Our reading from the gospel today is a bit of a fraud! Half of it is a reading from the Old Testament. Luke quotes from Isaiah 40 verses 3-5.
Luke is saying that these words, spoken by Isaiah 600 or so years earlier, are fulfilled when John the Baptist turns up in the wilderness ‘proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’.
John – who we know as John the Baptist is the voice
Three things that I would like to draw from this quote this morning.
1. God is coming.
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness “prepare the way for the Lord”.’
Christmas is coming. But something, someone so much bigger than Christmas is coming.
The voice declares that the Messiah, God’s King is coming.
We remember his first coming 2000 years ago as a baby
And we look forward in hope to his coming again in glory.
Advent can be a time of preparation to remember and anticipate the coming of the King.
In many Christian traditions Advent is a time of fasting – of going into the wilderness, abstaining from the things of this world, to give us a deeper awareness of our sinfulness, our rebellion against God, of our mortality and weakness, of our need for God.
That is really quite difficult at a time when we have so many Christmas parties.
But maybe it would be helpful to try and do what we can do. Miss a meal occasionally and use the time for God.
Or perhaps this might be an opportunity to read a devotional book. Or perhaps simply read through Isaiah or one of the gospels.
These four weeks before Christmas can be used as a time when we become alert to the fact that God is close, that God came and is coming again.
And then, when Christmas comes, having fasted a little, we can feast a lot!
We celebrate the fact that 2000 years ago God stepped out of heaven and came to this earth as a human baby, as Jesus Christ.
2. Get ready
A few years back I read a CJ Sansom’s Sovereign. It is a book about a royal procession.
Henry VIII is traveling North to visit York. The whole court is traveling with him. His heralds go ahead of him. They tell people to get ready, to prepare for the coming king. To bow to him. The king is coming in judgment. He is coming to seek, try and condemn those who have rebelled against him. And there will be no mercy.
John the Baptist is also a herald.
But he comes with a far more awesome and far more gracious message
It is not the king who is coming, but the King of Kings.
And he comes not in judgment but in mercy.
Yes, we have rebelled against God – but John the Baptist proclaims that there is forgiveness for those who are prepared to recognize that God is king, for those who wish to repent and to make a new start.
That is why John came in the wilderness with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
He was in the wilderness
The wilderness is the place of desertion, of abandonment, of isolation and death. It is the place of sin and the consequence of sin – but it can be transformed and become the place of meeting with God.
So the promise is that
‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight
And the rough ways made smooth’.
And John came with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
And those who came to him, who were willing to go out into the wilderness, to face up to their sin and lostness, to repent, to turn from their rebellion against God and recognize God as their King, he washed in the water of baptism. It was a symbol that they were now clean before God.
And although there is so much more in Christian baptism, at the heart of it is the gift of God: that all who come to him in repentance, all who come to receive his mercy, he will wash clean.
In most of our churches it is the font that is the place of baptism, and it is usually placed by the entrance of the church.
It is by the entrance, because it is the way into membership in the Church for the new Christian.
But because it is by the entrance it means that we walk past the font every time we come into church. It is a reminder to us of our own baptism.
The font is the place where valleys are filled.
It is the place that lifts us up. It is the place which tells us, when we are in the valley of despair, when we think that there is no hope, that we are ‘unforgiveable’, that there is no one beyond the reach of the love of God, no sin too great that he cannot forgive, no sinner who he cannot begin to change.
The font is the place that makes low hills and mountains.
When in our pride we think we stand high on the mountain of ‘the imagination of our hearts’ (in the glorious words of the Magnificat), as we think that we are better than others, as we stand in judgment on others; then as we look at the font, it is the reminder that we are sinners, mere mortal women and men, who were under the judgment of God but have been washed clean, have received mercy
The font is the place that enables us to go straight.
It is the challenge when we ducking and diving and swerving, going in this direction and then that, lying to get us out of a scrape or so that we don’t look bad, being driven by any and every gust of desire, taking that which does not belong to us, treating another person as if they do not exist (that is the same as murder): We look at the font and we remember that in our baptism, as the water was poured over us, we were washed and we died to those crooked ways.
The font is the place where all the obstacles that we put in the way of God are removed.
We are simply overwhelmed by his love and his compassion and his mercy.
If I was imagining this as a picture, I would see a dry wilderness, and in the deepest deep wilderness, there is a font, and out of that font pours water. And the water brings life.
So the King is coming. Get ready!
If you haven’t received the gift of baptism, now is the time to do so. Do speak to me.
And if we have received the gift of baptism, look at the font – and see the mercy of God.
3. There is a great hope
Luke quotes Isaiah and says, ‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’
That is hard to imagine in a world that has turned its back on God – that is blind to him, that uses him only as, at best, a last resort when everything else has failed and, at worst, a swear word.
But the Lord is coming.
And when he comes, he will bring his kingdom of justice and mercy, of righteousness and peace, of love and truth
There will be safety, abundance and joy.
And all people will see it.All people.Those who look at him and, because they have so set themselves up as their own god that they cannot face the reality that there is a God who is bigger than them, hate him; and those who look at him and know that this God of mercy is who they have been searching for all their lives, and love him.
The Lord is coming. And even in the dark times we hold on to that.