Third Sunday in Advent - Year C 2009

Third Sunday in Advent – Year C (RCL) 2009
Zephaniah 3: 14 – 20; Isaiah 12: 2 – 6; Philippians 4: 4 – 7; Luke 3: 7 – 18
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, December 13, 2009

THAT MOST UNCOMFORTABLE OF IN-BETWEEN TIMES

Let us pray: Holy and long awaited One – the advent of your presence among us passes all too quickly in our expectation of your birth and the re-telling of your nativity. Help us to remain in that “time between” when we can truly prepare for all that your coming among us means. As we speed more and more surely toward the dying of the light – may your advent help us to reflect upon our brokenness and remind us of your promises made new each dawn. Fill us with the joy of your saving grace on this day of rejoicing at the hope of your coming among us. Amen.

(SUNG) COME THOU LONG EXPECTED JESUS, BORN TO SET THY
PEOPLE FREE – FROM OUR FEARS AND SINS RELEASE US
LET US FIND OUR STRENGTH IN THEE.

Here it is already the Third Sunday in Advent – we will light (have lit) the pink candle in the midst of our Advent wreath. In the tradition of the Church pink (or rose) is the liturgical color designated for Gaudate Sunday. This tradition comes from the first line of the Introit or opening prayer of the Latin church in the West; “Gaudete in Domine Semper,” which is translated “rejoice in the Lord always” and taken from the letter to the Philippians in the text read earlier. In the long penitential season of Advent (which at its beginning in the 4th Century started on November 12th – this mid-season prayer placed some joy back into the calendar and allowed for the use of Alleluia’s and hymns of joy and the rose color replaced the more somber purple of the remainder of the Advent season. Probably more than you wanted to know, but then again better than leading off with the fact that there are only 12 more shopping days left till Christmas.

We hear first this morning from the Hebrew prophet Zephaniah. This is not a Hebrew text that we read from very often in our Sunday lectionary. On this Sunday, however, this rejoicing Sunday, this prophet of old offers an incredible and beautiful glimpse of real, biblical style God given joy. Zephaniah speaks of a day when God no longer has to deal harshly with the faithful; he speaks of a day when the judgment for pursuing false joys is no longer held against those who have been made right with God through the grace of God. There will be a day, there will be a time, Zephaniah says, when women and men will ‘sing aloud’ and ‘shout,’ where they will ‘be glad and rejoice with all their hearts’. This true, authentic joy will well up not as a result of piling up enough money, or achieving certain levels of success. Rather, this lasting joy will flow from the fact that God has found God’s joy in you! That’s correct in little old, sinful imperfect you and me.

We are in that most uncomfortable of “in-between” times. That time of almost…but not yet; of expectation not completion. We have yet to reach the major tones of Christmas carols; we are still in the minor keys of advent hymns. Into the midst of this Advent season comes our encounter this morning with the wilderness prophet, the Son of Zechariah – John of baptizing fame. We are told in the narrative from the author of Luke/Acts that the crowds were thronging out to the wilderness to hear the fiery preacher that referred to them as a brood of vipers. Can you just imagine your surprise if I rose this morning, reeking of days and nights spent in the wild, clothed in animal skins and shouted out that you all were a bunch of snakes and warned you that the ax is lying at the foot of your tree and if it does not bear good fruit it will be chopped down and thrown into the fire? I’m not thinking I’d be offered the position of Rector in this fine and upstanding Episcopal Church in the Downtown Park blocks. Yet, in the passion of this wild man who speaks of the coming wrath of God, is also the promise of the One who is to deliver Israel from her bondage and the Messiah anticipated since the time of the great prophets of old. Those who have come out into the wilderness to hear the message of repentance and rebuke; listen with the ears of those hungry to hear the Good News or Gospel of Joy that we proclaim on this Gaudate Sunday.

(SUNG) ISRAEL’S STRENGTH AND CONSOLATION, HOPE OF ALL THE
EARTH THOU ART; DEAR DESIRE OF EVERY NATION, JOY OF
EVERY LONGING HEART.

