Advent 2

Sermon preached by Jenny Walpole, ordinand at Westcott House

This advent has been different for me, it probably has been for you too. A muted start to the Church’s year, without the early onslaught (at least in the first week) of Christmas music blaring from shops. The decorations and the lights have been signs of hope, even the singing penguins in Lion Yard with their bow ties and close harmonies have lifted the spirits, breaking into the darkness of our restricted living. These small things have brought new joy for me this year, a new delight in what had been taken for granted.  

The Church is one week into its New Year, this advent season starts our good news story. We are still at the beginning of our journey towards the incarnation as we prepare to encounter God, but first we look back. 

Today we remember the prophets and the story of Israel. This is how Mark begins his gospel – he looks back to Isaiah who declares: See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way. John the Baptist prepared the way for the good news of Jesus Christ and he bursts onto the scene like a trumpeter announcing the arrival of royalty. 

Unlike the other gospels, Mark does not speak of a babe in the manger whereas the gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus and Luke begins by foretelling the births. But Mark begins his story with the adult Jesus and the adult John the Baptist. He wastes no in making his announcement, he passes over the birth narratives, and yet this is a birth story of sorts. 

John the Baptist is an unusual herald, dressed in a vintage fashion of camel’s hair, eating a diet of locusts and wild honey. What he wears, and what he eats tells us that he identifies with Elijah, probably a conscious imitation of him. He is a man with conviction, a prophet sent by God with a message for us.  A prophet who stands on the edge – probably beside the Jordan, close to the place where Joshua led the Israelites into their promised land many centuries before. 

This is a new beginning, yet the beginning itself is Jesus Christ and so the beginning is not John the Baptist, he is but a transitional figure, pointing the way, and preparing our hearts for what is to come. 

This gospel begins with a hearkening back to the stories of old. Israel’s experience in the wilderness was a time of testing and revelation. For Israel the wilderness was a place of deepening communion with God which eventually led to new life. This reminds us of our own experience. Advent is a time when we are called to consider our own wilderness, and the calling which beckons us home from the edge of our own spiritual desert. 

Mark gives us the symbols of voice and water. The cry from the desert tells us to get ready and make room for the one who is to come. Calling us to repentance with water as an outward sign of inward cleansing, as we prepare for the baptism of fire – the fire of the Holy Spirit. This is the real new beginning, the renewal of our spiritual lives.  The Holy Spirit is a gift to anticipate, it is the culmination of the whole story, a continuing presence in the world, and among God’s people. Our gospel begins by gathering up ancient echoes of Israel’s story and concludes by reaching in to the present moment. 

But let us dwell a little longer in the cooling waters and in the desert cry. And remember where we have been, as people whose spiritual story is connected to the history of Israel, as people who have in our own time experienced a modern type of exile. Our exile has been from our former lives and also from Holy places. We were plunged un-prepared into the depths of a pandemic, an exile which has involved waiting, stillness, and absence. We have been removed from places of worship, and from being physically present with one another. 

It is not hard to see apocalyptic signs in the world today, but our world is also full with signs of hope. We have the hope of a vaccine, hope that is provided in community by food parcels and action, perhaps we have a global hope and a personal hope too. 

This time of waiting allows us to re-evaluate what we hold dear, and what it means to be Church even when we are dispersed. And we might ask the question: what do we cherish and why? What is it about being in a Church? We longed to be back in the pews. But, has God been silent while we have been away from Church or has God been dwelling in places of exile with us? 

This time of waiting calls us to repent, as John the Baptist called people to repent. Humanity and the earth are sick and broken, they cry out in poverty, from disease, and disaster. Isaiah’s words speak to us from across an ancient time to speak into our own reality. Isaiah says:  Comfort, O comfort my people. As we look beyond the circumstances of Israel in the 6th Century BC, there is a message of comfort and hope for all people in distress. 

The liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez says that in Isaiah, comforting means liberating. This is what God does for us, the voice in the desert calls us to new life, to change what must be changed, to straighten what is crooked, to seek justice and prepare to encounter the Lord. God is present, even in the desert, loving his people and drawing them back to himself. In places where people are hungry and hopeless, where the earth is sick and breathless, new life can stir. The Lord hears our sorrows and comes out of love, to renew us and free us from this darkness. This is what John the Baptist prepares us for, the new life that God’s Spirit will pour upon us. 

So, as we look back in this desert season, we remember that the people who flocked to John the Baptist found him not in a Temple but on the desert’s edge. He was waiting by the river Jordan, baptizing and preparing people to enter the promised land. For us the promised land is a life in communion with God, a life that participates in justice, and leads us to hope. A new life that is found in Christ. We are therefore invited to prepare for a radical encounter and a radical change. 

We are called out of the wilderness by prophetic voices and the water of new life, and it is a good news story, a life-giving encounter. A calling from our own places of wilderness, and a calling to sit with others in their wilderness. As we ponder what it means to wait on the desert edge, and with those on the margins, we wait in hope. We wait expectantly for justice, we wait in repentance and because we trust that God will appear, and that God’s amazing light will outshine any darkness we know. Amen