Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent
“This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.”
He is a prophet and yet more than a prophet for he stands on the brink of the fulfillment of all prophecy and yet he, too, is a figure in the darkness of Advent. “Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?” Such is the question of John the Baptist to Jesus about Jesus.
A question that he asks from prison, it reminds us that the wilderness of human pride and presumption is greater than the wilderness of Judaea. He is in prison, Matthew later explains, because he had the temerity to upbraid Herod the tetrarch, one of the Roman rulers, for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. Though Herod wanted to put John to death, he “feared the people,” and instead kept him in prison. But on Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias, unnamed in the Gospels but named by the Jewish historian, Josephus, as Salome, danced before her uncle and step-father so pleasingly that he “promised to give her whatever she might ask”. At her mother, Herodias’ prompting, she asked for “the head of John the Baptist on a platter”, which request Herod reluctantly granted to her on account of his promise. And so John was beheaded. There is a cost when truth speaks to power.
The scene has captured the imagination of artists, poets, playwrights and musicians. The fuller story gives added poignancy to Jesus’ remarks about John the Baptist. He is the forerunner of Jesus not only by his birth and ministry but also by his witness and death. In every way, he is the messenger sent to prepare the way of Christ. And his ministry becomes an essential feature of the Church’s ministry, signalled so clearly in Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians and captured so beautifully in the Collect. “Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries” – referring to the mysteries of Christ – “may likewise” – after the example of John the Baptist, that is to say – “so prepare and make ready thy way.” How? “By turning the hearts of the disobedient,” my heart and yours, “to the wisdom of the just.” Tough, uncompromising stuff! And yet, it belongs precisely to the deep joys of the Advent preparation for Christmas.
