The Birth of St John the Baptist: What will this child become?

Isaiah 49.1-6 ‘I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’

Acts 13.22-26 ‘Before the coming of Christ, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance.’

Luke 1.57-66,80 ‘His name is John’

 

“What then will this child be?”

 

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“What then will this child be?”

 

I suspect every parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle asks that question when they hear that a woman is pregnant.

 

And, as we know from the Gospel, it was asked of John the Baptist too, our special patron saint, whose birth we celebrate today.

 

John picks the question up later in life, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, our second reading: ‘“What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.”’

 

In other words, define me not by who I am, but by who I proclaim, Jesus Christ: ‘after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’ (Acts 13.35)

 

So, the time came for Elizabeth to give birth.

 

Let’s scroll back a little to how we got to this point.

 

St Luke tells us about Zechariah, one of the temple priests, who was married to Elizabeth from the priestly line of Aaron. (Luke 1.5)

 

You could say that John the Baptist came from an impeccable religious pedigree, but as we’ll see his name, John, will mark a change of direction, bringing the temple – the holy presence of God - to the wilderness as it was originally during the Exodus. (cf Exodus 25–31 and 35–40)

 

So both Elizabeth and Zechariah, we read, were ‘righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord’ (Luke 1.6)

 

One of their great sadnesses in life was that they had not had children and now were ‘advanced in years’ and so that possibility seemed to have past.

 

That mattered in a society where married women without children would, in many peoples’ minds, appear cursed somehow, or must have done something wrong.

 

The Bible doesn’t see it like that.

 

Not to have children is not a sign of God’s displeasure, but the other way round: to have children is to be a recipient and bearer of God’s fruitfulness.

 

Children are always a gift from God, as the psalm puts it: ‘Children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his gift’. (Psalm 127.4)

 

Even so, like Abraham and Sarah before them, Zechariah and Elizabeth thought they would not have a child (Genesis 18.11-14).

 

Sarah thought it a comical suggestion that she would have a baby at her age, which is why her son is called Isaac, a name which means ‘one who laughs’ because as Sarah said:

 

“God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me… Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21.6-7)

 

It’s telling us, ‘nothing will be impossible with God’. (Luke 1.37)

 

So, it was that Zechariah was in the temple performing his priestly duties, at the ‘hour of incense’ that an angel appeared to him.

 

There are echoes here of the annunciation to Mary when Gabriel comes and tells her she will bear a child.

 

But it doesn’t go well for Zechariah.

 

Unlike like Mary’s acceptance of God’s will for her life, Zechariah doesn’t say ‘be it to me according to thy word’ (Luke 1.38) but starts querying the angelic message.

 

That earns Zechariah the temporary loss of the ability to speak; ironic given that his son will be one of the Gospels’ great speakers and proclaimers. (Luke 1.22-23)

 

There’s a deeper message in all this.

 

Israel, the covenant people of God, had lost its voice of praise, become fruitless, a barren wilderness: the very place John the Baptist will go to begin his call to repentance and prepare the way for the Way, the Truth and the Life, Jesus Christ (John 14.6).

 

John picks up this theme in later life: you can’t say we’re Abraham’s children and do nothing with that, even stones have more capacity for life than those whose fruitfulness has dried up. (Luke 3.8)

 

Yet God is on the move, and this child is a signal of that.

 

Elizabeth conceived and not only had the shame she felt around other people gone, but she was bearing an unborn child with all the potential that an unborn, yet fully alive, child has.

 

The gospel gives us details about John’s unborn life.

 

When the pregnant Mary visited the still pregnant Elizabeth and greeted her, the unborn John danced with delight in his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth says:

 

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1.44)

 

The vibrancy of unborn life is picked up in our first reading from the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 49):

 

The LORD called me from the womb,

    from the body of my mother he named my name. (v1)

 

And now the LORD says,

    he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, (v5)

 

It’s not just about John, it’s about you and me and the unborn too.

 

What then will this child become? Someone asked that about you once!

 

God forms a purpose in every child conceived before ever we take our first breath.

 

Psalm 139 reminds us of this:

 

For you yourself created my inmost parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

marvellous are your works, my soul knows well. (Psalm 139.12,13)

 

In the light of this beautiful vision of the giftedness and potential of a child it is so sad that we live in a world that disposes of the unborn, those who have no decision, agency or choice, and yet who are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ before they’re born.

 

Today children only seem to matter if they are wanted.

 

What a dreadful message: you only matter if you’re wanted by others.

 

The logical conclusion of that is very dark: if you’re not perfect, too weak or too expensive or a burden to others - you’re not wanted.

 

But to Christians everyone is wanted because everyone - even before they’re conceived - belongs first to God: not to a mother, not to a community or nation.

