Advent 2 Year C

Opening Verse of Scripture— Luke Chapter 3 Verse 4

'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us, your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, now and for ever. CW

Almighty God, purify our hearts and minds, that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again as judge and saviour we may be ready to receive him, who is our Lord and our God. CW

First Bible Reading - Malachi Chapter 3:1-4

Thus says the Lord God: See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight – indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years. NRSV

Alternate OT Reading - Baruch 5:1-9

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven. For God will give you evermore the name, ‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’. Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look towards the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne. For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him. NRSV

Second Bible Reading - Philippians Chapter 1:3-11         

My brothers and sisters, I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. NRSV

Gospel Reading Luke Chapter 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’ NRSV

Post Communion Prayer

Father in heaven, who sent your Son to redeem the world and will send him again to be our judge: give us grace so to imitate him in the humility and purity of his first coming that, when he comes again, we may be ready to greet him with joyful love and firm faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. CW

Commentary

John the Baptist is a fore runner, to prepare people for Jesus. This does not mean that John the Baptist is unimportant, in fact he is very important. I wonder if you have ever considered that two of the Gospels don’t mention Christmas at all? Mark’s Gospel doesn’t mention it, John’s Gospel doesn’t mention it. However you cannot get rid of John the Baptist, all four Gospels record the story of John the Baptist. He is important. In fact Josephus the Jewish historian (37-100AD) writing sixty years later referred to John the Baptist when he wrote that John

‘Exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism…. when others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed Antiquities 18,117-18

So Josephus confirms that John was a teacher who called people do two things

To live by high social ethical standards

To be baptised with a baptism of repentance

Telling people that they had to be baptised was dramatic stuff. At the time if you were a Gentile who wanted to become a Jew then you had to be immersed in water, a baptism. However John doesn’t just baptise Gentiles, he calls to baptism the children of Abraham also, demanding that they as Jews submit to something which had been devised for pagans. Imagine that you were a good Jew, one of God’s chosen people and you heard John the Baptist telling you that you had to repent and be baptised ! Can you imagine how you would have felt?

John’s preaching was a message of repentance for all people, there were no exceptions. He told people that the world was broken and that they needed to acknowledge their need of a Saviour.

This is significant for us to hear because so many people will tell us that we don’t need God we can do it all ourselves. The Christian position is that we agree with John the Baptist, we are not good enough in ourselves we need to repent. On our own humanity is no getting better, there is a darkness in the universe, which is a part of each one of us and without the light of Christ there is ultimately only darkness. There is no march towards perfection by humanity.

Christians are sometimes criticised as being people who make out they are better than others. This is really unfair, whilst obviously there are people who think that they are better than others and some of them might be Christians, it is actually the complete opposite of the Christian message. John tells us that the world cannot save itself, humanity is incapable of pulling itself out of the pit without the help of God. Different parts of Christianity will disagree about how much we are incapable of saving ourselves.

Some say we cannot even by ourselves stand up in the pit, God needs to lift us up, a very protestant idea - it is all grace.

Others think that that we can reach half way to grasp the hand of God to pull us out, a more Roman Catholic idea - works. 

However all are agreed that we all need to start with the message of John the Baptist that we must first of all recognise our own darkness, our own sin and seek God in repentance.

For many people the word repentance has negative overtones, it brings to mind guilt and threats of God wanting to punish us. People have been told by churches that they have to repent from a whole range of things, sometimes just for enjoying themselves or being the way that God made them.

Repentance has often been spoken of as a turning around, a turning away and there are some things which Christians should speak out against and seek to avoid, the influence of materialsim, exploitation of the poor, or the plundering of the worlds resources. Sadly we are often very introspective and that is where the guilt and exploitation starts. A positive way of thinking about repentance is choosing to walk with God in his direction. Think of that lovely verse in Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

The point about the passage from Luke today is that God wants us to walk with him. God is not just concerned with powerful people, or influencial people. God wants ordinary people 

Look at how the passage about John this morning begins

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

There are seven great authority figures mentioned, but the word of God does not come to the seven powerful ones, it comes instead to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

If you remember John was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth the cousin of Mary the mother of Jesus. In Luke Chapter 1 we are told about the amazing birth of John and his father Zechariah speak some powerful words about his son John which include

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

The Chapter concludes with verse 80 which says

The child (John the Baptist) grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.

