Christ Church

“He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light”

We will hear these words on Christmas Eve in the great Gospel of the Incarnation. But today, on The Fourth Sunday in Advent, we hear precisely about that one who is “sent to bear witness of that light” without whom we can hardly understand anything of the mystery of Christmas. The Gospel today is known as “the record” or “the witness of John”, the witness of John the Baptist who points us directly to the meaning of Christ’s coming. “Behold the Lamb of God,” he says, “which taketh away the sin of the world.”

In the darkest time of nature’s year, we look to the light, but it is not the light of nature that concerns us so much as the light of God’s Truth and Word. That is the greater light which “shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not”. Light overcomes darkness and not the other way around. The darkness is more than the longest night of nature’s year in the winter solstice which falls in the middle of this week, this longest week in the longest possible Advent season, marking the slow, slow turn towards spring. No. There is the far greater darkness of human sin and evil countered by the far, far greater light of God.

The readings for today are centuries old. They signal a sense of expectancy and heightened anticipation. The darkness of sin and judgment already gives way to a sense of joy and gladness. All the questions of Advent, that season of holy questions, reach a kind of crescendo in the Gospel of “the witness of John”, in the intensity of the questions about John which turn us to Christ. The Epistle reading from Philippians, too, conveys this sense of joyous anticipation in its repeated insistence on the notes of rejoicing and peace all of which counter the darkness of our anxieties. In every way, these readings speak to our contemporary dilemmas and concerns. We are, I am afraid, deeply anxious and uncertain, afraid and troubled about our world and day and about ourselves. Yet the winters of our discontent are really always about ourselves.

What these readings highlight are matters of the soul. They speak to the radical meaning of Christ’s coming as redeemer and saviour. That makes no sense at all if we somehow assume that we are all-sufficient in and of ourselves. The awareness of the darkness not only of nature but of human endeavour should provide a necessary reality check on that score. It is ancient biblical wisdom that “it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves”. “We are his people,” the psalmist says, “and the sheep of his pasture.” Therein lies a note of rejoicing as well. “Jubilate Deo”, “O be joyful in the Lord!”(Ps. 100).

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“And she was troubled at this saying”

The Ember days punctuate the changing seasons of nature’s year with a spiritual reminder of the centrality of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit as the guiding principle of the Church’s life. Historically, Embertide provided occasions for ordinations to the diaconate and the priesthood and so there is a focus on the purpose and meaning of the ministry: in Lent, in Whitsuntide, in the Fall, and in Advent. Along with that overarching ministerial concern there is a specific focus of intention for each Ember season. For Advent the spiritual theme is ‘Peace in the World’ and the specific Advent Embertide service appoints a reading from Micah as the lesson and the story of the Annunciation from Luke for the Gospel.

The lesson from Micah highlights the very powerful and some familiar concept of “beat[ing] swords into plowshares” and “spears into pruning hooks”, images of the transformation of the city at war into the city of peace, at peace in the cultivating of the land but as well the cultivation of the soul. That peace is ultimately found in our “go[ing] up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob” where “he shall teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” These are all images that belong to the redemption of our humanity, to our being restored to fellowship with God. It is very much about our learning the ways of God in whom alone we may find peace and joy.

It cannot be found simply in ourselves. We need these spiritual reminders precisely in the face of such catastrophes and tragedies such as what we confront in war-torn Aleppo in Syria, a great city that was once at the centre of the world’s trade routes, a city with a remarkable history and incredibly diverse forms of architecture representative of many of the finest elements in human culture. And now? A place of rubble and despair, a humanitarian disaster area and an indictment on all our protestations to world peace. Aleppo is but one sober and sombre reminder of the complex and confusing forms of human sin and wickedness. Yet such things may awaken us to the message of Pentecost, namely, that the human community and city has no unity in itself. Its peace and unity can only be found in God and in God with us.

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“Behold I send my messenger before thy face,
Which shall prepare thy way before thee”

In the deepening darkness of nature’s year – not to mention the deep coldness of December! – we await the light of God coming to us. Such is the Advent of Christ. Our waiting is not something passive and static. Advent is about our being prepared for the one who comes. How? By way of “ministers and stewards of the mysteries of God” who are likened to “thy messenger”, the one sent to prepare the way of Christ before him. That messenger is John the Baptist and he is one of the two major figures of the Advent landscape of faith especially on The Third Sunday of Advent. The other is Mary. They both belong to the preparations for Christ’s coming.

John is vox clamatis in deserto, “a voice crying in the wilderness”, in Isaiah’s rich imaginary. Yet, here in Matthew’s gospel we are made aware of another kind of darkness, another kind of wilderness. It is neither the darkness nor the wilderness of nature; it is the darkness and the wilderness of human sin. Here John cries out from prison, a victim or victor, too, we might say, of those who speak truth to power. Matthew does not tell us right away why John is in prison but later reveals that it was because he denounced Herod for marrying his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias. This leads to the infamous scene of the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod on his birthday who “promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask.” “Prompted by her mother,” Matthew tells us, “she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter’”. And so it was done. We know “the daughter of Herodias” as Salome only from the first century Jewish historian Josephus. She is unnamed in the Gospels.

Knowing the fuller story of John the Baptist only adds to the poignancy of the Gospel. John is the great prophet; indeed, Jesus says “more than a prophet” precisely because everything in his life points to the coming of Christ, both his wondrous nativity and his death under persecution. Here Jesus points us to John the Baptist, pointing us to the ministry of preparation, awakening us to the meaning of the one who comes. How? Through the back and forth, the to and fro of questions. “Art thou he that should come,” John asks from prison through his disciples, “or do we look for another?” The question is not rhetorical; it is genuine. There are always uncertainties and confusions. “How shall this be seeing I know not a man?” Mary asks the Angel of the Annunciation. The questions are pertinent. They belong to our active waiting upon the coming of God’s Word, then and now. The task of “the ministers of Christ and the stewards of the mysteries of God” is to point us faithfully to God’s judgment. He alone “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God.”

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