Day: December 15, 2013

Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, 4:00pm Choral Evensong

“Then justice will dwell in the wilderness”

Advent and Lent, the two penitential seasons of the Church year, recall us to the themes of the wilderness, the wilderness within and the wilderness without. The Third Sunday in Advent has a paradoxical character to it. On the one hand, and predominantly so, we are recalled to the ministry of John the Baptist, a ministry in the wilderness of Judea as we gather from tonight’s second lesson, but equally a ministry from another kind of wilderness, the wilderness of a prison as this morning’s Eucharistic Gospel makes clear; John is the victim of the politics of power, the victim of truth that speaks to power and so showing us the power and truth of God. On the other hand, we are also reminded of the ministry of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Sunday is sometimes known as Gaudate Sunday. A single rose coloured candle appears on our Advent wreath, a reminder of her active acquiescence to the will and power of God without which God does not come into the world.

Our first lesson from Isaiah captures for us the theme of righteousness and peace and the theme of the wilderness ministry of Israel, and, it seems to me, for the contemporary Christian Church. It reminds us of the hopes of ancient Israel in the wilderness of exile and persecution, a reminder for us in our world, too. In our second lesson, too, we are reminded of the wilderness ministry of John the Baptist even as Jesus in the Eucharistic Gospel for today underscores the prophetic importance of John’s ministry. “What went ye out for to see?” Jesus asks us three times about John the Baptist and about the phenomenon of people following him into the wilderness.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent

“Go and tell John again those things which ye so hear and see.”

A sermon, snowstorm notwithstanding! Hearing and seeing are the two most intellectual of the physical senses. We use the sense of sight and hearing as metaphors for understanding. “I see what you mean,” we may say to someone in conversation, meaning we understand what they are saying. “I hear you,” we might assert, suggesting much the same thing, an agreement or at least an acknowledgement about the meaning of what is being said.

In a way, such use of language is commonplace and every day. We forget perhaps how profound it is and how it speaks to the very features of our humanity that make us who we are. In the quiet darkness of Advent, we can learn again about the power of words that illumine our minds and encourage our hearts. It is the point of today’s Scriptures and signals the ministry of the Church. It is about preparing and making ready the way of the Lord in human hearts “by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just” that we may be found “an acceptable people in [God’s] sight.”

Our darkness brought into the light of God is part of the process of learning. Advent is the season of teaching. God as Word and Light “brings to light the hidden things of darkness” and “makes manifest the counsels of the hearts,” as Paul puts it. To what end? That “every one shall have praise of God.” It is not simply judgment but joy and salvation.

The light of Advent teaches us what God seeks for our humanity. That is part and parcel of the power of this Gospel reading and, by extension, part and parcel of the faithful ministry of “the ministers and stewards of [the] mysteries” of God. John the Baptist belongs to that pattern of prophetic preparation for the coming of Christ. He is in prison, the victim of the power politics of his day, a victim of speaking truth to power but, as such, a martyr and a witness to the power and truth of God. His questions illuminate the dark landscape of Advent. His questions point us to Jesus. “Art thou he that should come, or do we seek for another?”

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 December

Monday, December 16th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, December 17th, St. Ignatius
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Advent Programme: Holy Waiting: Mary in Advent (II)

Thursday, December 19th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, December 20th
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series II, Capella Regalis presents “To Bethlehem with Kings”. $10.00; Pulled Pork Supper & Concert (5:30-6:30, concert at 7:00) $ 15.00; (Supper only – $ 10.00).

Sunday, December 22nd, Fourth Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Giovanni di Paolo, St. John the Baptist in PrisonO LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 11:2-10

Artwork: Giovanni di Paolo, Saint John the Baptist in Prison Visited by Two Disciples, 1455-60. Tempera on panel, Art Institute of Chicago.

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