3 MESSAGES FOR ADVENT 3

15th December 2008; Advent 3

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Luke 1:46b-55; I Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

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Why did men and women flock to Bethany to hear John and to undergo baptism? Because despite following the religious rules they sensed that something within them was not right. John is a figure who looks back towards our Old Testament and forward to the new as do three great themes in the Bible that speak directly to human difficulties – two in the Old and one in the New testaments.

Three messages from God revealed in physical human situations, each one with a spiritual message.

The first problem is bondage or slavery. The Israelites entered Egypt to escape a problem – that of famine – and it was quite a while before the true cost of the initial excitement and new way of living was revealed. They were enslaved for 400 years. This has strong links with the great bondage of our time – that of addiction. Perhaps begun with a bit of thrill seeking, boredom or problems in life and the human species so quickly reaches for a temporary way out – and we do seem particularly prone to addiction of many different kinds.

There is the bondage of fear. A life of fear caused by other humans or a constant nagging anxiety with nuclear armaments, global warming or disease worrying us.
Or perhaps the bondage of debt, whether caused by our misfortune or greed, or that of another or by a whole society intent on getting and holding rather than sharing.
The Exodus story reminds us that God can and desires to lead us back to freedom though there are real difficulties and set backs , trials and triumphs to be faced.

The second human problem is that of exile.

After some success the Israelite nation was finally defeated, swept away from their homeland; their temple razed to the ground. Bad enough but it had a deeper grief in that their sense of being the people of God was bound up with the land he had taken them to and the thought that God was strongly linked to the temple. So a loss of homeland, a sense of being lost and a loss of God.

This is reflected today all around us by people who are seeking a place to belong. We have lost the security of knowing our place in society and through social mobility many of us have lost our sense of where home is.

This sense of being lost is used to great effect by the advertising industry -buy this, own that and belong to the club. You won’t actually know the other members but you’ll recognise them by the logos on car or clothes or mobile phone. You’re one of them so you belong somewhere – or fill up the emptiness with new things.

Loneliness is a form of being in exile as is the nasty sense of worthlessness –trying to measure up to who knows what standards? We see the results of youngsters seeking a place to belong in the gang culture of our cities. A whole section of society is seeking a sense of belonging but does not recognise that their home is in God. Much of the Old Testament was written as a result of what was learned during the Exile of the Israelites. We may know something of it in what it described as the dark night of the soul experience – a dreadful sense of being alone in a dark place without any sense of God.

Sadly we are inclined to grasp at substitutes - unfortunate partnerships or life styles, to fill the emptiness of exile. The church is called to be a place where the lost or sidelined can find a home and where exiles can find the way back to God. Where the path is illuminated and well trodden for anyone to follow.

The third message is what the church majors on. The coming of God into our world as the Christ who deals with the problem of sin and man’s lack of love. There are many people who need to know that they are precious to God for whom being told they are sinners, but saved if they repent, is never going to be the easiest entry into God’s kingdom.

So many are troubled because they have been sinned against. The sins of the fathers are visited on their children down the generations. Every parent makes mistakes because of the baggage they are struggling with. The evil predators are often those who have themselves been abused.

Seeing the trouble that humans are in God comes amongst them to show them His way. Christ teaches us to love God, our neighbours and ourselves. He lived this love until the moment of his death and beyond. Remember how he showed Peter that his betrayal was forgiven. We are not condemned. Oscar Romero urges that we never stop preaching about Love and I’m all for that. To know that I am loved is more powerful medicine than to be reminded that I am a sinner.

John the Baptist calls for the Church to prepare the way for Christ’s return. To speak to those in bondage about the freedom possible in Christ. To speak to those in exile about the path back home to God. To speak to those unloved and unloving about God’s compassionate love that overwhelms the effects of sin.

We need the help of the Holy Spirit to ensure that these are the messages that the world is hearing from the church and then as the final collect puts it ‘we can shine as lights before his face’.