Sermon: Helping Point The Way

Date Preached: Sunday 11th December 2011

Bible Reference: John Chapter 1, verses 6-19

At last – after several weeks of foreboding, of warnings in our set readings that the coming of the Lord is not something to take lightly, or to be unprepared for (or else..!) – at long last the sense of excitement is beginning to mount. So writes Jane Williams as she reflects on today’s Advent 3 readings.

For a start there’s John the Baptist – a guy with a very interesting dress sense and food preferences – that might have equipped him pretty well for being a contestant in  ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here, but would probably excluded him from most polite church circles. (But then when has God ever tended to use those that win our  popular vote). But despite being so odd, John was someone completely comfortable in his own (camel!) skin. John knew exactly what he was here for; he knew he had a place in God’s unfolding plan; he knew his role was important – and he knew it wasn’t necessarily going to last, that it was transitory: - because someone greater than he was on the way.

When I was part of a small (but with the benefit of hindsight beautifully formed) folk band called ‘Company’ with a completely biased, undiscriminating  but loyal following in Cardiff back in the early 70s, we had the privilege of being the warm-up act for some quite well known Christian artists. High on the list were a couple of concerts on the same bill as Parchment (who wrote Colours of Day/Light up the Fire – which got into the charts, because we all bought the single) and then 2 nights running at Cardiff’s Cory Hall on the same bill as a fresh-faced blues singer from Ystrad Mynach (called Noel Richards – who’s become a famous worship leader) and a young, singer-songwriter called Graham Kendrick. We weren’t top billing, just glad to play a part in what was to come – and so excited at the prospect of understudying such well-known Christian artists (& this was way before he started composing hymns).

There is a barely suppressed excitement in John’s voice as he scans the big crowd, waiting for the face of the One that he alone will be able to recognize as the star of the show. Yet the people were having a difficult time with John being the mouthpiece for God’s purposes. Who on earth was he after all?

Well they knew his name and his parents – and had perhaps even heard the amazing stories circulating of how his birth came about. And somehow they sensed that he was more than just plain ‘John’, (We have to accept that the idea of one of the prophets of old coming back to life wasn’t so unbelievable in Jesus' day). Mind you, people must have been scratching their heads about what was actually going on. So, since there was nothing in their experience to explain what was happening, they looked to their own history.

And to really “get” today's readings – and understand where we are in the Advent process, we need to appreciate that John himself is making connections between what he’s doing and saying and the prophesies of the Isaiah who preached to the Jews in captivity in Babylon  - that one day they would be returned to their own land – to Jerusalem no less – and you can see these promises set out in our Old Testament reading (Is. 61).

So a little background is going to be helpful. The Biblical story has several major events that acted as benchmarks for the people of Israel and two of the most important were the Exodus (their release from Egyptian slavery under Moses) - and the other was the Exile – when they were forcibly removed from their own country to Babylon. So the Isaiah passage quoted by John was most likely written toward the end of this period in exile – and unlike some we’ve had recently that have been severe in their pronouncement that not everyone will be pleased to see God when he makes his entrance or thrilled by what he’s prepared for the world, these verses from Isaiah are full of joy.  The first writer of the book of Isaiah had consistently warned that if the people continued to turn their backs on following God, then being exiled in a foreign land was going to happen. So to cut a very long story short, when they continued in their rebellious ways, they were attacked and defeated and dragged off into captivity in 597 BC. After they’d been in exile a generation or more, another person picked up the prophetic mantle of Isaiah and announced that God was going to act once again to save his people and return them to Jerusalem. God's forgiveness would take Israel, yet again, from captivity to freedom. And the images and metaphors, as we saw last week, are all those of preparing for this event by building roads in readiness – which, if you remember, entailed levelling and straightening the land.