 

All people, without exception, are created in the image and likeness of God called, in many and various ways, to reflect God’s life and glory: ‘before I formed you in the womb, I called you’ as the Lord said to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1.5)

 

John the Baptist’s life didn’t matter because Elizabeth and Zechariah wanted him: his life mattered because there was a purpose for him, formed and called by God.

 

Abortion with limits is always fatal to an unwanted child; last week MPs lifted the limits.

 

Last week MPs voted to allow medics to assist people, who lack the means or capacity, to die, with some limits. How long will it be before those limits lift?

 

In places where assisted suicide is legal the door has opened to abuses, and those who feel unwanted feeling compelled to die.

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about life: life in all its abundance.

 

That’s why from earliest days his followers have rejected abortion, infanticide and ending life before it’s natural end.

 

This is from a place of compassion and valuing of every life - over which none of us is God – so that we are called to care and alleviate suffering for life.

 

Compassion and life are not in competition; and for life to flourish there needs to be compassion and care: compassionate care for frightened and confused mothers; for those living with disabilities; for those terminally ill: for every life matters.

 

Contemplating John’s call and birth is about him, yes: but also about who we are; what God calls us to be; and what life is all about.

 

“What then will this child be?”

 

Zechariah answers question about John, in the text we know as the Benedictus, said daily in church at Morning Prayer:

 

And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, 

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

To give his people knowledge of salvation

by the forgiveness of all their sins. (Luke 1.76,77)

 

What then will you be?

 

Move wisely, and heal things

 

A sermon preached in Croydon Minster on Sunday 15th June, 2025, at the beginning of the Mayoral Year, in the presence of the Worshipful the Civic Mayor of Croydon, Cllr Richard Chatterjee.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

(Jeremiah 17.7-8)

 

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Ancient wisdom and enduring truths are easily scoffed at in a society where the slogan, ‘move fast and break things’ is in common currency.

That approach might work for the ‘tech bros’ of Silicon Valley, but they are not words that speak of how communities work, and certainly not communities with a millennium of history and culture that our Borough of Croydon has.

Leadership of communities of people, especially, ones so socio-economically and culturally diverse as Croydon, demands other skills and gifts.

And that takes us to tonight.

The current Archbishop of York wrote a little book a few years ago with the title ‘Hit the Ground Kneeling’.

That title is, of course, a reworking of the way that leaders want to ‘hit the ground running’, and other such slogans: ‘make a high impact’, ‘pick the low hanging fruit’.

The allure of the ‘short, sharp reset’ is seductive, but it ignores deep seated and long-standing challenges and how people live their lives.

Of course, in political life leaders want quick results, instant fixes and high impact, largely because that is what the voters want: we’re all complicit!

And for many people things need to change.

For people in our Borough who are in sub-standard accommodation; those who are fearful of crime; those who always seem to come out at the bottom of the pile; those who find themselves in ‘a strange and foreign land’ (Psalm 137) those working in voluntary organisations; those who need some beauty around them: things need to change.

And it’s tempting, in the face of that, to want to ‘move fast and break things’ or ‘hit the ground running’.

Of course, in the face of the challenges we have, we can’t ‘move slowly and do nothing’.

Change is needed; transformation of society is needed.

So what about ‘hitting the ground kneeling’, what does that actually mean?

What the Archbishop was saying is that so often we are in too much of a hurry to take time to ponder, reflect, think, seek out wisdom and, actually, to pray.

When you run around too much you are prone to tripping over; when you are kneeling before God in prayer, you can only be lifted up.

Might the motto for the political life of Croydon, our nation, our world, be: ‘Move wisely and heal things’?

This service tonight, at the beginning of a Mayoral Year, is a moment for our new Civic Mayor to ‘hit the ground kneeling’, in other words to begin his Mayoral Year in prayer, seeking out the depths of God’s wisdom.

God’s wisdom runs deep, like underground watercourses; and it’s trees that put roots down deep that draw on that refreshment and renewal:

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (cf Jeremiah 17.7-8)

When any of us, especially those in political life, is faced with the crisis that blows up out of nowhere, the pressing issue that needs solving, the people or person who needs seeing to, the tyranny of the diary, the imminent deadline for a difficult decision; then tap into the deeper wisdom of God.

Tonight, in the timeless phrases and cadences of a service that Archbishop John Whitgift himself would have recognised, we are also deeply mindful of the contemporary needs of our Borough that would have been bewildering to people 50 years ago, never mind 500.

Tonight’s service is a chance to go deep, to be renewed in what motivates and inspires service to a wider community of people, and the ability to look beyond ourselves.

By the way, there is no better place to start on that than by reading again our two Bible readings this evening: take the order of service away with you; read the readings again as you start your day, and use them as a measure and challenge to how you live your life.

That is a good exercise for us to do at all ages and stages and settings of life, whether in the workplace, at school, the council chamber or Town Hall: where do I find wisdom? How am I equipped for service? How do I see the world beyond myself and my own ambitions?

