The Forerunner

1990 (Year B), 16 December /
Advent 3

St Peter de Beauvoir Town

The time for great themes is over. If you’ve been in church regularly over the last few weeks you’ll know that those themes in our worship have dealt with enormous pictures of creation, they’ve dealt with the fall, with promises of redemption, overviews of the Bible, until today; when in your very presence; all that has changed. Now we are down to one person, a man, and a very strange and disquieting man at that.

In our preparation for Christmas we have left these great themes, and arrived at what, in the end, it’s all about – people. And out of a desert comes a wild man.  At odds with the rest of his society.  A man preferring his own company and the hardship of the desert to other human beings – someone who clearly never rested easily with others.

John brings with him conflict and pain. He is driven by the urgency of a message he doesn’t fully understand. A man who threatens us all. Because what is to follow is one who can bring out into tile daylight those things we’ve tried so hard to keep hidden – even from ourselves. A judge and a judgement is to come and there will be nowhere to hide.

And the message threatens a withering death as well as a judgement. Not only on us as individuals but on our society as well. All will be revealed. Yet it’s a message full of contradiction, for ultimately the one of whom he speaks, will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will be tender with them gathering the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those who are with young. He will be their saviour and lover as well as their judge.

John stands between two great religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity. He is one of our ancestors in faith. He is part of our religious memory and our shared past; yet his message is of one who looks forward. He is a man hoping to see the face of God in his Messiah. As such he represents us all, for the community of faith is invited always to live between its memories and its hopes. When the balance is tipped in favour of memory then we lose sense of our calling and our destiny. When our hopes are all that drive us then we become wild and self seeking and unreal.

John is the reminder that we must get this balance right between memories and our hope. His hopes were grounded in the past – he comes out of a rich religious heritage. And that heritage – the memory of his society informs the hopes he carries for the future. He expected God to act, as he had promised in the past – a Messiah was to come. Yet the message so deeply rooted in tradition, is all about the future and looking forward to its fulfilment.

His hope encourages hope in us. He looked forward to the coming of God, not sure what the outcome would be. If the records are accurate he even had to send his disciples off to ask Jesus if he was the one who was promised. He is the one who shows us that things can change.  There is no pre-determined death dealing shape to our history.

‘Repent and be changed – be prepared for the coming of God.’

And the very place where John worked is a parable – the desert, a place of harshness and death. A picture for us of the absence of God. Into this desert comes Jesus and all is changed. Just as God, in the beginning, had the power and the will to turn chaos into creation and empty darkness to vibrant light. To deal with the forces of death, and to bring life. To bring change.

And this change is brought about with the birth of a child in a manger, innocent and defenceless. A child, the very beginning of new life.

According to the New Testament this hope for the future is a present reality. It isn’t a dream. The life giver is already present and his power is among us. We can follow him, even today making visible something of the peace’, liberty and righteousness of the kingdom he will complete. It is no longer impossible. We can do it in fellowship with him. John’s hope is realised. We can share in his new creation – born again to a living hope – and live as new men and women.

Heavenly Father, we come to you with bound hands and ask you for the joy of liberty. We stand before you entangled in our guilt and ask for grace and forgiveness. We wander lost in darkness. Each of us wants to have our own way. Lead us into the light of your presence and bring us to your kingdom given in the birth, for which we now prepare, your son Jesus Christ. AMEN