There is as much darkness now as there ever was. When you world leaders who are murderers like Putin and the Saudi Prince at the G20, both in positions of great power and influence you realise that nothing has really changed that much since the days of Herod. Yemen, Syria, the plight of Christians killed for their faith. You soon realise that left to our own devices we are not on the march to perfection. It matters not whether we are led politically by a Trump, a Macron or Merkel of a May, there is no human solution to our darkness. The start of change can only occur in each one of us as we begin with repentance and as John says by acknowledging our own desperate need to walk with God in his way.

If we want change which lasts then it will not be political change, or economic change, with Brexit or without Brexit. Out of our materialistic culture it is interesting that many people do want to consider more deeply the nature of world in which we live. There is desire by many to go beyond the superficial life which we are often encouraged to think about, feeding our craving for consumerism.

Professor Hawking said that the great threat to human life was artificial intelligence. Well I am sure robots can be very dangerous but I think that the greatest threat to human life is rather artificial humanity. This is when we deny that we are spiritual beings, created in the image of God, when we deny our spiritual need of God and imagine that we are just material beings, sufficient in ourselves, then we reduce the value of human life and we are artificial humans.

The Prophet Isaiah said

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Of course very many people have not seen that great light. John called people to a Baptism of Repentance. That meant that they recognised that they could not fix themselves, they needed God. If John the Baptist were alive today he would be calling people back to recognise that we need his ‘baptism of repentance’ because we need for people to see that light in our time.

Meditation

Walk softly, as you go through Christmas, That each step may bring you down the starlit path, to the manger bed. Talk quietly, as you Speak of Christmas that you shall not drown out the glorious song of angels . Kneel reverently as you pause for Christmas, That you may feel again the Spirit of the Nativity, rekindled in your soul. Rise eagerly, after you have trod the Christmas Path, That you may serve more fully, the one whose birth we hail.

Hymns

• O come o come Immanuel
• On Jordan's bank
• There’s a sound on the wind
• What child is this
• Down from his glory
• Lo, He comes on clouds descending
• How lovely on the mountains
• The holly and the ivy
• Jesus the saviour comes
• Come thou long expected Jesus
• You are the king of glory
• From heaven you came
• Hail to the Lord's anointed
• Long ago prophets knew
• On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
• Be known to us in breaking bread
• Thy kingdom come, O God.

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Out of the embrace of mercy and righteousness, you have brought forth joy and dignity for your people, O Holy One of Israel. Remember now your ancient promise: make straight the paths that lead to you, and smooth the rough ways, that in our day we might bring forth your compassion for all humanity. Amen.

O God, our Heavenly Father, give us a vision of our world as your love would make it:

A world where the weak are protected and none go hungry or poor;

A world where the benefits of civilised life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them;

A world where different races, nations and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect;

A world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love;

And give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

St Martin-in-the-Fields prayer for the world

Saint Benedict : Prayer for Guidance

O gracious and holy Father, Give us wisdom to perceive you,

intelligence to understand you, diligence to seek you,

patience to wait for you, eyes to see you,

a heart to meditate on you, and a life to proclaim you,

through the power of the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.

God of the day and of the night,

in me there is darkness, but with you there is light.

I am alone, but you will not leave me.

I am weak, but you will come to my help.

I am restless, but you are my peace.

I am in haste, but you are the God of infinite patience.

I am confused and lost, but you are eternal wisdom and you direct my path; now and for ever. Amen

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945

The Sacred heart of Jesus.

