Are you looking forward to Christmas – now there’s a sentence that can mean more than one thing!
Our link theme for the readings today is “Jesus who is to come”.
Last week in the morning we looked at Mark’s account of John the Baptist’s ministry, and today we look at the same events, through John’s eyes.
It’s all about looking forward, and being sure we’re ready for what’s coming. That’s why I said my opening question could have more than one meaning.
I will admit to having a certain sympathy with the humbug club, a group of self confessed grumpy old men from the Victory pub in Walton on the Naze, who are campaigning against Christmas.
“Against Christmas?” you exclaim, “how can the vicar be sympathetic to that”
Well, It’s because the Christmas these chaps are against is the one that starts just after Halloween (and don’t get me started on that) and is a purely commercial exercise. They are in favour of Christmas as being one day long, not three months.
You see I don’t look forward to that kind of Christmas, because it muddies the waters of the true meaning of the festival – not about material gifts and gastronomic excess, but about the gift of a child into poverty, who would live, die and rise again to redeem humanity.
Advent is about preparing for Christmas as in the 25th of December, the mass of Christ, the celebration of his birth but it is also about preparing ourselves for the second advent, the second coming, when there may not be another birth in a stable, but Jesus will return to earth one day. This is of course a good thing, and advent and Christmas are also about giving thanks and rejoicing in the wonderful provision our God has made for our salvation.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul also tells us to rejoice, pray and give thanks. In all circumstances to hold fast to what is good and to avoid evil, so that we may be found to be blameless at 'the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ', which liturgically is now not very far off. So on Christmas day, will you be ready to worship, or just ready to curl up in front of the telly? Of course Paul is clear that the coming of Christ will be a final historical event, not a repeatable act of worship. We vicars struggle sometimes to put across Christmas in a fresh way each year; with the Second Advent, we won’t have that problem!
I think it is very important to look carefully at Paul’s instructions at the end of 1 Thessalonians, which are after all given in the light of the coming of the Lord. We need to be certain we have read this chapter properly for lots of reasons. Some are to do with the theology of the end of the world, but in the time we have today I can’t cover all of that, so let’s focus on verses 16 to 18.
I had a friend a few years ago whose faith was very strange. When she fell over and broke her ankle she said “thank you Lord for that”. I asked her what she was on about and she pointed me to 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18, so I duly went and read it
“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”.
The key word is the third one “in”; not “for”. My friend had a skewed vision of how God wanted her to behave; she thanked God that she had broken her ankle. What he was wanting her to do was to thank him for his saving grace, love and power, even though she had broken her ankle. This is no the same thing, is it?
Now obviously in retrospect we can often see that unfortunate circumstances are used by God to bring about the good things in our lives. For example if Ruth had not been off sick from work in 1992 I would never have met her and we wouldn’t be here today. I’m sure many of you can tell similar stories.
But if we’re thinking about advent, it’s not about what’s happening to us, it’s about what’s going to happen with God, and Paul wants his readers to be clear on what that is (hence the “thief in the night” stuff earlier in the chapter) and how they should prepare such that with the help of the Spirit they will be blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the gospel reading we continue the theme of authentic preparation for Jesus who is to come. John the Baptist is preparing the way, but now in John's version the story has been written in a completely fresh way. This is John the Baptist's only appearance in the fourth Gospel, save that the passage continues to verse 37 with the reference to Jesus being the Lamb of God, but that reference to the paschal lamb is about Easter rather than Christmas.
The Evangelist's theological statement about John in verses 6-8 is followed by a short narrative from verse 19 which expands a little on what we saw last week in Mark. Verse 19 looks aggressively anti-Jewish in style but the Greek word Ioudaioi can also be translated Judeans, which is more appropriate here as the priests and Levites in question come from Jerusalem, the capital of the province that the Romans called Judea. They would not actually have been sent by the Pharisees (v. 24) who were a lay group who had little political power, though much social influence.
When questioned, John came clean and said he was not the messiah (as he had disciples, there may have been people who thought he was). Nor was he Elijah, nor the prophet of Deuteronomy 18.15-19 who would be a successor to Moses. His only claim, through the words of Isaiah (40.3 again), is that he prepares the way for the messiah, the successor of Elijah and Moses. John, then, is very keen to make sure people get the right message about the messiah – that it’s Jesus who is to come, and not himself, and that the messiah will not be as people expect – the Lamb of God terminology we read later in the chapter can only have had sacrificial meaning for his original hearers.
The priests' question about why John baptises is odd. Why shouldn't he cleanse people with water in a ritual of repentance? Indeed if you go to Jerusalem today you will see many ancient ritual baths known as mikvahs – or to be more accurate, mikva’ot, in which Jews prepared themselves for a visit to the temple. In these, there is a sort of twin tub system whereby the worshipper walked down one set of steps immersing their body in water, before moving over to another compartment and climbing back out. So baptism, which just means, “dunking” in Greek, was not a new phenomenon; it’s just John’s was more specifically a baptism of repentance in the light of the arrival of God’s promised messiah. He also de-ritualised it by doing it in a river, not in a special bath.
