, his willingness to believe and follow that call, to forgo the comforts of life. Neither clinging to past success, his willingness to embrace the risks of a new future for his people.
When Jesus declared John the greatest prophet that has ever been, he went on to say that ‘the least in the Kingdom of God’ is greater than John! That is: We are now to be God’s prophets to our own world. How we live makes a difference – a big difference to everyone around us. To the world we live in. The prophets in our midst have forwarded some amazing new projects this year. Thank you.
Advent is also that time when we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Yet a doctrine even Jesus himself declared to be surrounded in mystery. This year an unlikely figure has stepped up as new prophet.
The Church has always needed its prophets calling it forward to new and deeper understanding of the gospel of Christ – and away from rigidity or fancy. Nevertheless, President Trump has this last week declared Jerusalem as capital of Israel – despite considerable advice from many quarters not to do so. Zionists in Israel rejoice – and Palestinians die.
However, Trump is not renowned as a lover of the Jewish people. In fact often the reverse has seemed the case. Why has he done this?
Well of course he is a past master at the art of distraction. But there is another more immediate – and rather sad reason: to please evangelicals and pull in the Christian vote for Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate election on Tuesday. You see these Christians in the deep South believe a literal – though of course fanciful, interpretation of the Book of Revelation. That is: today history is indeed, marching close to the Second Coming of Christ which will be accomplished when Jerusalem is once more Israel’s capital. At that point the Jews will convert to Christianity and Jesus will return from heaven to eradicate evil from the earth. So much for Trump as friend of the Jews! So much for Jesus’ warning that only his Father God knows the timing of his return. It is not ours to know or to speculate. It is ours to share his gospel of justice, mercy and love. Amen.