Whilst not to the taste of everybody, the image of the sacred heart has inspired centuries of devotion to Jesus

Love of the heart of Jesus, inflame my heart

Charity of the heart of Jesus, flow into my heart

Strength of the heart of Jesus, support my heart

Mercy of the heart of Jesus, pardon my heart

Patience of the heart of Jesus, grow not weary of my heart

Kingdom of the heart of Jesus, be in my heart

Wisdom of the heart of Jesus, teach my heart

Will of the heart of Jesus, guide my heart

Zeal of the heart of Jesus, consume my heart

Immaculate Virgin Mary, pray for me to the heart of Jesus

From a Walsingham prayer book

Additional Resources

Sermon Advent 2

Our reading today from Luke chapter 3 could be the start of the Gospel, a bit like Mark’s Gospel which just starts with the ministry of John the Baptist. Mark has no nativity stories, indeed neither does John, arguably we don’t need Christmas at all ! Of course suggesting such a thing in my house would cause uproar because at Corinne’s command we are always very Chrismassy.

Actually there are no manuscripts of Luke which don’t include the Christmas nativity stories, so he must have considered it important and if you want to look at why in more depth - then come to the two Advent talks this year, starting with Sam on Matthew next Tuesday, it will also be on our YouTube channel. 

Luke introduces us to John and he puts us in no doubt as to the historical setting.

#It was at the time of Tiberias, Pilate Herod etc.,

Seven seats of wealth, power, and influence are mentioned in just one sentence. 

This list is significant in lots of ways

Some of the characters are were well known and they were pretty disgusting. We all know about Herod, he killed babies. Others were jus as bad, Pilate had a hand in the killing of Jesus. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Tiberias was really ruthless, he killed anybody he though was a threat. Tacitus speaks of

‘heaps of the unnumbered dead, of every age and sex, the illustrious with the obscure. kinsfolk and friends were not allowed to be near them, to weep over them, or even gaze on the too long. Spies were set round them, who noted the sorrow of each mourner and followed the rotting corpses till they were dragged to the Tiber, where, floating or driven on the bank no one dared to burn or touch them 

(Annals 6:19)

Suetonius another historian told of gross depravities of abuse of women and children which one can ‘barely bare to tell’. 

We live in some dire times and at this moment, some really bad ones, across our world. Luke asks us to look not at all the things going wrong in seats of power, what the rich and powerful, the rulers of this world are doing and instead look for what God is doing.

Don’t look in Kings palaces look at a lone man, one voice in the desert.

Luke is also telling us that Jesus is sent not just to Jews but to all people. These men represent world history, not just Jewish history. Remember that Luke was also the author of the Acts of the Apostles, in Acts, volume 2 Luke has Jesus say to the disciples ‘You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’  Luke is saying that the message he is about to tell is for everybody

Luke points at these world leaders, who were known for their depravity and immorality and exploitation of others. Then he says God is doing something greater than all of them. He quotes Isaiah to say

Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;

God was doing something so important that it was like even the geography of the world was being changed. John the Baptist was the one sent to announce this thing which God was doing, a message to all people, to get folks ready for the appearance of the salvation of God in Jesus, which will be for all flesh. 

Interestingly that word ‘all flesh’ is used in Genesis 6:19 to refer not just to human flesh, but all living things, even animals!

Who was this man John?

Well if we go back to chapter 1 Luke tells us that John was specially chosen by God to get people ready for Jesus. John’s father was called Zechariah, a priest in the Temple. We know that one day he was in the sanctuary doing special prayers when he saw an angel called Gabriel. This angel announced to him that he was going to be a father. It came as a bit of a surprise to Zechariah because he and his lovely wife Elizabeth could not have children and they were old.

There is a funny scene where Zechariah says to Gabriel that he must have made some sort of mistake given that he and his wife were both old.

You can almost see Gabriel puffing up his chest when Zechariah disbelieves what he is saying and Gabriel says ‘how dare you question what I am telling you’.

He says

‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God!’

It is a classic case of ‘Don’t you know who I am’

Gabriel then responds in quite a drastic way - by taking away Zechariah’s power of speech, striking him dumb until such time as the baby is born.

When people are getting on your nerves or saying something ridiculous, don’t you sometimes wish you could do that ? Gabriel could !