This question of baptism was probably not a Jewish problem from around AD 28, so much as a Christian problem at the end of the first century: why should John baptise when – as we know – Christian baptism is the real baptism? Surprisingly there is no mention here of baptism in the Holy Spirit (cf. Mark 1.8) – we have to wait for John 3.1-10 for that – though John makes it clear that someone greater is about to come after him. And of course Jesus’ command to baptise in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit re-aligned the parameters of baptism and made it a specifically Christian thing. Let’s not forget that some people in Acts 19 received the Holy Spirit after Paul prays for them and lays his hands on them, because they had only received the baptism of John.
So, Paul and John want their hearers to be ready for Christ’s coming; if we are more concerned about whether the tree, the turkey and the mince pies are ready, then we would do well to reconsider their words.
Not that we have anything to fear, but because God wants us to be ready, and as Paul says, “the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it”.
Monday 15 December 2008
Tuesday 9 December 2008
Lindsell and Stebbing December 7th Advent 2
Active preparation unites today's readings. In Isaiah a road is to be prepared for the king. In Mark, John the Baptist declares the need for repentance before the King comes.
Old Testament The original context for the prophecy of Isaiah 40.1-11 was exile in Babylon about 540 BC and the hope of return to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2) but as a reading for Advent, Isaiah's hope of salvation looks to the Christ. The original unspecified “voice” of verse 3 becomes in Mark's Gospel, John the Baptist.
The first image in Isaiah’s prophecy is of the land being smoothed for God's pathway, when 'the glory of the Lord will be revealed' – a line that always draws the musically inclined to the first part of Handel's Messiah. The prophet then reminds us of our mortality (Brahms' German Requiem according to my sources) but while we wither like grass, 'the word of our God will stand for ever'. Advent is perhaps a difficult time for some, especially if they have been bereaved this past year, and are dreading the first Christmas without their loved one; these verses can offer hope – things in our lives may change, but God’s word is always the same. And by the way that doesn’t mean that all my sermons are going to be the same as last Christmas.
The word here is the 'good tidings', the evangelion, which we translate as 'gospel'. Who is this word for? Well, for Isaiah it is to Zion – i.e. Jerusalem, but standing for the whole nation longing to return from exile.
And what is the message - that 'here is your God' (v. 9). This is the kind of God they were to expect; God comes as a warrior in verse 10 but Isaiah then uses conventional pastoral imagery to portray God's future care for his people (v. 11). So the Lord will come in power, but not without the gentleness and care of a shepherd.
For Mark, the message is also for Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, so perhaps not quite so wide in its scope at first glance, but really Mark’s point is that John’s words focus the coming of the Lord in power and with love as prophesied by Isaiah, on the coming of his cousin, Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 1.1-8 is about preparation too. The opening sentence tells us first what kind of literature we are about to read: gospel, good news. Although it takes the form of a narrative, it will not be an objective, chronological biography. While the book is about a historical figure and will be full of historical information, it is a news broadcast and the news is about a victory – euangelion is the word Rome used to announce an imperial victory.
Jesus is introduced in Mark 1 verse 1 as the Christ, which means 'anointed one' (messiah in Hebrew) and this places him in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. That verse also makes a bit of a nonsense the idea that Mark was trying to hide Jesus’ true identity. If he wanted to conceal it, why put it in the first sentence of your work?
The messiah is the anointed king of Israel. These expectations of a new, divinely appointed king frame many of our readings for this period before Christmas. 'Son of God' was an expression used of the Jewish king and could indeed be used of any of God's people. It does not necessarily at this point in the narrative refer directly to the divine son as in the second person of a trinity, but it would be wrong if we never read that sense back into these words. After the introductory sentence, there is no mention of Jesus, but because we have read the story before we know who John means when he speaks of “one more powerful than I”.
Before John is named, he is placed in the context of a divine plan. In Malachi 3.1 God announces that he is sending his messenger to prepare your, i.e. the people's, way. Mark combines this with Isaiah 40.3 prophesying that one from the wilderness will come to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Clearly Mark understands John to be the messenger and Jesus now to be the Lord, kurios, the word used of God in the Greek Old Testament. Such a high christology shows that 'son of God' in verse 1 does imply divinity.
John appears in the Jordan valley, which is only just 'the wilderness' and it is certainly an exaggeration to say that all of Judea and Jerusalem went to hear him, but that exaggeration is perhaps justified in showing the impact of the message that John fore ran and foretold.
I do find the slightly different punctuation between the two passages intriguing. Isaiah’s sense is that the way for the Lord will be prepared in the desert, and so in Mark we have John – the voice – calling in the desert, but the way itself is not just in the desert by the time we get to Jesus. So John is himself (by being in the wilderness) fulfilling not just the voice role but the preparation too.
The dress and diet of John (v. 6) show him to be an Elijah figure (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). This is important because Elijah is said not to have died but to have been taken straight to heaven, so the belief grew that Elijah would return to earth to announce the beginning of the messianic age.
