Readings: Isaiah 11.1-10; Romans 15.4-11; Matthew 3.1-12
Advent: season of high expectancy of all that is to come:
the fulfilment of God’s promises
offered to us in the beautiful cadences of Isaiah
which create new vision for the world, a vision filled with hope.
We are on our way to the crib, and our young people are downstairs creating Christingles, symbol of God’s journey into our world.
Through Advent week by week
we are presented with extraordinary new images
– images which have become part of our cultural heritage:
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
And last Sunday the image of spear beaten into ploughshare.
Images of peace and abundance. More again next Sunday ….
But first this morning, as we reflect
on God’s story with his people revealed through the prophets,
Isaiah speaks of a promised king!
A new shoot from the line of Jesse, the root of Jesse,
a new shoot in the line of Israel’s most revered king, David, son of Jesse.
Promise of a new and very different kind of king
upon whom the spirit of the Lord shall rest,
a spirit of wisdom and understanding.
He shall delight in God, and be righteous in all his judgements.
His glory shall be sign to the nations, to come, share, in this abundance!
Prophecy, picked up by Paul in his letter to the Romans
as he pleads for unity within the emerging Christian community,
unity of Jew with Gentile.
For this promised root of Jesse, shall rule the nations of the world,
and righteousness shall be the belt around his waist.
‘Righteousness’ is the traditional translation of the Hebrew word, ‘tzedek’, and its Greek equivalent in the Septuagint version
of the Hebrew scriptures.
Translation which carries strong connotation
of personal moral worthiness.
But translation of this word is complex,
and ‘righteousness’ not the only possible choice of translation.
A word which, though not in our passage from Romans, a word
Paul uses in his letter to the Romans no less than twenty-eight times.
This word could also be translated ‘justice’, a translation which renders
the meaning and import of Isaiah – and Paul – rather differently.
Important as the personal challenge surely is,
the scope of Scripture is wider, much wider.
It is the promise is of justice in society that this king brings,
distributive justice, restorative justice. Something far wider
than the justice which references punishment for individual sin.
We are called to a journey through this season of Advent
where we examine our lives, examine them with hope for our futures.
Examine them that we might open our lives to transformation.
Our king indeed comes bringing the offer of personal transformation,
and, the call to transformation of society.
This year we have perhaps one of the most extraordinary
Advent seasons of our lifetimes.
We are called to engage not just with deep spiritual reflection,
we must also engage with deep thought
as to who to vote for in a General Election
– which will happen before we meet again next Sunday.
Last weekend we witnessed the tragic killing
of two remarkable young people at Fishmonger’s Hall.
And it behoves us to resist the pointing of the finger
at one individual alone.
Behoves us to practice as those two young people were practicing,
the teachings of Christ.
We need reflect on the justice of our organisation of our society.
Reflect on the violence which demonstrates our failures
as a wealthy liberal democracy.
Heed the repeated cry of the prophets
warning us what happens when we ignore God’s repeated call
to build the Kingdom of God on earth.
The prophets of the Bible were the politicians of their day.
Monarch and an elite royal court held power in all major decision-making. From these hierarchical structures God raised up men – and a few women,
who stood outside the established order, the system, and critiqued it,
measured what was happening in their world
against God’s revealed order for human society: that is,
care for the flourishing of every individual.
And they delivered God’s devastating warnings against failure.
For those of you who have read the whole of a book of prophecy,
the bits of Isaiah we don’t have selected in our lectionary!
you will know that prophecy
was often couched in fierce and terrifying terms:
the punishments for disobedience are dire indeed.
From our reading this morning, referencing our promised king:
‘He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.’
Far cry from the Prince of Peace
whose birth we are preparing to celebrate!
The teacher who commands us to love our enemy,
to do good for those who abuse us.
The situation is this. Within the context of their day
two and a half thousand years ago, the fierceness of the threats,
is precisely how the prophets express
the deep seriousness of God’s ethical standards! The threats resisted
contemporary notions of capricious causes for disasters:
falling foul of a god or goddess, superstition of varying sorts.
No, conquest and enslavement by a neighbouring state,
happen precisely because of the failure to keep their side of the Covenant,
the Covenant which enables abundant living.
In Hebrew culture all action was ultimately seen as emanating from God.
Today we understand this as consequences, effects have causes.
It is not that God desires to punish us.
Of course bad things do happen to good people –
as we witnessed a week ago.
Thus cutting across this theology of the prophets
come the books of Wisdom literature:
most famously, the Book of Job, but also the stories of Jonah and Ruth,
as well as Ecclesiastes, a meditation on the vanity of life.
The prophetic writings are there to challenge us with the seriousness
of our situation. As John the Baptist calls the people to repent
in no uncertain terms, for the Kingdom of God is near at hand.
This Advent we have a serious decision to make,
one which will have consequences for many years, decades to come.
Our church is a member of London Citizens, a nationwide organisation seeking to lobby institutions, industry, government,
on issues of concern to local communities.
Etched in my mind is a conversation I had with one of their young leaders a couple of years ago, as she explained to me in some detail
the dismantling of her boyfriend’s role as a probation officer,
the subtle removal of one to one care of prisoners.
And how distressed he was to find himself in this position,
responsible without power to act.
Right now we have the example of two young people
who, with choices galore before them, passionate about justice,
made choices to seek, as Jack Merritt’s father has said,
to seek the well-being of the underdog.
The well-being of those whom it seems
many in society would rather shut out of sight and forget.
Jack – and Saskia Jones who died alongside him, were seeking
to build a world where we focus on rehabilitation and not revenge.
Exactly the teaching of the man whose birth we shortly celebrate.
Let us pause, and pray, and pause again, listen to the Spirit within,
before we mark our X on Thursday in that polling booth.
Today, our focus is on the prophets
and the hope they brought to their people!
I want to finish by snitching a thought from the last Sunday of Advent
when we remember two astonishing women who were indeed prophets –
though we may not often think of them in this way!
Elizabeth – and Mary.
Elizabeth who recognised the growing baby in Mary’s womb,
Elizabeth, the first human to proclaim his coming birth!
To which Mary’s response is her extraordinary Song,
known to the Church as the Magnificat, sung week by week at Evensong.
In Mary and Elizabeth’s difficult circumstances,
here is a song full of hope, and faith in God, for our world!
I highly commend reading it! Luke 1.46-55.
Symbolised in those Christingles shortly to appear!
Amen.