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On Sunday 22nd December at 6.30pm, make a bee line for church for a traditional service of lessons and carols.
There is no better way to be reminded of the importance of the Nativity than through this familiar selection of readings and music.
This morning, on the last Sunday of Advent, both Joseph and Ahaz receive a sign from God. Signs give us strength and hope, they show us that we are on the right path. The sign given to king Ahaz in Isaiah 7:10-26 is the same as the sign given to Joseph in Matthew 1:18-25, a newborn child. King Ahaz rejects the sign. He is going into battle he wants a sign of power and might. He wants to know that God will strengthen his army and grant him victory, he wants a sign of power and might. The child is a sign of vulnerability and need.
The sign God gives points towards a choice: we can, like Ahaz, focus on securing our position in the world, we can seek to negotiate with power, to ally ourselves with the rich and the mighty. Or, like Jospeh, we can choose to ally ourselves with the most vulnerable.
We too want a sign, a sign that everything will turn out alright, for ourselves and our families, for our community and our nation, for the world. The sign God sends us to follow is still the same: a child, a vulnerable infant. This is the path God points us towards: to stand with the poor, protect the weak, support and uphold those in need. This is the path that leads us to a future all can share.
Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” In Matthew 11:2-11, John the Baptist is awaiting execution. In this dark place he wonders whether Jesus is the one who will bring God’s light to the world, the one whom Isaiah 35:1-10 promised when his people were also imprisoned. They both long for a time of freedom and flourishing.
There are times in all our lives when we too question what difference Christ makes to the world when suffering and injustice are still to be seen in every land. Yet Jesus tells us: the blind receive their sight, the lame can walk, the dead are raised to life. We are the blind and lame and dying that Christ heals: he opens our eyes and strengthens our hands in order that we can continue God’s work of healing and liberation.
This Advent the question that John asks, Jesus also asks of us: are we the ones who are to come, or should the world for others?
Today is the second Sunday in Advent, a day when we celebrate the prophets in every generation who call us to a better future. Prophets are not often popular: they insist on telling us things we don’t want to hear; they voice uncomfortable truths; and, most of all, they call us to change. Just so with John the Baptist in Matthew 3:1-12 who warns of “the wrath to come”. He baptises with water but he predicts a baptism of fire. The fire is not punishment for our sins and failings, it is just the inevitable outcome selfish and unethical living, as those living through war and famine and flood know all too well. But the fire of the prophets also offers hope: it burns away all that holds us back to make space for something new to grow and ignites our imaginations so that we can begin to envisage a different future. John calls us to turn around, to turn towards a new future, not on our own but together. As we welcome those to be baptised this morning we remember (and we rejoice) that we are baptised into a community, a community bound together by the fire of the Holy Spirit, the bringer of life. A community charged with reimagining the future. A community called to turn towards that future. A community sent out to live that future into being and bring light and life to the world.
Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of Christ. It is a time of expectation when we wait for Christmas but it is also a time to look forward to the final coming. For Isaiah 2:1-5 this will be time of justice and judgment but also a time of peace which encompasses all peoples and nations. The hope of this day encouraged and comforted God’s people through times of struggle and hardship.
However, Matthew 24:36-44 was written when the hope of Christ coming was diminishing. So Jesus encourages his disciples not to give up hope but to be ready to welcome in the kingdom whenever it comes.
We live between the first and the final coming of Christ. Yet Christ still comes in our ordinary, everyday lives, for “when two or three are gathered in my name there am I, in the midst of them.”
We too are waiting and hoping for justice and peace but in the meantime we are reminded to be ready to welcome Christ whenever and wherever the kingdom breaks through, not at the end of time but in our time.
The feast of Christ the king.
In Luke 23:33-43 this morning we hear Jesus being named King: “There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
It is usually pretty easy to distinguish a king from his subjects. The king is the one with power and authority, the king is the one in charge, the one in whose name laws are made and enforced. But in Luke, when Jesus is named king, he has no power, no authority, no strength even to save himself.