John is not Elijah, but he carries out Elijah's role. In order to prepare for this new event in Israel, indeed to prepare for a new Israel, John began a movement of national repentance with a ritual of mass baptism (literally a 'washing') in which people confessed their sins in anticipation of their forgiveness. This then is the heart of the preparation that Mark, in the mouth of John, calls his readers to.
But the one who is coming will wash them in the Holy Spirit, reflecting what we read about Christian baptism elsewhere in the New Testament. So the great story begins, although, in the spirit of Advent, we have to wait until after Christmas to resume Mark's narrative.
(using material from Rootsontheweb by Geoffrey Turner)
Old Testament The original context for the prophecy of Isaiah 40.1-11 was exile in Babylon about 540 BC and the hope of return to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2) but as a reading for Advent, Isaiah's hope of salvation looks to the Christ. The original unspecified “voice” of verse 3 becomes in Mark's Gospel, John the Baptist.
The first image in Isaiah’s prophecy is of the land being smoothed for God's pathway, when 'the glory of the Lord will be revealed' – a line that always draws the musically inclined to the first part of Handel's Messiah. The prophet then reminds us of our mortality (Brahms' German Requiem according to my sources) but while we wither like grass, 'the word of our God will stand for ever'. Advent is perhaps a difficult time for some, especially if they have been bereaved this past year, and are dreading the first Christmas without their loved one; these verses can offer hope – things in our lives may change, but God’s word is always the same. And by the way that doesn’t mean that all my sermons are going to be the same as last Christmas.
The word here is the 'good tidings', the evangelion, which we translate as 'gospel'. Who is this word for? Well, for Isaiah it is to Zion – i.e. Jerusalem, but standing for the whole nation longing to return from exile.
And what is the message - that 'here is your God' (v. 9). This is the kind of God they were to expect; God comes as a warrior in verse 10 but Isaiah then uses conventional pastoral imagery to portray God's future care for his people (v. 11). So the Lord will come in power, but not without the gentleness and care of a shepherd.
For Mark, the message is also for Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, so perhaps not quite so wide in its scope at first glance, but really Mark’s point is that John’s words focus the coming of the Lord in power and with love as prophesied by Isaiah, on the coming of his cousin, Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 1.1-8 is about preparation too. The opening sentence tells us first what kind of literature we are about to read: gospel, good news. Although it takes the form of a narrative, it will not be an objective, chronological biography. While the book is about a historical figure and will be full of historical information, it is a news broadcast and the news is about a victory – euangelion is the word Rome used to announce an imperial victory.
Jesus is introduced in Mark 1 verse 1 as the Christ, which means 'anointed one' (messiah in Hebrew) and this places him in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. That verse also makes a bit of a nonsense the idea that Mark was trying to hide Jesus’ true identity. If he wanted to conceal it, why put it in the first sentence of your work?
The messiah is the anointed king of Israel. These expectations of a new, divinely appointed king frame many of our readings for this period before Christmas. 'Son of God' was an expression used of the Jewish king and could indeed be used of any of God's people. It does not necessarily at this point in the narrative refer directly to the divine son as in the second person of a trinity, but it would be wrong if we never read that sense back into these words. After the introductory sentence, there is no mention of Jesus, but because we have read the story before we know who John means when he speaks of “one more powerful than I”.
Before John is named, he is placed in the context of a divine plan. In Malachi 3.1 God announces that he is sending his messenger to prepare your, i.e. the people's, way. Mark combines this with Isaiah 40.3 prophesying that one from the wilderness will come to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Clearly Mark understands John to be the messenger and Jesus now to be the Lord, kurios, the word used of God in the Greek Old Testament. Such a high christology shows that 'son of God' in verse 1 does imply divinity.
John appears in the Jordan valley, which is only just 'the wilderness' and it is certainly an exaggeration to say that all of Judea and Jerusalem went to hear him, but that exaggeration is perhaps justified in showing the impact of the message that John fore ran and foretold.
I do find the slightly different punctuation between the two passages intriguing. Isaiah’s sense is that the way for the Lord will be prepared in the desert, and so in Mark we have John – the voice – calling in the desert, but the way itself is not just in the desert by the time we get to Jesus. So John is himself (by being in the wilderness) fulfilling not just the voice role but the preparation too.
The dress and diet of John (v. 6) show him to be an Elijah figure (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). This is important because Elijah is said not to have died but to have been taken straight to heaven, so the belief grew that Elijah would return to earth to announce the beginning of the messianic age.
John is not Elijah, but he carries out Elijah's role. In order to prepare for this new event in Israel, indeed to prepare for a new Israel, John began a movement of national repentance with a ritual of mass baptism (literally a 'washing') in which people confessed their sins in anticipation of their forgiveness. This then is the heart of the preparation that Mark, in the mouth of John, calls his readers to.
But the one who is coming will wash them in the Holy Spirit, reflecting what we read about Christian baptism elsewhere in the New Testament. So the great story begins, although, in the spirit of Advent, we have to wait until after Christmas to resume Mark's narrative.
(using material from Rootsontheweb by Geoffrey Turner)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)