The Third Sunday of Advent

Preached by The Very Reverend Robert Neske, Dean, at Saint Mark’s Pro-Cathedral, Hastings, December 13, 2009

Of the many people we encounter in the New Testament, John the Baptist is arguably the most interesting person to be found, a part from Jesus himself. John is also the most pivotal; for it is in the person of the Baptizer that the old and new covenants find their bridge. John is the last of the prophets of Israel and the first prophet of the Kingdom of God that is about to be established with the coming of Jesus into the world and on to the scene.

 Not surprisingly, John’s preaching before the crowds is wholly consistent with what was proclaimed by the ancient prophets of Israel, for his preaching contains the three elements common to all four of the major and twelve minor prophets recorded in the Hebrew Bible: the ethical, the apocalyptic, and the Messianic. God has ethical expectations of the people of God, God is about to reveal a great work and God’s anointed one, God’s messiah is coming.

 We find these same elements in our Gospel. There is a radical apocalypticism in John’s preaching, not only as he warns of the coming wrath of God, but also as he foretells the radical reordering of the spiritual landscape which will mark a new beginning in the salvation history of humankind. No longer will the age-old assumptions, or long held traditions of tribe and custom hold sway. Not even those of the Baptizer himself. Descent from Abraham will mean nothing of itself; the baptism will mean nothing of itself, what will matter most to God will be the changed lives of those who have faith.

 If Abrahamic descent was meaningless in the eyes of God and ritual cleansing meant even less, then what John the Baptist was proclaiming was a salvation offered not merely to a particular people, but to all people. In short John was proclaiming a universality that was unthinkable up to that time. What is common-place and pretty ho-hum to our eyes was horrifyingly radical to the tribal mindset of First Century Judaism; as it remains even to this day in the many parts of the world where tribal identity is everything.

Which may be why we hear such stridency in the response of the people to John’s very disturbing message: “What then shall we do?”

 ‘What then shall we do?’ It is a very disturbing question, especially when it is asked in response to learning that everything you thought was simply “the way things are in this world, is not that way at all. What then shall we do?

 The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy came to be haunted by this question. It so troubled him that he ultimately abandoned organized Christianity, because it seemed to him that the Church had failed to adequately respond to this question in terms of improving the lives of the faithful. As it happened, after much spiritual turmoil Tolstoy found the answer in John’s response to the crowd: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” In other words, we must do what we can, with what we have, wherever and whenever we find there is a need. We must love those whom God has placed in our path. Not the most brilliant, the most visionary or the most dramatic answer, only the most authentic and the most down to earth.

 John the Baptist may have been a prophet, but he was also a realist. He doesn’t say, “Save the world” or “Come with me into the desert;” he doesn’t prescribe sacrifice, ritual or penitence; rather he issues a call for unselfishness; a call for individual responsibility. What a concepts?

 John had no illusions about human nature and neither does Jesus. Unlike our own day, their concern was not the world as it ought to be, rather they called us to deal with the world as it is and make it better, if only just a little bit. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 Love with justice, love with compassion, love in the most ordinary forms; this is the core of the Baptizer’s ethical teachings; doing what we can where we are to meet the needs of those we meet and those around us. As the protagonist in the Martin Scorsese film, Mean Streets observes: “Religion isn’t what you do in Church, its what you do on the street.”

It is the importance of individual decision; it is what we do about our baptism; it is what we do about our faith, it is what we do with our life, for as the Gospel notes elsewhere: “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

 So radical and so radically simple was John’s response that Luke tells us the people were in expectation that he might be the messiah. To which John replied, “No.” But one who is more powerful than I is coming…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

 In Advent we hear John prophesy the coming of the Holy Spirit. For Luke and for the Church, the fulfillment of John’s prophesying will take place at Pentecost. You see, for Luke the Evangelist these are not isolated incidents, or the haphazard, random accidents of human history, for Luke there are no accidents.

 These seasons of ours are but the pale reflection of the Divine drama scripted in the mind of Almighty God ‘for us and for our salvation.’

 One is coming. In this truth we find ourselves called once more to escape the wrath of God which is to come, by simple works of love which must at all times and in all places be our first choice as disciples of the Christ. So that as Paul reminds us in the epistle: “Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 What then shall we do?

 We shall do and must do what we have learned in Christ for it is to this work we have been called.