John is this special person announced by Gabriel as set aside by God, he is in the tradition of men like Samson and Samuel, both also born to parents who could not have children. He was a Nazirite, which meant that he didn’t drink and he lived a devout life. It was to this man in the desert that God entrusted the message of salvation in Jesus, not to the kings in palaces or the super religious in the temple. God was interested in meeting ordinary people in the desert. 

The desert wilderness was symbolic place, it was where the people of Israel had been tested by God. The desert was a place away from distractions. The vulnerability was real. This Second Sunday of Advent this year takes place in something of a wilderness.

For many people the pandemic has been a reboot, a questioning of priorities. Perhaps it is poignant for us to listen to God’s voice speaking to us as God spoke to the people in that desert place. In situations of weakness we have no choice but to seek God and recognise our own dependability.

This is what John told people they must do, he called for repentance, which is a turning to God. We know that the people flooded out to see him, even though he was not wealthy or powerful. What he said convicted people of the need above all else to be right with God.

We know that all sorts of people came to hear John

We are told that tax collectors came to John. These were essentially collaborators with the occupying Roman forces. They did business with gentiles and we know from Jewish writings (Talmud  & Mishnah) that they were lumped together with thieves and murderers. A Jew who collected taxes was a disgrace to their family,

· thrown out of the synagogue

· wasn’t even allowed to be a witness in court (b.Sanh. 25b)

· Even the touch of a tax collector rendered a house unclean (m. Tehar. 7:6; m. Hag, 3:6).

You get the idea.

What did John say people like tax collectors and soldiers should do to show that they were sincere in turning to God? Interestingly what he suggests is very reasonable but also very profound. It was nothing doctrinal or liturgical but interpersonal,

He doesn’t tell them to leave their jobs. Instead soldiers are not to extort money by force and be satisfied with their pay

Tax collectors are to seek to be fair in their dealings.

The change, the repentance was about It how we interact with others, this shows how we are with God.

John didn’t tell them to change their jobs, he didn’t give them any legal or religious observances. He did however call them to a change of life, which he thought was possible because there were self evident moral standards, even when placed in difficult and compromising situations.

That is not an easy message, actually it was very hard. The message is that if you want to please God and be ready for Jesus the way to do that is to behave decently and morally. Wherever you are - in that place seek to be like

· yeast in bread,

· salt in food.

· A shining of a light in a dark place

In this way John is getting people ready for the teachings of Jesus like

’Do to others as you would have them do to you 6:31

We all know that John called people to make a visible sign of their change of life, baptism in the river Jordan. This was the river of such importance to the people.

1. It was where Naaman the Syrian was healed (2 Kings 5:1-14),

2. It was where the prophet Elijah was taken to heaven from there (2 Kings 2:1-11)

3. Most importantly it was at the Jordan that the Israelites crossed into the Promised Land after their 40 years in the wilderness

Water purification ceremonies were not something new to Jewish people they had been bathing for ritual purity all the time at home to be ceremonially clean after doing almost anything involving bodily functions. But John wants something different, he gave a public baptism in a river - a visible commitment and it is not for ritual purity so that you could go to synagogue, it is a sign of a moral determination to live a new life, and it is a one off, you don’t keep coming back. 

Advent is sometimes seen as the run up to Christmas, the countdown. But actually it is a season of its own, not just a trailer before the main event. Thinking about John the Baptist helps us understand what it is all about

None of us will be going out into the desert to make any spiritual reconnection this year, but there is a sense in which many people during this pandemic are asking questions about what really matters in life. John the Baptist poses the question

‘Are we ready to meet with the coming Jesus and

how might our lives be better prepared to greet him.’

For John being prepared is rooted in the realities of everyday life. Understanding that whatever is going on in the wider world, what God seeks of us is a willingness to demonstrate our devotion by living lives characterised by love and mercy towards one another.

Commentary

In his Gospel Luke the historian dates the events which are taking place, they are located in a historical setting ‘In the fifteenth year of Tiberius.’ It was customary to begin historical narratives by dating them according to the years of rulers and officials, both in Greco-Roman and Old Testament historiography. Luke shows John preaching somewhere between September of AD 27 and October AD 28. We know that John is a real historical person and God’s word is not other worldly, fit only for a heavenly country, it is rooted in life. Within a decade the historian Josephus also wrote about John ‘surnamed the Baptist’ (Ant 18.116) whom Herod had put to death. We know that Herod’s army was subsequently destroyed by Aretas, his former father-in-law, an event that many took to be God’s vengeance for his killing of John. Sixty years later Josephus still recalled John’s popularity with the people.

