Advent III Year C – Preached at St Matthew’s Carver Street
Zephaniah 3:14-18
Isaiah 12
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:10-18
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We do not suffer in a world short of those willing to tell us what we should do. “Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street” “Just stop oil” “Drink raw milk” “Don’t eat meat” “Eat nothing but meat” in our pockets in our phone screens in the newspapers and on our bookshelves a thousand new prophets proclaim from a thousand mountain peaks what is that we should do to be fitter, happier, and more productive.
We are at the end of all things: How shall we save the world? How shall we save ourselves?
We meet John the cousin of Jesus in today’s Gospel and hear how he has drawn great crowds to himself. This wild man out in the wilderness wearing camel skin and eating nothing but locusts and wild honey who washes people in the River Jordan has become the centre of a religious revival in the time of the tyrannical Emperor Tiberius with everyone from Pharisees to Tax Collectors coming to receive the cleansing he offers.
John’s Baptism is different to Christian Baptism in many respects but one similarity it shares is that it is a new beginning. These People come to the Jordan, the river which Joshua led the people through so they could take possession of their Promised Land many generations before. This ritual washing in the Jordan is a new start for the people of Judea who by doing so are making a profession that they now intend to follow God’s ways and walk in His paths.
And so after making this sign of their repentance they turn to John and ask: What, then, shall we do?
“Whoever has two tunics is to share with one who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise”
What? Is that it? They might reply. We suffer under the heel of the Roman Empire. We are beset by corrupt leaders and priests who do not care for us. Our wealth is snatched away to fund the great beast and our tribes lie scattered through the world.
This teaching is not new, not to the People of God. In fact John is referring to Isaiah, which was written about 700 years earlier. Specifically the 58th chapter when the Prophet tells the people of God:
[6] “Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
[7] Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Or the Prophet Ezekiel who ministered a few decades later, in Chapter 18 declares:
[5] “If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—[6] if he does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, [8] does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, [9] walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD.
Now when we read our Bibles we will notice there are several key moments of the story of the People of God that shape it. The creation and fall of humanity; the Exodus of God’s people and their liberation from slavery; the reign of David and Solomon; and the long and tragic apostasy of the Chosen People and their exile from the promised Land. For when they entered it they did so based on a Covenant – if they kept their faith and kept the Law of God they would enjoy His blessing and security, but if they broke faith they would be disciplined and driven from their land. This is especially detailed in Deuteronomy 28.
And if John is calling the people to step up and keep the Law as in days of old he is not the first. Our Old Testament readings today comes from the Prophet Zephaniah who ministered in the time of King Josiah. Josiah became King of Judah in 640 BC and in his time he restored the House of God. During the renovations they found again the Book of the Law of Moses – probably what we would call the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
2 Kings 22:11-13
[11] When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. And he commanded the Priests “Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
You can read more about Josiah in 2 Kings 22 and 23, suffice to say that in his day his reforms were extensive. He tears down the places of idolatry and teaches the people to once again obey the Law of God. The narrator summarises his reign saying 2 Kings 23:25
[25] Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.
But the tragedy of Josiah is that all his works were not enough to save the people of God from exile. Their sins, you see, had gone too deep. Their rebellion had already dethroned God. Their idolatry had made their saviour and Lord a stranger to them.
If John is another revivalist stirring the people up to have another go at keeping the Law of God, he is not the first to do so and indeed even to our day we have such people, bringing up a shining spectre of a past that never was to answer our anxieties about the way things are today.
Luke tells us that “So with many other exhortations John preached good news to the people”
But what is this good news? Is he telling us that this time, if we try really hard, we’ll get it right?
No. That might be the word that the world wants to hear, but it is a false promise.
John goes ahead of his cousin, Jesus Christ the Son of God and announces:
[16] “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. [17] His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John stands on the bank of the Jordan to wait. He is waiting for someone. He is waiting for someone who perfectly obeys the Law of God, who is righteous and just, who will rescue the poor, who will liberate the oppressed. And so when he is asked “what then shall we do” the answer is both a test and a prophecy.
For it is not for lack of clothes and food, or due to the oppression of the Romans that the people of God suffer. The people suffer in nakedness and hunger because they are under a curse, a curse which has held us all in its cold grip ever since our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God. And because of their disobedience and ours, we hide from God because we know that we are naked and we are ashamed. And having left God’s abundant Garden we toil for our food and eat by the sweat of our brows. As wandering orphans we have fallen under the brutal reign of Sin which extorts from us our lives and our loves, cheating us everyday of the goodness God has intended for us.
John stands on the Bank of the Jordan not because he is asking us to do better, but because One is coming who will do what we can’t and will be what we aren’t. He comes in judgement yes, and great fear, but this judgement is good news because it is judgement against our true enemy of Sin and our everlasting foe, Death.
And today we celebrate two more people snatched from the jaws of death, cleaned from the stain of Sin, and given new clothes, the pure white garment of Salvation in Christ. Jayden and Harrison have done nothing to earn this gift – is it won for them by this Mighty Saviour who has come into the world.
May we, with them, go forth clothed, and fed, and with fire in our bones sharing this Good News with our neighbours and friends. They may never stop asking “What then shall we do?” but we must tell them what has already been done for them.
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Finally Human 