(With me so far?) Now if we fast-forward a few hundred years we find the same people - having long returned physically to their own land – but this time (and still) in a different kind of exile. This time it’s like an internal imprisonment – yes they’re in their own land geographically, but it’s under Roman occupation and we know the oppression was brutal and conditions were severe. The every-day folks, for the most part, tried to get by, day to day and walked, as best they could, that fine line between being good Jews and good citizens of a territory controlled by the Roman army – but they must’ve been fed up to the back teeth with having to do that. So the time was ripe once more for God's prophetic word – for a message of hope and of liberation. There was a palpable sense of expectation. And Jesus arrives on the scene heralded by John.

First, though, in order to prepare the way for this to happen  there was a need for another Isaiah, a prophet, someone to prepare the way – John - this wild-man from the Judean back country who preached to and baptized those who confessed their sin and wanted to lead a new life. (NOW - ever the academic – there’s a need to insert a footnote here. Normally, the rite of baptism was reserved for Gentiles, non-Jews who wanted to convert to Judaism, but John, it seems, offered it to his own people – isn’t that interesting? – a gospel that needed to be embraced by insiders – those who were already seemingly part of the religious set-up? Perhaps it’s a bit like some churchgoers today whose religion hasn’t yet touched and changed anything inside them yet – and whose behaviour, if we’re honest, is pretty much indistinguishable from the world around them.).

The keynote of Christian life is that bubbling sense of excitement that we find in Isaiah and John: the welling up of joy at having seen what happens when God is in the world and we see his work unfolding – and when we begin to get some sense of what he’s like.

When I think of excitement I often think of Sue (Howells) who finally got to see Donny Osmond in the flesh at Las Vegas after seemingly missing the chance because he had to cancel a concert – but then finally (she’ll relish recounting the story) got to meet him – and all was (exceedingly) well. So, here we are, getting ready to celebrate Christmas, the coming of Christ the King – and isn’t it great amidst all the stuff and nonsense that there are those who want to tell and  hear the familiar story of God's love for us in the baby King of Bethlehem. We want to hear tales of shepherds and strange eastern visitors - and know that the message of ‘peace on earth and good will to all' still applies to us, 2000 years later.

Have you ever gone on a trip and had a child in the car whining, over and over, "Are we there yet?" and having to answer repeatedly "No!" all the while wishing that you were – but unable to explain that it takes a certain amount of time to drive from point A to point B - and that doing so any faster would either be illegal, very dangerous, or impossible. So you get the children to play stupid games. When we were kids my brother Rich could make a barley sugar last literally for days – I always used to swallow mine – and then cry! – ‘have never liked them since !!.

We’re almost three weeks in and the excitement is mounting. Our Advent journey is designed to take the time it does because we need to prepare for the birth of the baby of Bethlehem. Like the human biological process that takes 9 months from conception in a so called ‘normal' pregnancy and despite a mother's wish to hold the baby in her arms sooner (and get rid of the horrific discomfort, I’ve heard it said). Unless there are medical reasons for doing otherwise, the process cannot be rushed.

So we have much to do to prepare for the birth of Jesus; and I'm not talking about presents and food and family visiting arrangements (decisions about who gets us this year – ah the politics…!) At Christmas it's not just a baby's arrival we celebrate, but the breaking-in of God’s little King into the human realm. It’s a birth that has the power to transform our lives, if we let it, and if we are prepared.

This 3^rd bright Sunday in Advent once again calls us to take a look at our own lives, to examine our own priorities. It calls us to rebuild the road of vital Christian faith, a road that may have become a bit shabby over the years with lack of use, or even with the heavy traffic of faithful church attendance without paying due attention to how this needs to have an impact on the way we live the rest of the week.

We are on a holy journey together. It might feel as if we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. I’ll say it again, please let’s slow down in our frenetic, preparations for the tinsel and presents and food and all of that, and prepare to be changed this Christmas. It could be the best ever if we enter more fully into a personal relationship with the King. Emmanuel- God with us – here in Waunarlwydd. 

We can be changed by this arrival, but we need to be prepared, to be ready, to lay down a good road, a way through the wilderness of our self-absorbed schedules and plans – so – please, let's not rush things, but instead, slow down a little as we prepare for this holy event.