‘He had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism…. when others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degrees by his sermons, Herod became alarmed (Ant 18.117-118)

It is good to read these things about John from outside the bible, historical accounts of the impact which he made when he preached his sermons on social ethics, the need for radical change and this insistence on the all important baptism as a sign. At the time, non Jews who wished to convert to Judaism were required to immerse themselves in water to remove their impurity as Gentiles, but John sees that all need to repent and so even Jews must submit to baptism.

As it is important to recognise the historical setting in which John the Baptist preached, this also has the effect of placing Jesus within a historical framework. John is not the main act, he is the opening announcement of one who is of much more significance, it is none other than God who is entering human history.

John called for a radical change in lifestyle and behaviour. On this second Sunday of Advent we too are challenged to fundamental change. The reading from Malachi is exceptionally strong on the need for reform of character, the writer speaks of the need for nothing short of a refiners fire, burning away impurity. In Philippians we read of the need to carry on to completion and becoming ‘pure and blameless.’ An old way of life is to be set aside in order to enjoy the fruits of righteousness. So John the Baptist tells how an old way of life must be put aside, preparation for the coming of Christ would require a major change of heart, not just a token gesture or a cosmetic touch up. Change of life would be evidenced in the bearing of ‘fruit worthy of repentance.’

It is unsurprising that John announces his message in the desert, the place of encounter with God. The Jewish people had been called to cross the desert to come into the promised land, now people were once more being called out into the desert. Deserts are quiet places, the noise and distraction of the city is lost in the stillness. Those who seek God are taken away from the temple, and confronted by an uncompromising challenge to be different away from the temptation and distraction around them.

Luke records how John the Baptist imagines that this change in people will be substantial not superficial. When Jesus enters a life there is such movement that the very geography can be seen to change, valleys will be lifted up, mountains made low, the entire panorama will be different.

John used shocking language. Vipers such as the Nicander’s Viper, were commonly thought to eat their way out of their mother’s womb. When John called the crowd ‘Viper’s offspring’ it was even nastier than calling them vipers ! It would have been unbelievable to his hearers to listen to John use such words towards Jewish people who thought that they were saved by virtue of their descent from Abraham. John is clear, there is no substitute for radical change for everyone.

Whatever doubts John may have subsequently had about Jesus, Jesus had no such reservations about John. He even calls him both more than a prophet and the ’greatest person ever born.’ Jesus speaks of John as one who fulfils the role of an Elijah figure preparing the way. Of course the appearance of John belied his importance, Jesus noted how people did not go out to see a fashion icon when they went out to see John. He wore rough scruffy clothes, unlike people such as Herod Antipas who wore royal clothes. Herod Antipas had a reed as an emblem on his coins before AD26, a fact which Jesus would surely have known. Jesus contrasted the two people Herod and John. Herod looked the part in his fancy garments, but he was a weak reed blowing in the wind, John was not prepared to bend with the political wind, he had courage and inner qualities in spite of his rough outward appearance. Still today we hear people ridiculed in public life because their appearance is not thought to be suitably fashionable.

Advent is this time when we too are called to prepare for the coming of the Lord. Jesus will fulfil his promises and invites us to radical change. Isaiah had spoken of mountains being levelled and valleys filled. Mountains and valleys which separate and divide us from one another and God must be levelled out. Do we not like John yearn for this time of change when God will transform our conflicted world? It is worth remembering by the beheading which caused the death of John, that the world has always been a bloody brutal place. People are no better or worse than they have ever been. Today as then our minds are scarred by scenes of violence such as those which we have seen played out across the world from Paris to California. We long for the real change which can only come in the kingdom of God.

