God tries again
Advent 3: 16th December, 2007
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
'Here is your God...he will come to save you.' (Is 35:4)
Isaiah the prophet said that the Messiah of God would come. That time would be when there was great need and anguish: it would be a time when people would be saying that their hands were weak, their knees were feeble and their hearts were afraid. They would not have the strength to do anything much for themselves. They would know that the Messiah was there by what he was doing — impossible things like opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf, or having the lame leap like a deer.
John the Baptist was in prison and very likely to be done away with at any moment. He was expecting the Messiah — he had indeed thought that this Jesus was the one but he was shaken, he wanted to be reassured. So he sent messengers. The reply that Jesus gave made reference to this passage from Isaiah we had this morning as our first lesson — so here are the blind and the deaf and the lame, but with more. Lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. John's doubts may well have been because the ministry that Jesus was exercising did not have that hard edge of judgment and retribution that he, John, was expecting. That had not turned out to be the way that Jesus actually was. There is compassion and care more than condemnation. Instead there is a confrontation with the most fearful health issue of the day — the isolation and the slow horrific lingering awfulness of leprosy, the biggest question that any living person has to confront — their death — and also very interestingly, the social gospel bringing good news to the poor. So this is a combination of addressing particular and obvious needs in a practical way along with a much broader spiritual and social justice agenda.
The messengers went back to John, but it is in any case clear by this stage that the focus is now shifting to Jesus himself for this gospel on the third Sunday of Advent. Now we have some new questions from Jesus to the crowd around him, right after this commotion. The moment is grasped:
What did you go out to the wilderness to look for? What did you go out from the city to see when you responded to John's challenge? What were you hoping for? All the prophets and the law pointed in this direction, Jesus says. John the Baptist is indeed, as it were, Elijah once again pointing the way. Elijah will come again just before the Messiah — that was the expectation. 'He is Elijah who is to come' says Jesus. And what has happened? '...the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force.' (Mtt 11:12) This is the crunch. Suffering and forceful violence. That is the best (or the worst) that the world can throw at the Messiah and those who would follow him. Suffering and forceful violence is the way of the cross to Jerusalem and Calvary. Suffering and forceful violence are going to be what is defeated on Good Friday and Easter Day. That is the Christian story. That is what makes the difference.
When you stop to consider this theme, it is to be found from the beginning of this particular story. Very soon now we will be listening to the Christmas gospels. We do not have to dig very deep to find disturbing dissonances. A real struggle to find anywhere at all appropriate for the birth and the brutal slaughter of the innocents just after, are examples enough of the' kingdom of heaven suffering violence'. A helpless little child in poor circumstances but utterly loved and welcomed. That is the start of this story. This is to be one who is not going to find it a stretch to 'bring good news to the poor'. He was there already. This is to be one for whom the coming of the kingdom of God — the coming of a living and shaping relationship with God in the hearts of individual people and in the overall guiding principles of whole communities of faith — these things would be absolutely central.
Matthew's gospel, which is our gospel for this first year of our three-year cycle of readings, has this as a recurring theme. We are going to be spending a lot of time reflecting on what the kingdom of God is actually like, as lived. There are going to be many parables of the kingdom to help the penny to drop — for this was clearly the main way that Jesus taught and was remembered. A lot of this will be about priorities and insightful discernment. But that is all ahead of us. We have a story to tell and a story to hear now; we have preparations to make. We are encouraged to get more than a little excited in our looking forward to the festival that is almost upon us. What sad Christians we would be if this were not so.
We were reflecting last week about the notes of anticipation and expectation that are characteristic of the Advent season. Reflectful preparation. There is too much to be happy about to be grim. And yet today we are reminded of the actual nature of the struggle that is again being entered into, even as we attempt to chart the ways of God in this part of the story of our salvation as we have received it. The struggle is apparent because quite clearly the world, the whole of the created order, all of life in every sense, is not as it might be, as it could be. So there are the blind, the deaf, the lame, the lepers and the dead; there are so many poor who need to hear and to live the good news. There is violence and brutal force. God tries again, in every generation, at every time, in every place. Our active co-operation is invited most directly.
The Advent message then is one of renewal and hope in the context of the invitation to again become spiritually deeply alive. Every year for the last four weeks before Christmas we have this opportunity. The message varies from year to year in detail but not in overall direction. We ask our questions and we are given some answers and some hope. Our personal response is very much part of this unfolding story — how it plays out for us where we are, whoever we are, whatever our circumstances.
Christmas is only nine days away. Next week we will have a brief consideration of the pivotal role of one particular human being in this story — the one who is actually bearing this Christ child and pondering all these things in her heart. Then the festival will be upon us. Many of us go away at this time and many others will be joining us as visitors and travellers. We have a busy week ahead of us with no doubt a thousand pressures and deadlines. Even so, persevere as best we can with the acknowledgment that God is even now struggling to be born in us, in our lives. With that birth comes new life and new hope.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
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