A Sermon preached on Advent II, December 4th
2016 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans
15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12
Last week, we were
provided with a beautiful vision of peace and harmony in the reading from the
prophet Isaiah, while Matthew’s Gospel offered us dire warnings and threats. And
this week we were provided with a beautiful vision of peace and harmony in the
reading from the prophet Isaiah, while Matthew’s Gospel offers us dire warnings
and threats! I was briefly tempted to use last week’s sermon again, but I fear you
would have noticed. By coincidence, the Anglican Community News Service
reported this week on a speech by the Bishop of Uruguay at his annual
convention. He cited the example of a new priest who received complaints that
he had used the same sermon three weeks running. “Yes, it´s true,” the priest
said. “I have preached the same sermon every week for three weeks now. I know
what I'm doing. . . When you begin to live out this sermon, I will go to the
next one!”
So, while I will
not preach the same sermon, we should perhaps not be surprised that our readings
in Advent have a similar theme. God knows, we all need a lot of repetition and
reminders to help us both hear and understand the message and act on it,
which is the key point John the Baptist is making.
In fact, the whole
Bible is really one consistent message, constantly repeated, and rarely acted
on. “Again and again, you called us to return” we say in one of our Eucharistic
Prayers. Sometimes we struggle with the Old Testament, and now and again I hear
people say that they much prefer the New Testament. The Old Testament is too
violent. The God of the Old Testament is too angry, too vindictive. It is true
that Jesus continually emphasizes the loving nature of God, and the word Gospel,
the Old English translation of the Greek word Evangelion, literally means “good news.”
But if we look at
today’s readings, I find the Old Testament vision in which “the wolf shall live
with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,” and the world is filled
with the knowledge of the Lord to be very good news indeed. (Isaiah 11:6-7, 9) If
we look at John the Baptist on the other hand, he does need to work on his interpersonal
skills: calling his congregation a brood of vipers is not how I would start. His
vision of one coming after him, who is more powerful, who will baptize with the
Holy Spirit and fire, and who “will clear his threshing floor and gather his
wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire,” (Matthew
3:11-12) does not sound like good news at all, at least not if I’m worried about
being part of the chaff.
It is too simplistic
to restrict the good news to the New Testament and it is wrong to set up the
Old and New in opposition to one another, and it is especially wrong to set up
the people of the Old and New Testaments in opposition to one another. The
Hebrew Scriptures, as they are sometimes also called, are the foundation of our
faith. They are the earlier part of Jesus’ story, they are part of the story we
live in. That’s what our Collect said this morning: “Merciful God, who sent
your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our
salvation.” And that is what St. Paul is telling the Christians in Rome when he
says: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction,
so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might
have hope.” (Romans 15:4)
As Paul goes on to
say, the scriptures, at that time only what we now call the OT, already contain
the good news that God is faithful to God’s promises, that God has always
wanted to bring all nations into fellowship, and that God has always been a God
of justice, mercy and love. This church year our gospel readings will come
almost exclusively form Matthew and we will hear a lot of references to the OT,
as the idea of fulfillment and continuity is one of Matthew’s big themes.
For Matthew, Paul
and for us, the OT points to Jesus. In the reading from Isaiah, the prophet
looks forward to the reign of the root of Jesse, who was King David’s Father. “The
spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
Lord.” In quoting from Isaiah, Paul is identifying the root of Jesse with Jesus,
and at the very beginning of his gospel in a long and intricate genealogy, Matthew
goes out his way to trace Joseph’s ancestry back to David, and Jesse, for this
very reason.
If we look at the
two passages from Isaiah and from Matthew they are actually not as different as
they seem. On the one hand, I think we get a little distracted by Isaiah’s
vision of life on the God’s holy mountain, and so we miss the warning that comes
in the paragraph before. “With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and
decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with
the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”
(Isaiah 11:4) There can be no justice
without judgment, and no salvation without true repentance. This is exactly
what John the Baptist is saying to, just a little more forcefully. Let us not forget
that in Matthew’s description of the beginning of John’s ministry, John starts
with good news: “the kingdom of heaven has come near,” (Matthew 3:2) God is
coming back! But you must get ready. God will judge between good and evil. So
repent, turn back to God, show a change of heart and mind, show your desire to
be in relationship with God.
I do not preach exactly
the same sermon every week, but I will admit to using similar themes. God is
love. God created us out of love. God wants us to be in relationship with God
and one another. This is an invitation. If we truly accept it, in our hearts,
if we turn to God, we cannot avoid changing and we will bear good fruit, worthy
of repentance. There will be something to show for it, it simply must affect
the way we live. Repentance is a choice: against the destructive things of this
world, and for the beautiful things of the Kingdom of heaven, the holy mountain
of Isaiah’s vision. God sent God’s son – 2000 years ago – to extend this invitation
and to show us how to accept, by following Jesus. He became like us, so we can
become like him. And God sends the Holy Spirit, as the power that surges
through us, enabling us to celebrate, live at peace, grow in faith, and abound
in hope.
When John
announces Jesus as the one who comes after him, as the one who will baptize with
the Holy Spirit and with fire, he is not issuing a threat, but proclaiming good
news. The Holy Spirit is our comforter,
enabler, and empowerer. The fire is a metaphor for our transformation. We are
not chaff, but we all have aspects of our lives that need cleansing if our
repentance is to bear fruit.
One of my favorite
hymns is “How Firm a Foundation” and verse 5 sums up this particular promise
beautifully:
When through fiery
trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace,
all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall
not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to
consume and thy gold to refine.
Amen.
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