We should draw a lesson of hope from John. The passage today begins with a list of evil men

• Tiberius Caesar, who took the title ‘divine son’
• Pontius Pilate who failed to save Jesus
• Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and
• Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene--
• The high priests Annas and Caiaphas who plotted the death of Jesus

This is like a list of some of the worst people who could possibly be alive. Tiberius Caesar, Pilate and Herod believed that they were in charge and not God, indeed Caesar thought he was a god. Pilate, Herod, Annas and Caiaphas all play significant roles in the crucifixion of Jesus. Yet John preaches change and his message is an optimistic one that change will come,

"A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God's salvation.'"

John spells out the ethical requirements for repentance. It requires bearing fruit worthy of repentance, such as sharing with those in need (3:1) .When tax collectors and soldiers ask what they must do, John tells them to deal honestly with people and not to abuse their power (3:13-14)

At Advent we are reminded that God is seeking to work in us and through us to bring about change. We are called to be a part of this change in every positive action we make, turning from selfish motivation towards the needs of others. It is as we do this that God’s kingdom grows and we made ready to welcome our coming Saviour.   Charles Royden

Commentary

Today we read about John the Baptist who stood in the desert and proclaimed that the Messiah was coming; he wanted people to make ready their lives for the coming of Jesus. In Advent we are encouraged to remember not just that Jesus came as our Saviour born a baby in Bethlehem, but also that Jesus has promised that he will come again as our judge.

It is because Jesus is coming again that we need to be prepared, in a sense we are all called to be like John the Baptist, proclaiming the Advent of Jesus and calling for his way to be made ready.

In 1944, the Germans started their last major counter-attack of the Second World War. They took advantage of heavy mists that lay over the Ardennes region on Germany’s border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The Germans were thought no longer capable of launching a major offensive, yet they managed to reach 50 miles within the Allied lines before they had to retreat. One of the leaders of the American forces of this "Battle of the Ardennes" (also called "The Battle of the Bulge") was General Omar Bradley. Some years after the end of the Second World War, and as some nations were spending vast amounts of money on stock-piling nuclear and other weapons, General Omar Bradley spoke the following words:

"We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom, and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace; more about killing than we do about living."

General Omar Bradley mentioned the "Sermon on the Mount". Those words of Jesus include the "Beatitudes", which are a set of 8 statements of choices which lead to a person being happy or blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In a way General Omar Bradley was being like John the Baptist. He challenged people to think differently. The Beatitudes for example are a complete reversal of normal human standards: God’s ways are different from many of the accepted norms of society, and that has always been the case. Society has never thought that the meek were blessed, or that there was blessing in mourning or poverty.

This Christmas we must all try to think of ways in which we can be prepared and help prepare the way of the Lord; be modern day John the Baptists. It may be that we have to ring somebody up and try and rebuild broken relationships. It might be that we can offer some of our time to support community groups or a charitable organisation.

John had a message directed very forcefully towards the religious people, it was for them that he saved his most vehement statements. Everybody had to 'make straight paths for the Lord.' We are tempted sometimes to think that scriptures are directed at people outside the church, to imagine that we are the good ones and that the challenge is to people who are outside the church. The teachings of Jesus were always strongest to those who were most religious. So we ask ourselves this morning whether we have paths which are suitable for the coming of our Lord this Christmas?

Is our religion lifeless and boring? How many Christians have slipped into a non-threatening cosy religion, like an old pair of slippers which fits us nicely. How easy it is for us to become accustomed to our Christianity, so that the words of Jesus no longer challenge and frighten us. How else could our churches find themselves so full of our intolerance, bigotry, envy, argument, etc.. John the Baptist would be speaking to us this morning, to ask how our religion was changing us and making a real difference. If it is not doing this then sing no more hymns, say no more prayers, God does not desire your religion he wants much more.