The two reading tells us that there is an authority and wisdom beyond ourselves that comes from God, and in obedience to that wisdom we are commissioned to make it practical in how we serve and honour all people.

After the prayers that follow this address, in which we pray for our civic life, we will be invited by our new Civic Mayor, to make an Act of Commitment as citizens of this Borough of Croydon, to join him in reaffirming our determination to build a community of respect, tolerance, courtesy and love so that all in our Borough may flourish.

I hope that everyone here, regardless of personal faith, belief or political conviction can share those words and put them into practice.

May we all, drawing on the wisdom of God, hearing the call to service and in the spirit of this evening, ‘Move wisely and heal things’.

Trinity Sunday: For love; against idolatry

Proverbs 8.22-31 Before the beginning of the earth, Wisdom was brought forth

Romans 5.1-5 To God through Christ in the love which is poured out through the Spirit

John 16.12-15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

+ Blessed be God the Father, and the only begotten Son of God;

and blessed be the Holy Spirit: for the mercy he has shown to us.

 

It is often said that it’s rude to talk about money, politics, sex and religion.

These things can make people feel very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.

That said, it is not unreasonable to expect a priest from a pulpit to address any of those topics, from time to time.

Money, politics, sex and religion all have a bearing on how we live our lives and therefore have a deep bearing on how we live life as followers of Jesus Christ.

On Trinity Sunday, I’m not going to address the impolite, but rather focus on God.

Shock, horror: a priest preaching about God!

And, let’s face it, God should not just be pondered on Trinity Sunday: every Sunday, every single day, sees us immersed in the life of God, the Holy Trinity.

After all, we are baptised, ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’.

Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist we do so, ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’.

Some might say, and have said, that the Trinity is really Greek philosophy, playing with words, getting too dense for simple faith.

The Church of England begs to differ, declaring that account of God is, ‘uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds’. (Church of England, Preface to the Declaration of Assent)

And it matters.

The Christian belief in the one God, revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, takes us to the heart of the nature of God.

This belief is expanded every time we say or sing the Creed.

We sing of the Father, the creator; the Son, - Eternal Word - always nestled in the Father’s heart, who takes human flesh and redeems us from our sinful condition; the Holy Spirit, the One who sustains us in life, and forms us into a body of worship and adoration of the Holy One.

We believe in one God.

And to declare, ‘I believe in one God’ is a very bold thing.

It is bold, not simply because in an increasingly disenchanted world people find it harder to say, but it is bold because to believe in God expresses concrete hope in something unseen; it is bold because it reminds us we humans are not gods!

To believe in God is to be enchanted, to believe that we inhabit a world that is bigger than ourselves, that we are not in control and God is the ground of our being.

And it’s not just theory.

Have you noticed that the so-called New Atheists, the likes of Richard Dawkins - who weirdly loved talking about God - are now really rather quiet.

Their splurge against God has fizzled out because it could only mock and just offered a blackhole of despair and doom and nothingness.

For believers not only do we assert that there is such an entity as God, but that God is sovereign in our lives and concerned about our lives.

Our belief in God shapes who we are, how we make decisions, how we cherish and value the creation, life and purpose.

The Trinity sketches out the inner life of the God we cannot fully know or understand.

What a Christian can, and should, always say of God is that, ‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.’ (1 John 4.16b).

To speak of God the Trinity is the beautiful sense we have that God is love: God created us out of love; God saves us out of love; God sustains us and draws us together, out of love.

Love is not simply a by-product or an ‘output’ of God, but is the heart and essence and substance of God.

The image of the Trinity, this glimpse into God, is of a perfect unity of love: love that gives of itself, is free of rivalry and manipulation, that delights in the other, and wills the good of the other, simply because they are there.

God is not in competition with you!

The Trinity is the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And to speak of God as Trinity also guards against idolatry, which is love misdirected.

What the New Atheists got right, was to warn us – in the same way the Old Testament prophets do - against creating idols of our own making or to invoke God to coerce or denigrate others.

An idol is something that becomes an object of devotion or worship that deflects us from God.

All those things considered impolite to talk about - money, politics, sex and, even religion (at least when we stop talking about God and talk about ourselves) - can easily become idols themselves.

Jesus says that ‘the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth’, (John 16.13) in other words guide us into the truth of the God of love, the blessed Trinity.

God is not a figment of our imaginations; he is always beyond them.

The invisible God is made visible in the face of Jesus Christ. (cf Colossians 1.15)

The unknowable God is knowable, as St Paul prays, in beautifully mystical language:

that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3.17-19)

May we be filled with the fulness of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion and power now and through the ages of ages. Amen.

Heavens opened: Ascension, Descent, Church

Acts 7.55-60 ‘I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’

Revelation 22.12-14,16-17,20 ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’

John 17.20-26 ‘May they become perfectly one.’

