Year A Second Sunday of Advent 8 December 2013
Isaiah 11: 1-10 Psalm 72: 1-7, 18-19 Romans 15: 4-13 Matthew 3: 1-12
IT is the second Sunday of Advent. Our first Sunday message was to “wake up”, but this Sunday we look at what we need to do be prepared for the coming of Christ. We look at how people prepared for Jesus first coming, consider how to be prepared for his second coming, but most importantly we reflect on how to prepare or check for our own personal acceptance of Jesus in our lives .
Just before Jesus began his ministry there was this man we know as John the Baptist, who came and prepared the way for him. It is important that we look at what John did and what his message was because, in oh so many ways, this is what we need to be doing to prepare ourselves to receive Christ.
Matthew 3:1 “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.””
This is how John prepared the way; he encouraged them that the Kingdom of heaven had come near and that the people should therefore repent.
We know that the kingdom of heaven had come near, because we know that God himself had taken on human flesh and been born as one of us. At this point in the story Jesus is believed to have been about 30 years old.
When we read the stories of the Bible we can make two possible mistakes. One mistake is to imagine that the people of the Bible times were nothing like us. The other mistake is to imagine that the people of the Bible were exactly like us. Somewhere in between is the truth. These were a people born in another place and time and into a culture that was very different from our own and yet these were flesh and blood people with hopes and dreams, ambitions and fears and desires – very much like us.
Just as the message would be pretty unpopular in our culture, I wonder how popular John’s message was when he urged the people to repent. If we look at more of the Bible stories we can see that the poorer and more humble of the people were very ready to accept that they were people who fell very short of the perfection of God and they were aware that they couldn't meet the requirements to be accepted by him. Even the Scribes and Pharisees, who were known for being self-righteous and indignant about their own goodness, came to John to be baptized and accepted his message of repentance.
In today’s society I’m pretty sure that if I proclaimed this same message of John the Baptist, I would most certainly offend and be condemned as a loony (no one believes that they fall short. I have met so many men who have told me how they are really good blokes and deserving of good things!!). But let us look at what this message really is and see if it is something we need to do today.
Firstly, has the kingdom of heaven near?
When Jesus came to earth we can understand that the kingdom of heaven had come near in a very real and tangible way, but Jesus then ascended to heaven. What has happened since then is that Jesus sent the promised Holy Spirit to his followers. The Holy Spirit is God in us. Yes the kingdom of heaven is nearer than ever, it is all around and among us. “Emmanuel” – GOD IS WITH US! (and Christmas (the celebration of God with us) is everyday!)
Now we need to look at the part of the message that urges us to repent. Do we need to repent and what really is repentance?
Often people think that repentance has to do with an intense feeling of remorse and self-loathing…. This is wrong! Repentance actually means to change your mind and go back another way. Essentially this is not about the emotions, but a very definite decision made by the intellect that we need to change our thinking.
Do we and the world around us in the year 2013 need to change our thinking?
Romans 15:4 “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”
Does the world seem to be in need of hope? I think that the answer to this is so obvious that the question is really rhetorical. We learn from this letter to the Romans that all things written in scripture are written for our encouragement and to give us hope. If John the Baptist had a message that gave people hope some 2013 years ago then that same message is meant to provide even more encouragement and hope for today.
The people of John’s time were waiting for the “Messiah” (the anointed one who would reconcile humanity with God) and he seemed to be a long time in coming, and they’d all but given up. When John came with his message to repent we can’t possibly know the full extent of that message in the hearts of his listeners, but we can only imagine. Yes, there were some who had knowingly been doing something that went against God’s law, but more than that was an underlying belief that all this God stuff, as revealed in the Jewish law, was not real.
Now, don’t get me wrong…. This was a different culture to ours and all were very much believers in a spiritual reality, but just what that reality was and how it all worked had become rather confused with the customs, beliefs and traditions of the people around them. This chosen people were surrounded by Baal worship, the Roman gods, Greek philosophies and many forms of religion that we would deem to be sects, cults and even occultic. Just like today, many popular ideas became accepted that were not true to God’s revelation and we need only to see the differences between the Saducees and Pharisees to realize the varieties of popular thought, and or, confusion.
The call to repent was a call to acknowledge the error in thinking and believing as much, if not more so, than the actions of the individuals who repented. It is from our beliefs come our actions – and we find this confirmed by John’s words when he warns the pharisees and scribes to produce fruit in keeping with repentance…. In other words…. Show, by your actions, that you are “fair dinkum” about what you believe.
There is a question now for us. Do our actions show what we believe? Or… What do our actions tell people that we believe?
When we have pondered that, we need to then ask how can we pose this same message of John’s to our own community. What is it that we need to ask them to change their mind about?
In order to receive Christ, people in the year 2013 need to see the error of their thinking. They need to be convinced that they need Jesus in their lives. This is a generation that has everything they need in a physical sense and most things that they want so why would they want or see any need for God or Jesus in their lives?
Isaiah 11 tells us about the nature of Jesus and about the Good News that we, the church are meant to be proclaiming to the world:
Isaiah 11:1-5 “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD— and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.”
The “shoot from the stump of Jesse” refers to Jesus, as Jesse was the ancestor of Christ. We know that the Holy Spirit was with him and this same spirit he gives to us – we HAVE this Holy Spirit… and it is wisdom, understanding, counsel, might and knowledge…. It is a Spirit of insight which doesn't judge by outward appearances. It doesn't leave the homosexual outcast, but it doesn't condone evil as good either. It sees through the outer actions and perceives the heart, and it cares for the poor and is concerned with justice.
A long time ago when I made an adult Christian commitment, it came about through a church in Brisbane where I was awe struck on my first encounter with them because of the amazing mature wisdom of the youth. I’d never come across it before and sensed the hand of God beyond any doubt. I suspect that the group had no idea of the impression they made…. It was surely the Holy Spirit at work.
We need to so receive God and his Holy Spirit that we too shine with this Good News. There is hope for this world and this life and the life beyond, but it can only be found by REPENTING!! We need to repent of our beliefs that we can find wisdom and understanding, counsel and knowledge ANYWHERE else but through the Holy Spirit. It is true that there are pieces of wisdom in many places, but the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, understanding and counsel from God surpasses all.
This Sunday, I ask us all to see where we need to change our mind…. Where we need to acknowledge the supremacy of God and turn our lives around to reflect this.
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