As Christians we are challenged this morning to look at our spiritual nature and ask to what extent God's likeness is apparent in us. If people looked at us would they be reminded of God? This is what John the Baptist means when he tells us to make our paths straight. The Kingdom is not a far off event, as caricatured in the jokes of the pearly gates. The kingdom is here and now. It breaks into our lives every day and we do not need to ask when it will come. The kingdom seizes us, embraces us, challenges us, in the ordinary events of life. A sick friend, a discouraged spouse, a troublesome person on the telephone, a demand which is made on us which we think to be unfair. Situations which cause us to question how we will respond. Times when we can perhaps do much good with very little effort. How we react determines and tests our faith and questions our membership of the Kingdom. These are the places where we really show God's loving power coming through in our lives. It is as we do this of course that we become like John the Baptist in declaring God and proclaiming the coming of our Lord. Our life, our deeds our words, all speaking of the Kingdom of God. It is when we do this that are perhaps the most powerful advertisement for our Lord, in so doing we make straight paths which perhaps allow others to see more easily the living Lord, the worship of whom transcends human religion. Charles Royden

Commentary

We do not know huge amounts about John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus. We know that he ate insects and that he conducted his ministry ‘on the other side of the Jordan.’ This means Perea, one of the territories controlled by Herod Antipas. Josephus the Jewish historian tells us that John was later imprisoned in the fortress Machaerus in the same region. So we find that John is arrested in the same place in which he conducts his faithful ministry.

This fact would not be lost on people who knew about John the Baptist. We are told by Matthew that Jesus said ‘John did not blow with the wind’. The point that Jesus was making was that John was a man of principle. He told the truth as he saw it and he was not prepared to water it down to avoid offending anybody.

He is clearly not an ambitious man, he had no designs on one of the top jobs back in Jerusalem. Instead he spoke his mind freely without fear or desire for favour and the people flocked out to hear him, attracted by his honesty and integrity. Subsequently he was killed by Herod for this very fact.

John called for obedience to God and he demonstrated that this was a costly commitment. The Christian community came to know that the way of the Lord was the ‘via dolorosa’, a way of the cross. Many of the Christians who read this Gospel would also be executed for their message and mission.

John is the first to proclaim God's kingdom. He announces it not in the Temple but in the desert the place where the faith of so many before had been tested and a place where people like Moses had encountered God. The Jewish people had built a Temple but they were called back to the desert across which they had come into the promised land. The average person can only go a couple of day in the wilderness without water. The prophets use the desert as a metaphor for estrangement from God, it is frightening, lonely and dangerous, yet it is to here that John calls the people for renewal. Perhaps that is where God still wants to meet us, in the place where we are stripped of distractions and ready and anxious to listen. In the desert all our facades are removed.

There was confusion as to who John was. People asked him "Are you Elijah?" That might seem a strange question. The prophet Elijah had lived around 900 years previously, and tradition had it that he never actually died, but was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. ( 2 Kings 2:9-12). In the last verses of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi prophesied his return (Malachi 4:5-6), so people might have suspected that this was some miraculous return. Jesus said John was a prophet, ‘This is the one about whom it is written:

'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'

This Sunday in Advent is a time in which we should all hear the words of John the Baptist and search within ourselves and ask the difficult questions which he posed. Are we prepared to be challenged about ourselves and our ideas and our behaviour. When John the Baptist told people to make straight paths for God, he meant that we should be constructing a different type of society, and that we should be constructing within ourselves hearts which care for others.

We have a natural tendency to grow complacent with what we are. John asks us to be able to question ourselves. So is yours a heart which is really under construction, or have you decided that now you are fine and need no more attention?

We all have roads which need to be made straight. So John calls afresh to change the landscape of our personal lives and more importantly of our communities.

Quite rightly people asked John to give them specific concrete examples of the kind of lifestyle changes he was preaching about. 'what shall we do' they said.

He told them -

If you have two coats share one of them with somebody who has no coat.

The same with food, share it around

He told tax collectors not to take more than was their due, stealing and taking too much money was bad.

They were told not to be violent or make false accusations against others.

These are not specific to the time of John the Baptist, they are eternal values of justice and compassion. Not one of the people who came out to John, apart from Jesus, was ready for the coming of the Messiah, they all had work to do on their lives. You and I are just the same.

