Today we welcomed Alison to play for us.
Next Sunday is Christmas Eve – our usual Sunday Eucharist will be a Carol Service.
The following day, Christmas Day, we will have a Sung Eucharist at 10am.
We look forward to welcoming many visitors, friends, and family to our services over Christmas.
Christmas Services
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group in the Garden Room
Thursday 10am – Said Holy Communion followed by coffee in Friendship House.
Sunday – Christmas Eve – Carol Service 10am
Monday – Christmas Day – Sung Eucharist for Christmas 10am
Thursday 28th December – no Said Eucharist at 10am
Today’s Readings – Advent 3 – Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 John 1:6-8,19-28
Today we light the advent candle for John the Baptist.
John has always been seen as a rather enigmatic character in the bible. He worked alone, lived frugally and with total commitment to his calling to prepare the people of the coming Messiah. However, he’s not someone we associate with joy as such, but he is someone we associate with selflessness as he gave totally of himself without apparent regard for his own wellbeing.
In many ways it is very hard to see what John got out of his witness to Jesus. Unlike Jesus he always appears to function on his own – ascetically in the desert. He didn’t have a group of colleagues surrounding him like Jesus did with the apostles – people he could share experiences with and relax together eat and drink wine.
John first appears at the beginning of the gospel accounts when he is at the height of his fame. He has a great many disciples and people flock to hear him preach and to be baptised by him. He proclaims a clear message, and says what God calls him to say without softening his words to suit different people. He is not even afraid to reprove King Herod for example for his immoral lifestyle.
Such as he was, the religious leaders of his day are clearly impressed enough by John to wonder if he can be the Messiah for whom they are all waiting. He has all the right credentials; he comes from a priestly family and his birth is surrounded by miracle and prophecy. What’s more, his message of judgement and his call to repentance are exactly what the religious authorities would expect the Messiah to say.
All the prophets of old echoed John’s warning to people to repent or face God’s judgement. Taken in conjunction with John’s fearlessness in the face of authority, it is entirely understandable that they come to ask John point blank “who are you?” But John is emphatic in his denial that he is not the Messiah.
In many ways John was quite a strange character. We know little about his childhood and early life, quite how he prepared himself for his ministry. Tradition has it that he lived as an ascetic in the desert for many years before starting his ministry. The gospel tells us he wore clothes of camels’ hair and lived on locusts and wild honey, all of which would seem to bear out the testimony to his self-denying lifestyle. But whatever he has been doing for the years since his birth it has honed his vocation to this point – the moment of which he can say forcibly “I am not the Messiah.”
As far as the gospels are concerned when John has baptised Jesus and recognised him and witnessed to him his work is done. When John is later imprisoned and then executed by Herod, that is obviously a sad event but not a game changer for the gospel writers because John has already fulfilled his life’s purpose.
On a superficial level it is hard to see what satisfaction John could have got from his mission. A life of self-denial, brutally cut short. An influential ministry remembered only in the context of someone else’s far more important work. But John was doing the task for which he was called and all the years and attention to God may perhaps have given him enough insight to know his own value in God’s eyes. He saw what all the prophets long to see – God’s Messiah coming to bring justice and peace to the whole world.
John’s calling is unique. He was born to stand on the cusp between the old world and the new creation in Christ. He was born to point forward to what all the rest of us can now receive.
Thanks, at least in part, to his faithful witness we do not have to wonder if Jesus is God’s fulfilment or not. We know.
But now we must take up John’ mantle and bear witness to Jesus. John did it alone, and when no one else recognised Jesus. But he did what we are all called to do – he saw who Jesus was and he told the world.
Now it is our turn.
Fraser’s sermon of last week is now available on last week’s website entry. Thank you Fraser.