John the Baptist - the forerunner foreseen

Sermon preached at 11am Coral Mattins at St Mary’s Lapworth on Sunday 12th December 2010. A shorter version of this sermon was also preached at the 8.30am Said Eucharist.

Advent III – Year A
Readings: Is 35: 1-10 Matthew 11: 2-11


On the third Sunday of Advent we traditionally think about John the Baptist in his role as the forerunner of the Messiah, preparing the way of the Lord. Now this role of the forerunner, the person to announce the coming Messiah, and to help people to prepare to greet him was a role that had been mapped out in prophecy long before either John the Baptist or Jesus were born. All four of the gospel writers make this point, but Matthew seems particularly keen to emphasis it and he makes several references to the different Old Testament scriptures that foresee John the Baptist.
So for example in the gospel reading that the lectionary scheduled for last week (which we did not actually use it because of the Christingle) Matthew quotes Isaiah 40:3ff “A voice cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God…say to the cities of Judah, here is your God.”
In the gospel reading we heard today Matthew records Jesus quoting from Malachi 3: 1ff where it says, “see I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple”
And if we had read a little further with our gospel reading today we would have heard Jesus make a subtle reference to Malachi 4: 5 which says, “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes” and Jesus affirms that this means John the Baptist.
Now when you go back and read these prophecies in their original OT context, the thing that is very noticeable is the power and glory that the prophets expect to see associated with the Messiah at his coming. Malachi describes his coming as a “great and terrible day” 4: 5). He asks, “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…” (Mal 3: 2). The Isaiah prophecy says, “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together,” and it talks of people withering away like grass when the Lord blows upon it. (Is 40: 5ff)
And this theme of a glorious and terrible coming is also present in the Isaiah passage that we heard this morning, “Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” (Is 35: 4). And this seems to be very consistent with the message of John the Baptist in that gospel reading (which we did not have) last week. John asked the Pharisees and Sadducees, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath come?...even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees.” (Matt 3: 7-10)
Now these prophecies of the Lord coming in glory with vengeance and fire seem to contrast rather with the story of the birth of Jesus, which seems to emphasis the meekness of being excluded from the inn, the poverty of the stable, the joy, peace and goodwill of the angels’ message. So how do we make sense of this difference? Why are the prophecies about the coming of Jesus so different from his actually coming?
Well, for a first century Jew, this difference was pretty clear evidence that Jesus was not the Messiah. The Messiah was meant to establish a kingdom of justice and peace with Israel at its centre. Jesus did not do this, so he can’t be the Messiah.
Now a first century Christian would have probably responded, “Well the first coming of Jesus was all about teaching us to how to live in the kingdom of God; what are its values and its cultural norms, its laws. But the tangible and visible implementation of the kingdom, that is a matter for the second coming of Christ. That’s why we must prepare for the second coming of Christ. That’s why Advent is so important.
Well, it has been a bit of a theme for me this Advent to ask how we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ, how we prepare ourselves for life in God’s kingdom, the everlasting kingdom. And I keep coming back to two important forms of preparation. First there is the internal and invisible preparation that we make building relationship with the coming Jesus through our prayer and worship. Through prayer and worship we seek to know Jesus better, understand better his values and priorities and the specific things that he wants from us in our lives.
Then second there is the outward and visible preparation which is about how we live our lives in society, how we deal with the people around us. And here we prepare ourselves for the kingdom of God by seeking to live out its values here on earth. And so we try to see Jesus present in the people that we meet. We try to help them and serve them. We try to live according to the specific commandments of Jesus – “love one another, as I have loved you.” Now we can only do that in partial way because here on earth we are subject to sin, the sin in ourselves and the sin in the society we live in, but we can humbly hold that sin before God and use the freedom that we do have to live out the values of the kingdom of God, to live for the others, to be generous and merciful. And when we manage to live in this way Jesus’ presence within us is strengthened and grows. And through this training we become better able to live in God’s kingdom, to abide by its laws, live according to its norms and values and to express its culture. And through this, as well, sin is pushed back and obedience to God grows. Little by little we make our own small contribution to the building the kingdom of God on earth. Amen.