And so preparing for Advent means facing introspective questions about whether our religion is skin deep, to what extent we are devoted to ourselves or to others, whether we are living good or bad lives, how much we care for the poor, the weak, the sick or the stranger, the old. Am I a compassionate person, a caring person, how can I do more to contribute towards the needs of others? Charles Royden

Commentary

The prophecy of Malachi is one of the shortest of the prophecies in the Old Testament but it contains one of the very well known passages of the Bible (thanks in part to Mr Handel and ‘The Messiah.’)

It is a book which certainly has resonance with today —the people of Israel appear to be living in a period of reasonable prosperity after their return from exile, but their society continues to exhibit social problems. Men are accused of divorcing their wives so as to take younger partners, for example. Malachi couches his prophecy in the form of a dialogue between the people and God, in which the people make statements or ask questions and Malachi replies on behalf of God.

Chapter 1:2 begins, An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi."I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, 'How have you loved us?' The passage today is a response to that comment that the people have wearied God with their talk, by saying all evil doers are good in the eyes of the lord and asking where is the God of justice. When evil seems to prosper without restraint, when pious people find no reality in worship and are content to offer less than their best to God, the reality of God’s judgement is called into question. God either does not see the abuses or does not care. And the cry that God and his angels are asleep has been repeated many times over the ages. And so the reply is couched in terms of temple worship—the lord will come, preceded by his messenger, traditionally identified as Jesus, who will cleanse and refine, making all pure.

One of the traditional pictures of the relationship of people to God is that of the difficulty experienced by imperfect, sinful people unable to cope with the purity of the divine and so the refining, the purifying which the Gospel promises is a way of making it possible for people to exist in the presence of God. So Malachi offers us a picture of hope, but a picture of challenge. carrying on as we are will not do. In a rather different way, but no less challenging, another messenger brings an equally forthright message in the Gospel. John proclaims the need for repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

A little later we read him using such words as ’vipers brood’ and reminding people it is not sufficient to mouth the words if they do not reflect the state of the heart. Jesus also reminds people a little later in the same Gospel that many will say ’Lord, Lord,’ and will not be recognised for the same reasons. However the picture is not all bleak. Luke takes his readers back to Isaiah’s great promise that ‘all humankind shall see God’s deliverance.’ For those who in his day would listen, he reminds them that the coming of the Messiah will be preceded by prophecy, something which had been missing from the life of Israel for four centuries.

It is all too easy as we get carried away by the rituals of Christmas, and the joy of the Christ child, to forget the sharper side of the Gospel. God’s promises embodied in the life and death of that baby are for all men and women—but they demand a response from us even if it has to be couched in the words of that worried father ‘Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.’ perhaps a further reminder comes with the fact that this Sunday is Human Rights Sunday. If human rights are to become a reality for everybody, then this will place demands upon our lives. We are equipped to respond by the Holy Spirit of that God who refines and makes the rugged ways smooth, and shows his deliverance to all people. John Stubbs

Prayers for Sunday

God, when we pray for peace, show us again and again that there can be no peace without justice and the renewal of integrity. When we are tempted to retreat into sentimental peace of mind, stir within us the passion of justice which Amos had, the social vision of Isaiah, the internal courage of Jeremiah and the personality of Hosea. The God, within the struggle for righteousness and equality, for wholeness and honesty, come to us with a special greeting which you alone can provide, dispelling our fears, cancelling our guilt, refreshing our spirits; the welcome, the peace, of your son Jesus Christ our Risen God.

Out of meaninglessness, God calls us Our of brokenness, God calls us to wholeness Out of division, God calls us to community Out of tears, God calls us to laughter Out of self-centredness, God calls us to love Out of death, God calls us to life….

O God, who did prepare of old the minds and hearts of people for the coming of your Son, and whose Spirit ever works to illumine our darkened lives with the light of the Gospel, prepare now our minds and hearts that Christ may dwell in us and ever reign in our thoughts and affections as the King of love and the very Prince of Peace. Grant this, we pray for his sake. Amen.

Almighty God who in many and various ways didst speak to thy chosen people by the prophets, and has given us, in thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, the fulfilment of the hope of Israel: hasten we beseech thee, the coming of the day when all things shall be subject to him, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Church of South India