2024 12 08 Second Sunday of Advent Year C
Malachi
3:1-4 Luke
1:68-79 Philippians
1:3-11 Luke
3:1-6
We live in a time of fulfilled promise and a time of promises yet to be
fulfilled. Jesus has come and has
redeemed us, but he will come again. As
we reflect through this season, we read the message of John the Baptist who
called all to be baptised for the forgiveness of sins. We have already been baptised and forgiven
and live in the light of Christ and God’s love, but we need to heed the message
to be baptised again in our minds…. After all, repentance is a word translated
from the Greek word Metanoia and means to change our minds. For us, this means to submit to God and bring
our minds into line with God’s word.
As we open our minds to the message of John the Baptist, and bring our
minds into line with the word of God, we prepare ourselves to receive the next
part of God’s promise…. We prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ.
Practically speaking, why would we do this and of what benefit is it
that we answer the call to be baptised in our minds, aligning our minds with
the word of God? I don’t know how you
feel about things, but I sense there is a constant denial of the word of God in
our society, and it even creeps into our churches. It is the thought process that says we
believe in God, but we don’t get too carried away. We believe that God loves everyone and
forgives all, but perhaps, we don’t believe that God requires any other action
from us. It is also the thought process
whereby we believe that Christ will come again… but not in our lifetime. The implication of living this way means that
we will be a bit relaxed about the word of God and won’t necessarily take it
all to heart…. Just the bits that suit us.
So, my question in this is; what if Christ does come again in our
lifetime? Would it change our attitude
and our lifestyles if we knew that Christ was coming back on the 1st
of January 2025?
The word of God came to John the Baptist, but prior to this the word of
God came to his father Zechariah, and also the word of God came to Malachi in
our first reading. Malachi lived about
500 years before Christ was born, yet the Word of the Lord came to prepare them
and it spoke about the one who would prepare the way of the Lord, in other
words, it spoke about John the Baptist.
But there is something important that we need to realize about this
prophecy; partially it speaks about the first coming of Christ and partially it
speaks about the second coming. These
words from Malachi are more in line with other scriptures describing the second
coming; “3:2But 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 washers' soap;”
Today we light our second
Advent candle of Peace. As we do, we
reflect on our world and that it is a long way from realizing the Peace heralded
by the Angels at that first Christmas. It
has been suggested that the message of Peace at Christmas, is the reason we
have so many Christmas movies about broken relationship being mended. However, the refiner’s fire and washer’s soap
doesn’t sound very peaceful.
I think a helpful analogy is
that of washing a grubby toddler. There
is no peace in the washing, but when it is done, that washing does bring
peace. Zechariah prophesied that his son
would be prophet of the most-high God and that he would give the people
knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In this prophecy is also the message about
God’s love and about God’s light which guides us through the shadow of death to
the way of peace. “… to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."
Here in this life, we often find ourselves
walking in the shadow of death. We are
surrounded by a society that has ways that do not lead to life. I don’t mean to say that everything about our
society is bad… it isn’t. And we know
that our leaders strive to bring life to the community, but there certainly are
decisions made that don’t lead to life – especially lately - and there certainly are spiritual powers and
principalities at work in our society that are opposing the way of God. In our town we have an increasing number of
empty shops, many overgrown with weeds and in disrepair. We also can boast of having one of the
highest rates of mental health problems in Australia, with the highest suicide
rate, and we are known by some as, Mack town – Crack town. Meaning that we have a high drug usage. One of the government solutions to the drug
problem is the possibility of legalizing some of the drug use, and relaxing the
laws on those caught with illicit drugs.
(”A Bill has just been passed by Queensland
parliament which, among other things, creates a
‘three strike’ system for minor drug offences in Queensland. The legislation
relaxes the current laws that police must follow, allowing three chances before
a person can be sent to court for most low-level drug offences — including
possession of cannabis, ice, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, ketamine and
steroids. The new legislation came into
effect on 3 May 2024. “) Depending on your circle of friends and places you go, you might be
completely unaware that we are living in the shadow of death. The word of God acknowledges the reality of
our world. We live in the shadow of
death, but Christ came to guide our feet to the path of peace.
Peace isn’t being nice and
kind and glossing over problems. The
peace that came heralded by the Angels at the coming of Christ, is the peace
that came through the sacrifice of Jesus, which restores us to our unimpaired
relationship with God. Peace comes at a
price and we are told that for the second coming, that Jesus will come with the
refiner’s fire and washer’s soap.
The ways to peace and life
in our community (remember we pray His kingdom come…), comes through us being
involved in our community. We have some Christian
people in our council at the moment and they need our prayers. Four of them have fought to get pornography
out of the library and one confided to me that she was surprised that it was a
fight. She thought it would be a given
that all decent people would vote against having this in our library. We live in the shadow of death!
We know the reality of our
world…. The fighting…. That lack of peace, but we are reminded today that
Christ is coming. He was promised many
years ago and although the prophesy was fulfilled in his first coming, there is
more; He will come again. The prophesy
from Malachi was about 500 years before Christ.
Why was this prophesy given and of what use was it to the people of his
time?
We are called to heed the
message of John the Baptist and turn our minds to be in line with the word of
God, we are also meant to then take on the ministry of John the Baptist. We are the ones who are to call people to be
Baptised for the forgiveness of sins. We
are the voice in the wilderness crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord”. Maybe not in those exact words, but in the
ways that we bring life and light to our community, standing firm against
issues that don’t bring life, we do prepare the way of the Lord. We open the doors of people’s hearts so that
they can receive the message of God… so that they, along with us can be cleaned
and refined. And then there is peace.
Philippians tells us; “And
this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and
full insight to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day
of Christ you may be pure and blameless,…”
When we live like this, we live in peace.
The Christmas carol, What
Child is This, has these words; “Good Christians fear for sinners here. The silent word is pleading.” God’s love seeks to reach every heart. What the song is saying is that good
Christians should fear that those who’ve not turned to Christ are living in
trouble and will experience more trouble if not for the intervention of God,
and so we are called to prepare the way.
To do this we need the word of God to come to us, as it did to all those
we read about today – and it comes to us easily in this century; We open our Bibles and read.
A toddler will fight the
bath, not understanding that it is an action done in love. A parent washes the toddler because they love
and care for them. God loves and cares
for us. This refiners fire and washer’s
soap sounds harsh, but it is for the ultimate good… it is meant to show the
complete clean that only God can bring.
There is nothing to fear for us who’ve turned to God, because Jesus
makes us clean. John `15:3 says; “ You
are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” Once again, we notice that the word of God is
the key. We are cleaned by the word of
God… by Jesus… by repenting in our mind and completely accepting the word of
God – not doubting … it is the way of true PEACE – being at peace with God and
bringing life and peace to our world. Let
us, this day, speak to God in prayer, with willingness to fully believe in His
word.
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