Second Sunday of Advent

Lighting the Advent Candle

O God, we light the second candle of Advent.

(With the first candle already burning, the second candle is lit.)

We seek your comfort. Both mighty and tender, you come to us. Prepare our hearts to be transformed by you. We have sought just such a God, both mighty and tender, and we recall those who sought that might and tenderness of God. Isaiah announced God’s coming to a people exiled in a broken and parched wilderness. He declared that God’s redemption would make a highway in the desert and change the rough places into a plain, that God would come as a shepherd—feeding, leading, and cradling the weary flock. This Advent, we seek such a God.

Let us pray: Saving God, look upon your world and heal your land and your people. Prepare us to be changed. This Advent, teach us to be tender and just, as you are. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Shine on us, O God of justice;

Guide our path through gloom of night;

Bear within us Wisdom’s glory;

Come to us, O Christ the Light.

Collect

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility; that on the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Almighty God, as your kingdom dawns, turn us from the darkness of sin to the light of holiness, that we may be ready to meet you in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Post Communion

O Lord our God, make us watchful and keep us faithful as we await the coming of your Son our Lord; that, when he shall appear, he may not find us sleeping in sin but active in his service and joyful in his praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Readings

Old Testament – Isaiah 40.1–11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Psalm 85.1–2, 8–13

1    Lord, you were gracious to your land;
♦you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

2    You forgave the offence of your people ♦
and covered all their sins.

8    I will listen to what the Lord God will say, ♦
for he shall speak peace to his people and to the faithful, that they turn not again to folly.

9    Truly, his salvation is near to those who fear him, ♦
that his glory may dwell in our land.

10    Mercy and truth are met together, ♦
righteousness and peace have kissed each other;

11    Truth shall spring up from the earth ♦
and righteousness look down from heaven.

12    The Lord will indeed give all that is good, ♦
and our land will yield its increase.

13    Righteousness shall go before him
and direct his steps in the way.

Epistle – 2 Peter 3.8–15a

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him,

Gospel – Mark 1.1–8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,


    ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

Sermon on Second Sunday of Advent

John the Baptist is our focus today. What does he mean to you? –– I have always been attracted to the Baptiser. Someone once tried to give me my star sign without my birthday. She placed me in December, but I was born in June. This little memory gave me an insight into John’s relationship with Jesus. They are opposites but the same.

John and Jesus are cousins, and they are two sides of the same coin, the prophetic coin which the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church promises to donate to the world. The coin is one of truth spoken in love.

John is the precursor for Jesus, the one who is to come and whose sandal John confesses he is unworthy to touch. The one to come is more powerful than the Baptiser. John is able to make the water an instrument of confession and conversion. But the one to come will transform by the Holy Spirit.

John is also so very different to Jesus, for Jesus enjoyed feasting with everyone who invited him in and who came to him. John fasted in the wilderness. He was like a reed shaking in the wind. His feast was locusts and wild honey, he did not produce wine for the enjoyment of a wedding feast. His clothing was camel hair, not the rich clothing of the Pharisees and sinners or the wedding guests. – We all know that Jesus was surrounded by those tax collectors and harlots – those sinners – and we can’t imagine they were in the habit of dressing down, but would rather wear silk and soft wool, can we?!

But what about that prophetic coin they passed on? John and Jesus spend a new currency. It is a way of being in the world FOR those around them, it is the way of conversion to a life dedicated to God, a life of loving one another. They eschewed the trappings of pagan concupiscence: they were ascetic monks almost. On the one hand John lives in the desert and on the other Jesus has no place to call his home. Both live the life of an itinerant preacher – a life which the Jew of their time would have rejected. It was akin to being a shepherd, and we all know their reputation at that time and even now, don’t we?

No one liked the lives shepherds lead. They reject anyone of no fixed abode, and our law continues to follow that line of thinking. – We need only think about how we must identify ourselves for some legal formality, “Bring along your latest utility bill, or a letter from some government agency.” Those shepherds John and Jesus can not fulfill such a requirement, can they? We must ask, “Just what determines who people are?”

Jesus and John are not defined by anything as mundane as a mailing address. They just presented themselves to those around them. Their abode was the company of God and those they loved, either in the temple or out in the wilderness. Don’t we ourselves say we can worship God on a walk in the countryside as well as in this church? We understand this roaming aspect of Jesus and John quite well, don’t we?

Perhaps our churches are empty because we don’t marry together these two aspects of worship. Everyone either worships outside or inside the church, rather than worshipping wherever we are. Worship seems to be an “either–or” rather than “both–and”. I think we should be the first to sing psalms and hymns as we walk in the countryside, just as we do when we sit in these magnificent ecclesiastical buildings. It is a shame that processions don’t figure high on our religious exercise regime. If they did, we might be able to encourage the joining of these two quite different congregations, those who worship here in church and those who need to be unconfined outside. However, to do that we need to encourage a more muscular christianity, one that strengthens legs and arms as well as the spirit. If so, we might realise that prayer is an everyday pursuit. As Jesus and John preached in the world, so should we. As well as coming to church, we should enjoy walks in company with the itinerant, and so our conversation could encompass important matters, not just anodyne comments about the weather. If we were confident in the highways and byways to speak our own hearts and minds, then we might be able to come inside to enjoy that freedom  as well.

John and Jesus were easy in any company, in any place, to speak their minds. They were charismatic, itinerant preachers. Are any today able to feel good in anyone’s company, to settle themselves and speak of matters significant to their world? Jesus and John were lively conversationalists, talking about the world in which they lived and moved and had their being, it was just the sort of dialogue everyone likes to have with strangers and friends. Such conversation just clarifies one’s own thoughts about everything.

That is the coin in which we trade – truth and love with no boundary. Whether in this building or out on the highways and byways, we too can enjoy such a freedom of expression – we can talk about working for world peace or taking a moral stance. All our conversations with others should be open and need not be questionable in any way, unless of course speaking the truth with love undermines world order.

The coin of which Jesus and John are the two sides is the reality of everyday life, a coin whose value has been debased by the corruption of false concerns. Jesus and John remind us of what our ultimate concern truly is, when we remember our ownmost possibility – to be people whose dwelling is with God just as Jesus and John were in their time. Let us keep those memories lively when we actively recount their stories with one another, when we attempt to capture with our own lives the reality of dwelling with God, when we remember that God is with us. This is our ownmost possibility – salvation.

Jesus and John lived out that reality. Whether we are rich and come feasting  like Jesus, or whether we have nothing and stand like reeds in the desert shaken by the wind, we can enjoy life with one another by speaking about the important things in life, speaking about truth and love.

So let us spend this two-faced coin freely, with joy let it fall from our hands into the palms of those around us. It is a good investment – everyone will benefit with this coin of  truth, everyone will be blessed by love. The good of salvation can only be purchased with this prophetic coin. I have to say that everyone will find their ownmost possibility when they give away this coin of truth with love freely, at any time and in any place.

Amen

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