 

 ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened’

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On this seventh Sunday of the season of Easter, we stand between two great mysteries, wonders, if you prefer, of the Christian faith that have great bearing on how we understand the nature of God, and how God is not remote, but is with us until the end of the age, all of which prepares the ground for a third mystery.

The first great mystery was celebrated on Thursday, the Ascension of the Lord.

This is the day when Jesus Christ ascends into the heavens, out of his disciples’ sight, having told them that he is ‘with them always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28.20)

We’re left with wondering how can he possibly claim to be with us at the same time as going beyond our sight and into what we might call ‘another dimension’?

The answer is that as he is now no longer bound by time and space, his body no longer incarnate on earth, he is present at all times and in all places, in our world, in every believer’s heart, in mine and in yours.

In Christ’s incarnation, his becoming human, God shows that he is not remote, distant or like a blind watchmaker who gets Creation going then clears off.

St Matthew’s Gospel asserts this at the beginning, the middle and the end: ‘His name is Emmanuel (which means, God with us)’ (Matthew 1.23); ‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them’ (Matthew 18.20); ‘And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28.20).

That remains true even after the Ascension.

Yet, he is beyond our sight and touch, we cannot see him and relate to him as you and I can to each other.

The Ascension mystery is that he is always with us, yet always beyond us.

And he promises to come again in glory: ‘Surely, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus (Revelation 22.20).

Love of God is the Christian’s highest ambition: our summum bonum – our highest good – the God always with us, yet always beyond us.

Ascension Day, which is always 40 days after Easter, this year fell on 29^th May, which was also the anniversary of the conquering of Mount Everest in 1953.

One’s personal Everest is considered the highest thing that can be achieved: but it’s not high enough for the believer.

From a mountain top Jesus Christ ascends beyond, higher, the goal of all our aspirations, telling us our fulfilment is not in earthly achievement but heavenly completion.

That’s why even in the act of being martyred, with rocks hurled at him, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, looks and sees heaven opened and the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, sitting at God’s right hand in glory, and calls out, echoing Jesus’ words from the Cross, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (Acts 7.59)

We are called always to look beyond.

Savour this world; yet not be bound by it.

Succeed in this world; but not be fooled into thinking that’s all there is.

And that is where the second mystery comes in, the mystery to be celebrated next Sunday: the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

There will be more to consider next week, but Pentecost makes real the promises of Christ that he is not remote from us, that he is with us and we with him, even more than that, that he dwells in us and we in him.

The Spirit comes down upon the apostles who, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, have been praying in the Upper Room since Christ’s ascension.

They are now the Church and through the transmission of the Church’s life here are we united with believers throughout the world and, indeed, in heaven.

So, these nine days between Ascension and Descent of the Holy Spirit constitute the time, par excellence, to ponder the mystery of the Church, the third wonder for today.

And let’s be quite clear, whilst it needs to be organised, I’m talking about the Mystical Body of Christ, not about synods, committees, Vicars and archdeacons, rotas and such like.

Here we’re entering into a sacred, enchanted, symbolic world.

Modernity has us using the left side of our brains most of the time; processing, counting and abstract thinking.

In the sacred world we also have to exercise the right side of our brains: integrating creativity, imagination, wonder, mystery.

From that perspective we see that scripture has the most stunning language for the Church, the divine mystery.

The Church is the Bride to be espoused to the Bridegroom, Christ.

Those whose bodies are washed in the waters [of baptism] ‘have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates’. (Revelation 22.14)

Creation itself is being renewed!

The tree of life, the Cross, is the way to God’s wisdom; a gift, not to be snatched as the fruit was in the Garden of Eden.

They may enter the city by the gates; after the Fall the gates of paradise were guarded by cherubim with flaming swords: we may enter paradise now, for the Good Shepherd, the Door of the Sheepfold, has opened the gates.

The Church is first and foremost an organism, a body, in which the individual believer first relates to Christ and then, in the love of Christ, to fellow believers.

This is what is being addressed in our gospel reading: go back and look at the intimacy of the language; you’re invited into that!

Yes, the Spirit at Pentecost descended upon the Apostles, but so also through them to the whole Church throughout the ages: ‘I do not ask for these only’, says Jesus, ‘but also for those who will believe in me through their word’. (John 17.20)

Jesus is reflecting on the unity of the Father and the Son, and how that unity, intimacy and sharing life is to be reflected in those who receive him.

The wonders: Ascension, Descent, Church.

The mysteries of the Ascension of Christ and the Descent of the Spirit connect heaven and earth and charge up the Church with the power of things heavenly on earth: passed through the sacraments; rooted in the power of the scriptures; grounded in prayer.

The Ascended Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is with us always in his Body, the Church, and through that divine wonder, we dwell in him: ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened!’