It is helpful, I think, to put Zechariah’s son into the context of his time and age. John the baptizer was a sharp thorn in the side of the ruling classes of 1st Century Palestine. This wild man was speaking truth to power – and that is always a very dangerous thing to do. Power doesn’t often like to hear the truth; persons in positions of power generally surround themselves with voices that will assure them of the rightness of their policies and flatter them with encouraging words and pleasant platitudes. This was definitely not the style of the wilderness prophet whose sermon we hear this morning. Stirred by John’s visions of the coming wrath of God; those who sought his baptism and looked to follow his message of repentance ask specific questions of how they ought to repent in order to avoid the coming judgment. “What then should we do”? Now I’m quite sure that no one has ever asked me point blank what they should do in response to one of my sermons. The author of Luke/Acts tells us that the worst of the society asked in what ways they might repent – the baptizer tells them; who ever has two coats must share with anyone who has none”. I looked in my coat closet this morning before leaving the house and it would appear that I have a lot of coats that I need to share. Even the tax collectors we are told came to be baptized by John and they asked “what should we do”. The preacher tells them to exact from the people no more than is prescribed them to collect. That profession was infamous in its greediness and despised in that society for their often brutal tactics to collect what was owed to the Roman Government and then whatever they could gain for themselves. Are we hearing a theme here? Is the writer trying to point out; in a subtle way that what is being demanded of the Jewish Nation by its Roman occupiers is subject to the same fate as the chaff that will burn with unquenchable fire?

(SUNG) BORN THY PEOPLE TO DELIVER, BORN A CHILD AND YET
A KING; BORN TO REIGN IN US FOREVER, NOW THY GRACIOUS
KINDOM BRING.

Here is part of the reality of the Word made flesh – God incarnate – come to dwell among human beings is a God that comes into a world of political power and influence and that world does not give up its gained power easily. What would this Messiah, this hope of the nations do for an oppressed Nation that looked to regain its position and influence? Would the Messiah who would reclaim the throne of his ancestor David – who would in fact come of the same blood line as that greatest of Israel’s Kings – stand in opposition to the dominating and hated power of Rome? The baptizer seems to believe that will be one of his successor’s roles. It is this Messiah that John speaks of when he says “his winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Scripture scholars have long translated Israel as the wheat and her captors as the chaff. It would appear that Zechariah’s son is setting the stage for a Messiah who will fulfill the vision of a political hero that will deliver God’s chosen from the yoke of her oppression.

What transpires, we with the gift of hindsight are aware; is a very different Messiah, than the one that Israel had long expected. The Carpenter’s son, Jeshua of Nazareth; cousin of the wilderness prophet will fulfill the role of Messiah in a very different way….but that story will come later; much later in our re-telling of the salvation story. For today, this rejoicing Gaudate Sunday – the messenger gathers the faithful in the wilderness of Judea and the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. In a literal translation from the Greek “the word of God” (whom the writer of another version of the Good News identifies as God by writing …”and the word was God”…) happened to John. The word of God – the long-awaited, eagerly-listened-for word of God happened to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. That very word, became flesh and in the divinity of the Christ delivered the world into the hands of God’s salvation; now if that is not a reason to rejoice in the Lord always…then I don’t what is.

(SUNG) BY THINE OWN ETERNAL SPIRIT RULE IN ALL OUR HEARTS
ALONE; BY THINE OWN SUFFICIENT MERIT RAISE US TO THY
GLORIOUS THRONE.

Finally in this third chapter of the author of Luke/Acts account we are told: “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” This fire and brimstone preacher continues his exhortations and by so doing delivers the Gospel to the faithful of his generation. Our reading this morning ends at verse 18 – the completion of that train of thought about John’s wilderness sermon actually extends two more verses in this Chapter. Before we move to the events of Jesus’ baptism and the start of his public ministry – which we will pick up after we revisit the Birth narrative in our season of Christmastide – the author of Luke/Acts ends his talk of John’s wilderness sermon with a brief reference to Herod Antipas who finally imprisoned and cut off the head of John, son of Zechariah. Allow me to share those two verses with you: “But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all but shutting up John in prison.” But we ought to pity poor King Herod. He’s not as important or as powerful as he thinks. Herod can’t shut John up. The word of God has come to John in the wilderness. A wild conflagration has flared up out in the wilderness, among the marginalized and the lowly, a fire that shall eventually sweep toward Jerusalem and consume the whole world. The word has happened to John – the word has happened to us; rejoice in the word always, again I say Gaudate!