I did, yeah, I created you

My, I thought Advent was all about Jesus? Last week we may have heard about John the Baptist. Well given that the birth of Jesus was only in 2 of the four Gospels, and not in the earliest of Gospels, good news: John the Baptist is in all four Gospels…

John and the Honey

Last week we may have seen that John, just like Elijah did many centuries earlier, signposted the Jordan River as a place to enter the promised land…the Israel of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus also appears there as well.   Oddly John the Baptist comes from a community quite separate from the main Jerusalem clan. He might even have had connections with the Essenes community, the ones mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls. They, the ones who enjoyed the locusts and honey diet, and the wearing of the fashionable hairy clothing. I mentioned whether you knew a hairy man previously, and it is mentioned often afterwards, so I won’t mention it again… Oh bad news, by this point in the Gospel, John the Baptist is in prison, even in the good news we hear of things going badly but there’s still hope for society – even if not for him…

Blind will see?

In this text we hear that the blind will receive their sight, the lame walk, those with skin disease will be cleansed. The deaf will hear, the dead raised, the poor will have good news. In the parables of Jesus we often read that the blind have their sight restored, albeit it is written in the style of a Jewish parable, that it is a metaphor for something greater.: that the society will now see the truth. Likewise with the hearing. Those who have been buried with the burden of the hatred of others may be free, those alienated eg lepers, will be welcomed again. Recall our recent parable that the 10 lepers were cleansed but we focus upon the one who returned, but all 10 were cleansed. God’s grace goes before us. 

We demand more action

John is still questioning whether Jesus is really the Messiah – we want more action Jesus, more miracles, less words, do what we are expecting of you…

So the present situation is one of stability, we don’t want change, for that would alter the whole equilibrium we come to expect, or even desire. But Jesus never promised a cushy life – sorry. 

That Christmas movie and the Gospel

See, if we watch any Christmas movie – think of Scrooge, we see a change in that person; the Grinch, (who was also hairy…) we see a change in that character; in fact so many films, the baddie always sees to change for the better. If that’s what the secular society is looking for, what is Jesus expecting of us?

Often we read that we should remember that Christ is in Christmas  the reason for the season etc. I wonder whether in this time of waiting, we might consider that we might actually Be the Christ in Christmas.

How?

There’s a song by Matthew West which laments saying 

“I woke up this morning
Saw a world full of trouble now, thought How’d we ever get so far down, and How’s it ever gonna turn around
So I turned my eyes to Heaven I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”
Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of People living in poverty, children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me So, I shook my fist at Heaven and Said,
“God, why don’t You do something?”

It concludes:

He said, “I did, yeah, I created you”
Oh, it’s not enough to do nothing,
It’s time for us to do something

What’s needed then?

Note that the message today doesn’t mark out anyone specific to do something, there’s no status required to help out, no prior experience necessary, no qualifications. Is our focus currently so much about waiting that we might take our eyes off the wonder of the life changing birth of Jesus? It’s not one or the other but a holistic, a wide eyed perspective which might be needed.

We are in this state, all are part of society, and all have experience of life in its various forms – what we might lack is that faith to go forward, to go do, to be that messenger who will prepare the way – God’s way.

The time to sit back and wait has gone – it’s time to be the change