Collect
O Lord Jesus Christ, who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you: grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight; for you are alive and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
God for whom we watch and wait, you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son: give us courage to speak the truth, to hunger for justice, and to suffer for the cause of right, with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts; kindle in us the fire of your Spirit that when your Christ comes again we may shine as lights before his face; who is alive and reigns now and for ever.
Readings
Old Testament
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you.’
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Isaiah 35.1–10
Psalm
4 Happy are those who have the God of Jacob for their help, ♦
whose hope is in the Lord their God;
5 Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them ♦
who keeps his promise for ever;
6 Who gives justice to those that suffer wrong ♦
and bread to those who hunger.
7 The Lord looses those that are bound; ♦
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
8 The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; ♦
the Lord loves the righteous;
9 The Lord watches over the stranger in the land; he upholds the orphan and widow; ♦
but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
10 The Lord shall reign for ever, ♦
your God, O Zion, throughout all generations.
Alleluia.
Psalm 146.4–10
Epistle
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.9Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
James 5.7–10
Gospel
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.”
Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Matthew 11.2–11
Sermon on Third Sunday of Advent
Last week we considered the prophets in the form of Jesus and John particularly. We are reminded of all the prophets again in today’s reading from James, “As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” This week, however, our focus is John the Baptist alone. He is the forerunner, the prophet preparing the way, who was unworthy even to carry Jesus’ sandals.
Today we hear about the disciples of John and Jesus and how they moved between the two. I think they are of equal weight when we look at these two as prophets, though after our eyes are opened by our faith, we know that relationship is much more than equals. Jesus tells us so, doesn’t he? He asks John to acknowledge the miracles that are happening all around them both, the most significant that “the poor have good news brought to them”. What could be a greater miracle than that?
What is the good news which is the sum of all the miracles being done in God’s name? What is that good news at which no one can possibly take offence? You know what it is – I know what it is. Each of us knows what that good news is for each of us ourselves individually. Perhaps we gather together as we do here in this building to share it. However, it doesn’t matter why, but the good news is always the ground of our happiness. Nothing is more important than that good news on which we found our lives. That good news is the meaning of our lives, the wherein we live and move and have our being.
I have been reading some philosophy again and it has been about this notion of meaning as the ground of being. The whole of our lives stands on that ground, a ground that we clear day by day so we may see afresh. We continually try to keep everything in order because of all the significances discovered new and old. This ground gives us meaning and yet we find that meaning at the same time. These philosophers I have been reading write about their never-ending work – they forever try to make meaning clear for all to see.
This is the prophets’ job as well. God’s message – that good news – must always be made clear in every generation, in every community, in each and every heart. In other words, I think we have to say we are all prophets – and we all have been given that life’s work, to declare the good news, to share the fact that we can all participate in such joy. John and Jesus did this, didn’t they?
But John is our focus today. He was in the wilderness. He proclaimed the message in a very bleak way, in a bleak place, a place which no one willingly wished to be. Who wants to go to the desert, to live on locusts and wild honey wrapped in camel’s hair? Don’t we consider those people rather odd? Like the people who become monks and nuns, we don’t think they are quite right in the head, do we? We might admire their dedication to their vision, but that seems to be a rather odd focus for a person’s life especially in this era when the church has been sidelined on a Sunday morning.
John was quite different from Jesus. He stood as a reed in the cluttering winds of the wilderness. John opposed the values of the everyday in a very stark way. He was the hard place on which people found themselves when the rocks of trouble came down upon them. His message was one of cold comfort, for he told of the reversal of everything, just as Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount, the poor rich, the humbled exalted, the mournful joyous. That reversal can be seen in the apocalyptic visions of the time, as they are preserved in the bible.
John is at the forefront of these forbidding messengers, for he tells of the very presence of the final Kingdom, that unknown country to which we have been invited. He even threatens the status quo, doesn’t he? That was why he was killed, and his head served up on a salver. This is a prophet’s lot – for his message to go unheeded by the people who should know better.
If this was the way John ended up, what would happen to the one who was coming, whose sandal he would not even attempt to untie? When this long-expected saviour came, what would they do to him?
Even today we are expecting salvation, either from God or the government, what will we do to that agent when he appears with that same harsh message, “The kingdom of God is nearer than you think, repent and become worthy of it.” What do we do to those who repeat those words? We can’t do any worse than what happened to Jesus. We could even repeat the crime against John. In any case, I think that most would mock the prophet who proclaimed such a worthy message. We would pay no attention, just as they did at the turn of the eras, the centre of time. Whether a reed in the wind or someone feasting with friends and strangers, we don’t give any credence to what is being proclaimed in the name of the Lord, in the name of God, then or in our time. Instead we ignore at best and mock at the very least.
Is this what we should do when we acknowledge that the message of a change of heart is being proclaimed right in front of us? Should we mock the messenger of repentance? Should we eliminate that inconvenient truth from our convenient everyday lives? Do the prophets just fade away just as the prophets of old disappeared? The truth pursues us as we run away, just as our conscience nags when we try to turn away from it to hide in the crowd.
John, like all the prophets, stands tall in our minds, a reminder of all the virtues from which we stray. In other words, we are sinners, because we have missed the mark of virtue in our lives. The world in which we find ourselves is a wilderness. We must make our mark in the desert, and we all know that that mark is indelible, if it is virtuous. Sinners and criminals may find themselves feted by the crowd, but eventually they will be toppled because they will be seen for what they are. In our final moments, as we hide away from each other and ourselves, we will discover what we really are. In that apocalyptic time, we will repent of our inhumanity, of our wasted lives.
Our hope is that every moment of life will be lived against that virtuous background of the Kingdom of God. Our hope is that we will hear the message of John preaching in the wilderness of our own lives. Won’t we pray to have ears to hear and eyes to see the sacred as it stands against the profanity of the world?! I hope so every day, just as you do.
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