It's time to get ready
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
It's time to get ready Advent 2
5 December 2010 The Revd Jenny Wilkens
- Isaiah 11:1-10
- Romans 15:4-13
- Matthew 3:1-12
http://cathedral.wellington.net.nz/index.php/Sermons
One thing we find working here at the Cathedral is that we get very used to the sirens going up and down Molesworth St – quite often a fire engine, occasionally an ambulance, and every so often a police car going at high speed on the way to sort something out on the motorway!
But I think we would still stop work and look up if we saw a police motorcade sweeping up Hill St (An image from Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, London: SPCK, 2002). First the police cars with flashing blue lights…people scurrying to get out of the way. Then people realise what’s happening - now perhaps we’d better not say it’s the Prime Minister’s motorcade! - let’s say the royal family have not been here for a long time, and now a representative has come at last. Two large black cars appear filled with bodyguards and officials. Then the car with the royal ensign, containing Prince William and his new bride. By this time everyone is standing still, watching, wanting at least to get a glimpse….
Now let’s shift that scene back 2000 years, and transfer it into the hot dusty desert. The king has been away a long time and word goes round that he’s coming back at last. But how? For there isn’t even a road to drive on. Well we’d better get one ready then, even in the desert.
So off goes the herald shouting to the people, the king is coming! Make a road for him! Make it good and straight! That message about a king coming from God had echoed through the life of the people of Israel for hundreds of years by the time of John the Baptist, ever since it was first uttered in Isaiah 40. It was part of the great message of hope, forgiveness, and healing for the nation after the horrors of exile in Babylon. God would at last come back to his people, bringing comfort and rescue.
Yes, John the Baptist is saying, that’s what’s happening now. It’s time to get ready! The king, God himself, is coming back! Get ready for God’s kingdom! And John’s striking message made everyone sit up and take notice, they saw the blue flashing lights if you like and stopped whatever else they were doing to get ready.
But the trouble was they weren’t ready, not by a long shot. It’s like you think your house is pretty tidy, but if you suddenly got word that the royals are coming to visit, or even the in-laws, you may want to get out the Spray n Wipe!
The Jewish people, even the devout ones who worshipped regularly in the temple, knew in their hearts that they weren’t ready for God to come back. The prophets had said that God would come back when the people repented, turning to God with all their hearts. That was what John summoned them to do and they came in droves.
They came for baptism and John was plunging them in the water of the river Jordan as they confessed their sins. But it wasn’t just a personal individual cleansing, it was also a sign of the new thing God was doing in the story of the people of Israel. For hundreds of years before, the people of Israel had crossed the Jordan river when they first entered into the Promised Land. Now they had to go through the river Jordan again as a sign they were getting ready for the establishment of a greater kingdom, this time God’s kingdom.
Of course John’s message wasn’t all soothing words – far from it! He spoke of a fire that would blaze, an axe that would chop down dead wood. When he sees some of the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees cashing in on the baptism experience, John doesn’t pull any punches! He says they are like snakes slithering out from a bonfire to get away from the flames.
There’s a lovely description of this in The Message translation of the Bible: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you're doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It's your life that must change, not your skin!
John says the only thing that will make me change my mind about you is if I see a real change in your behaviour – going through the motions of religious experience isn't enough – real repentance meant complete and lasting change of heart and life. That was the only way to get ready for the King.
And what were they to repent of? The Pharisees prided themselves on their holiness, their purity, but their pride and their arrogance towards others was quite out of keeping with the humility needed before the coming King.
And John attacks their confidence in their ancestry – always a bit of an uncomfortable thought for cradle Anglicans like me and I guess many of you! 'We have Abraham as our ancestor' – God made promises to Abraham, we’re his descendants, we’re bound to be all right in the end…Not so fast, warns John. God could create new descendants for Abraham from the very stones at your feet! The axe is ready to chop down the dead wood in the orchard, the only way to avoid it is to show you are a fruitful tree, that you are who you say you are.
The message of John and of Advent is that God who comes to his people in Jesus will one day reveal his kingdom and kingship in all its glory, bringing justice to the whole world. How can we get ready for that day? Where do the roads of our life need straightening out? What rubbish needs to be tidied out and burnt? What dead wood got rid of?
John the Baptist is an uncomfortable figure, isn’t he, and yet he was the one who above all pointed people to Jesus - 'behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' (John 1:29). John wasn’t just pointing out where we fall short in our life, but rather points to Jesus as the one who can deal with our failures, and gives us his Spirit to bear the fruit of righteousness in us and through us.
You might like to reflect who has been a John the Baptist figure for me in my life? Who in my life has been instrumental in me coming to faith in God, and the knowledge of God’s love for me shown in Jesus Christ? Who has pointed me to Jesus?
And then another question? Who can I be John the Baptist to? Who can I point to Jesus – saying Come and see, come and hear for yourself what this faith in Jesus is all about, who Jesus is and can be for you - your companion on the journey of faith into the new year ahead. Christmas services and special events are often a good opportunity to invite friends and neighbours along with us, to join in the celebration of the gift of God’s Son to us.
Who is God calling me to be John the Baptist to, to prepare the way of the Lord , to prepare the way for his coming into the hearts and lives of those we love and pray for and care for each day.
John the Baptist leaves us with a powerful image of Jesus at the end of our Gospel reading: "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." (Matthew 3:11, 12)
Awesome stuff, and challenging – and we need to remember that this image of Jesus as the coming judge is part of the Advent message. And yet I want to leave you with two other images – that the Jesus who is the coming judge is yet the one who has come to this earth in great humility, the one we will remember in just a few weeks' time coming to earth as a vulnerable baby.
And this Jesus too (if we read on from our Gospel reading today ) will present himself humbly before John the Baptist asking for baptism. Jesus is going to bring in God’s kingdom a different way, not with power and fire and weapons of war, but by humbly identifying himself with God’s people, sharing their penitence, living their life and ultimately by taking their place and dying their death.
Jesus will fulfil God’s plan in God’s way, and even God’s prophets don’t always understand God’s ways of working. But Jesus at his baptism knew he was on the right track when he heard God’s voice say to him “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” – and we can hear God say to us too as we follow Jesus through baptism and on the road through death to life, we can hear God say to us too “You are my son, my daughter, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Hear God’s voice today to you afresh, and let that fill your heart with hope this Advent tide.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (Romans 15:13)