For most of those watching the idea of a king with no power was ridiculous, they scoff and mock and deride him. Christ’s kingship is clearly not the kind of kingship we expect. Jesus does have power yet he chooses never to exert it over others, even to save his own life. In doing so he reveals how power is used and abused: in Luke the soldiers, the religious leaders, the national leaders, even the criminals executed alongside him, make a choice whether not to use the power they have for good.
As we hear again the story of Christ named king on the cross we reflect on the power we have in our own lives. When we choose to use our power to serve, not those with power but those without power; when we give voice to the voiceless, champion the weak and care for those in need, we too become kings with Christ, sharing with him in leading and serving God’s people.
The days are coming when all this will be thrown down,” Jesus tells his followers in Luke 21:5-19, “not one stone will be left.” The day did come when the temple was torn down (as it had been in the past) and the people of God were anxious about the future, fearful about the survival of their faith. Yet, the falling of the temple is used in scripture as a symbol of what needs to be torn down for a new temple to be built and for the people of God to be renewed in God’s image. The safeguarding scandals that have rocked the church have also created fear and anxiety. But Jesus calls us to be unafraid. Our trust in the church may be shaken but our trust in God is renewed. We are the temple of God, the body of Christ, the place where God chooses to dwell on earth. We are the ones called to create a safe church for all: welcoming, inclusive, mindful of the vulnerabilities of those who long for God’s love and care. Micah 6:6-8 reminds us that the power of God and the love of God do not reside in institutions but in our hearts and in our actions. This year’s safeguarding theme is “Action speaks louder”. May our actions be shaped by Christ who teaches us to lift up the downtrodden, strengthen the weak and stand with the powerless in holding the powerful to account. What does the Lord require of us? to do justice, love kind kindness and walk humbly with our God.
On Remembrance Sunday, when we honour and mourn all those who have lost their lives in war, our readings seem to offer comfort: hope of the resurrection of the dead. Both readings speak of a future time when those, like Job, who seek justice will be vindicated and when those who have died will live again as “children of the resurrection.” Yet to focus on life after death may prevent us from engaging in the hard work of justice and peace in this life. Our readings, however, offer another common theme: the perils of needing to be proved right. Job wishes to prove that he does not deserve to suffer. In Job 19:23-27, he wants his words to be remembered because he wants to prove that he is in the right and God is in the wrong. As a result he is stuck. He cannot move forward into new life. The Sadducees in Luke 20:27-38, are also seeking to prove that they are right and Jesus is wrong. They too are stuck, unable to grasp the possibilities of a new and different way of living. Throughout history and across the globe we see how the desire to be proved right at any cost prolongs conflict and inflicts death and destruction on God’s people. Both Job and Luke ask us to embrace life, to prioritise all that is life affirming and life giving, over the rights and wrongs of any position. This is does not mean that we abandon justice but that we see that justice can only ever be achieved when the sanctity of life is honoured. Job pleads for God to be seen on his side but God never chooses sides. God chooses life.
We all admire the saints but do we want to be one? No one would seek to be poor, hungry, excluded, suffering or overlooked, those named blessed by Jesus in Luke 6:20-31. Neither do we really want to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. In the beatitudes Jesus separates success from virtue. The poor are no longer blamed or shamed for their predicament. More than this, for Jesus, blessing is something transformational: the hungry will be blessed “for they will be filled” and those who weep “for they will laugh”.
The work of transformation is not for a few saintly individuals, it is the task of the whole people of God, the task of all the saints including us. In baptism we become part of a company of saints that reaches across the globe and throughout history. We belong a great cloud of witnesses in whose lives, both ordinary and extraordinary, God is work. On the feast of All Saints we are reminded, again, of who we are and to whom we belong. We are reminded, again, of the task we have received, the task of loving, praying, offering, giving and not withholding, the task of transforming the world so that all God’s children may be blessed.