by CCW | 23 December 2012 14:44
In a way, Advent is the season of questions. And the questions of Advent reach a kind of crescendo on the Fourth Sunday in Advent in a barrage of questions which, paradoxically, are all about John the Baptist. But, of course, everything about John the Baptist is really about the One who comes.
Our Gospel story has a wonderful intensity to it that is indicative of the strong desire to know in the face of the confusions of the world. Such is the significance, we might say, of “the witness of John,” especially in our rather skeptical and cynical age which despairs of thought and where questions are merely rhetorical ways of dismissing any serious encounter with what might just challenge us and change us. Skepticism about ideas, we might say, is the leading idea of our times. Such is a form of darkness, a kind of dogmatic despair.
But here are “Priests and Levites from Jerusalem” who are relentless in the questioning of John the Baptist. They are usually figures who come in for a certain degree of criticism in the Gospels. And yet, the intensity of their questions suggests a real desire to know. They seem intent on trying to understand the message of John the Baptist and are intent on trying to understand him in and through the context of the Hebrew Scriptures. They reveal to us something of the tenor of the times – that characteristic known as “the fullness of time,” as Paul calls it, which has to do with those moments of cultural and personal readiness to receive what comes from God to us. It happens only, dare I say, through the questions, questions which are serious in their intent to know. It is, however, not about pat answers dogmatically trotted out like some dog-and-pony show. In a way, the questions of the Advent open us out to patterns and ways of thinking that place us with God. But only if we feel the power of the questions. That means wanting to know. It may indeed be true that “the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk,” in the twilight of an age.
Each of the Sundays of Advent has presented us with a parade of questions. On the First Sunday in Advent, there is the overriding question about Jesus upon the occasion of his entry into Jerusalem. “Who is this?” the city is moved to say. And indeed, one of the great questions of the Advent focuses on the whole idea of who Christ is as the divine mediator and redeemer of mankind. The Second Sunday in Advent raises important questions about judgment and revelation, especially the purpose of the Scriptures. While there are no questions in the literal sense, the Scripture readings question us about our attitude and approach to God’s Word. The Third Sunday in Advent presents us with a wonderful sequence of questions, beginning with John’s question about Jesus: “Art thou he that should come or do we seek for another?” After responding to the ways in which the messianic kingdom is being fulfilled in the redemptive work of Christ, Jesus goes on to ask the multitudes a series of questions about John the Baptist. “What went ye out for to see?” he asks with triple intensity.
He calls attention to that sense of longing for truth and righteousness which belongs to the ministry and the teaching of John the Baptist. That sense of longing for truth and righteousness captures a deep truth about our humanity. Ultimately we are made for God. The questions of the Advent open us out to that reality. It comes to a climax on the Fourth Sunday in Advent. “Who art thou?” it is asked of John the Baptist who through the intensity of the questions of Priest and Levite responds with the most complete and powerful statement about his mission and witness. It has altogether to do with the One “who cometh after me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” he says: the One in whom there is more than John’s baptism which was about a longing for purity and righteousness and thus preparatory for the One who is our righteousness. And so John at the conclusion of this passage points us explicitly to Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He points to the coming of the redeemer of mankind whose coming we await at Christmas.
The questions of the Advent shape us in the understanding of the One who comes. Those questions ultimately reach their fullest extent in the record or witness of John, the one who points us to Jesus. Such are the preparations of the Advent season especially through the one sent to prepare the way of the Lord. “Behold, the Lamb of God,” he says, the One whose coming we look for on “the next day” following. “The Lord is at hand!”
Fr. David Curry
The Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 23rd, 2012
Christ Church, Windsor, NS
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2012/12/23/sermon-for-the-fourth-sunday-in-advent-3/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.