Advent 2
Malachi 3.1–4; Luke 1.68–79; Philippians 1.3–11;
Luke 3.1–6
The second week of Advent is now beginning; this time given to us by the church to be prayerful and alert for the coming of Christ in direct contrast with the consumerism and frantic business of the world around us. This is a time for making a fresh start with God. Each year in Advent we turn our attention to this curious character, John the Baptist. John was oddly dressed. Imagine someone coming out of the wilderness without ever having had a haircut or a shower or a shave and dressed in camel hair. He would have been an extraordinary sight indeed. John, we learn, lived in the desert. He was a Nazarite who like Sampson in the book of Judges, never cut his hair or shaved, and would have lived on a strict diet. He caught people off balance by his message, which was a proclamation of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
The reason he caught people off guard was precisely because he proclaimed a message of repentance. The people of Israel in the time of Christ considered themselves to be an oppressed people. They lived under the rule of the occupying Roman army and considered the Romans to be an intrusion in their national life. They were suspicious of the power of imperial state religion brought by the Romans. They were concerned that the Romans were interfering in the running of the temple and limiting some religious freedoms. The people on the ground knew their leaders had compromised with the gentile power brokers. Many of the faithful would have been more than happy to hear John tell the Roman soldiers to repent, or King Herod to repent, or even those turncoats running the temple to repent. Yet John comes along, not to any of them, but to the ordinary people of Israel and says, “Repent!” His message of repentance was in fact, proclaimed to the faithful people of God.
The upshot of that is that this message of repentance is a message that is addressed to us. For some of us, this might be something of a surprise. “Why not tell someone else to repent?” we might well ask. I am sure many of us could think of plenty of other candidates who should be repenting before pointing the finger at us. But “no”. God is calling us to examine our lives. John the Baptist reminds us that we can never say that we have arrived in our relationship with God. We are a pilgrim people, and we are on a journey with God. God is the potter, shaping us, moulding us, transforming us. All this requires humility and constant readiness to admit that we haven’t got it all together. We need to allow God to re-shape our attitudes and our values, and that this shaping is a life long process. This is the journey of a deepening faith. We may have made commitments to God long ago. Some of us made commitments to God as children, or as young adults. We may have engaged in serious study of the Christian faith at some point in our life and thought that we could tick that off as a task done to which we need not return. But nevertheless, those times when we made commitments to God were not the end of a journey, but perhaps a beginning or a point of growth in our faith. They are a “place along the way,” as it were. As we go through life we experience new things and discover new dimensions of ourselves and new insights into God. We all need to hear John’s call to repent as a call to humility and a call to continue our journey of faith.
Second point about repentance: Many people hear the words “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and interpret them negatively, largely because some of us associate the call to repentance with the voice of a judgemental God constantly beating us up about our faults. In fact, John’s message of repentance is, in fact, nothing of the sort. It is primarily a message of hope. John’s voice echoes the prophecy of Isaiah. Long before, Isaiah had brought God’s promises hope to the suffering and grieving exiles in Babylon. John’s message has a similar tone to it. In effect he is saying to his generation, “Look people! God is coming again. Just as he came to the exiles in Babylon, God will come to you afresh. God wants to make a new start with you. God is searching for you and longs to liberate you from all that enslaves you. So make your hearts ready to receive your God.” So let’s re-imagine what repentance is.
What if repentance could be a new start with God? What if the primary message is that we are a forgiven people; that God is coming to wipe the slate clean and offer a future in which we are liberated from our past? Well, let’s face it the people of Israel needed a new start. For centuries now they had lived under the occupation of a succession of foreign armies, first the Greeks and then the Romans. Under the Greeks they had lived with terrible persecutions; under the Romans they had to pay crippling taxes to support the empire. Many of the people lived a subsistence lifestyle that was brutal and rough. For most people, life was a nightmare.
Most of us experience nightmares occasionally. If say, I happen to be having a nightmare in which I hear bloodcurdling screams and giant shadows lurking and ready to leap on me, and suddenly I wake to the reality of a beautiful morning with a gentle breeze with the shadows of branches playing on the wall by the light of the morning sun, this process of waking from nightmare to reality might be described as repentance. Repentance in its original meaning is a translation of the word metanoia which means a change of outlook, turning around to face in a new direction and see a new perspective not visible before. Repentance is a movement toward God in which more and more we see things the way God sees them. Repentance means letting God be God in us, the God of compassion, the God who loves all he created.
This is the kind of message of repentance John was bringing. He is saying, “God is working on a timetable none of us know about. Don’t focus on all the problems around you. Lift up your heads and be alert, for God is coming. God will do a new thing.’ John’s message is such a message of hope. “Prepare a way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Those words are derived from a well known passage of Isaiah, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says the Lord.” The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible says the Greek word for “comfort” has connotations of “standing at someone’s side.” It also means to strengthen someone, to offer encouragement and exhortation. When Isaiah proclaimed those words, he had in view the return from the Babylonian exile which he described in terms of a new exodus, of leading the people across another Sinai to a new and glorious land. So the words of comfort are that even in exile, God stands with the people to strengthen, to encourage, to help. Many people came out to hear John. Perhaps it was for the words of comfort that he offered, “The Lord your God will comfort you, strengthen you, and open a new way to salvation.” Isaiah’s words declare God’s solidarity with God’s people. John’s preaching is in that vein too; John heralds another Exodus, another time when God will pitch his tent among the people, another time when all will see the salvation of our God.
Today we celebrate the baptism of Isabel and Matthew. Their baptism is a new beginning in Christ. Through the waters of Red Sea, God will bring them to himself so that like a newborn children asleep in their mother’s arms, their souls may rest in the arms of God. They will pass through the cleansing waters of forgiveness and be given a future in Christ. As they are baptised, we pray that God will repeat the marvels of old in our day for Isabel and Matthew and for all of us. God has never failed to provide us with sources of strength and models of courage. Our task is to pray that our love may overflow more and more with knowledge and insight so that by God’s grace, we may support those in need, comfort those who sorrow, feed those who are hungry, and make straight the path for God to come into our lives and our hearts. So now, put on the mantle of joy. Give thanks that in Christ, God stands with us and with the world, and come to be nourished for your journey of faith by the One who is our joy. Come to the One who stands with you and for you. Come and be nourished by the One who is our joy, our hope, and our strength.
