Rooted in joy

Zephaniah 3:14-18 The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst

Philippians 4:4-7 The Lord is very near

Luke 3:10-18 'Someone is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire'

 

 

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;

shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem!

Zephaniah 3.14

 

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Last week I was at the Minster Junior School for their Advent School Eucharist.

 

We explored the theme of preparation - after all, it’s Advent - and they told me their morning routine of preparing for school: have breakfast, brush teeth, have shower, put on uniform, and one girl, rather impressively said that she makes her bed!

 

And then we turned to how we prepare for the coming of the Lord and welcoming God into our lives.

 

I asked the children how they think we should prepare for the coming of the Lord, and a sea of hands went up.

 

I really should ask you now to put up your hands and do the same thing!

 

What would you say is the way to prepare for the coming of the Lord?

 

From the children I got the following answers:

 

To prepare for the coming of the Lord we should pray.

 

To prepare for the coming of the Lord we should fast.

 

To prepare for the coming of the Lord we should ask forgiveness.

 

To prepare for the coming of the Lord we should lead godly lives.

 

To prepare for the coming of the Lord we should be joyful.

 

What a collection of wise and good counsel!

 

As Jesus reminds his hearers ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings [God] hast perfected praise’ (Matthew 21.16 citing Psalm 8.2)

 

He says that, having observed the children, with their exuberance and joy, waving Jesus into Jerusalem, with palm branches and singing, on the first Palm Sunday.

 

Children’s praise can cut through the jaded, world-weary, adult mind that lacks a sense of expectation and hope.

 

These themes of expectation, hope and joy within the context of preparation, all come out of our readings today, and actually flesh out what the children said in that School Eucharist.

 

Prayer, fasting, asking forgiveness, leading godly lives and being joyful.

 

Can we find those things in the readings today, is there more we should add?

 

We can certainly find prayer: ‘in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God’. (Philippians 4.6)

 

The promise is that lives soaked in prayer, will receive ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4.7).

 

That peace, like prayer, is for heart and mind: it’s a whole person activity and blessing.

 

What of the next word a child suggested? Fasting?

 

We don’t explicitly find fasting mentioned in our readings today – although John the Baptist does talk about sharing food with those who have none.

 

I guess many of us would associate fasting with the season of Lent; but the practice of fasting can happen through the year, because it is about depriving ourselves of something – typically food – so that, first, we remember from who all good gifts come in the first place, God the creator, and, second, to appreciate the gifts we enjoy mindful of the needs of others.

 

Fasting in the midst of the pre-Christmas feasting is a good Advent discipline, so long as we do feast at Christmas.

 

That takes us to forgiveness.

 

John the Baptist proclaimed the intense preparation that is about getting ourselves in right relationship with God: smoothing the paths for him to come.

 

John’s proclamation is of ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’, as we heard in last week’s gospel (Luke 3.3).

 

Being forgiven people, who are forgiving people is indeed how we are called to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

 

And that takes us to a phrase one of those children used, that is not on the lips of many people today, leading godly lives.

 

That is what John the Baptist addresses in answer to the crowds’ question, ‘what then should we do?’ (Luke 3.10).

 

He effectively says lead godly lives.

 

He goes on to say, ‘and this is what it looks like’.

 

For all of us, be generous: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

 

If you’re a tax collector: “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”

 

If you’re a soldier: “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

 

There’s a great Advent question for us all: what does leading a godly life look like for me?

 

And perhaps that takes us back to the title of this Sunday, Guadete Sunday, translated ‘rejoice Sunday’, from those verses of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.’ (Philippians 4.4)

 

This isn’t about banal, happy smiley Christians, but rather to be rooted in the deep joy that comes only from God.

 

A joy that doesn’t evaporate when times get tough, but sustains us through the tough times.

 

A joy that is expectant, even exuberant, as Zephaniah describes it: “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!” (Zephaniah 3.14).

 

This is the joy of the valleys, of which prophets speak, that ‘shall blossom abundantly and shall rejoice with joy and singing.’ (Isaiah 35.2)

 

This is the reverent joy, described in Revelation, of the exquisite sound of those gathered in heaven, ‘singing a new song before the throne.’ (Revelation 14.3)

 

‘So with many other exhortations [John the Baptist] preached the good news to the people.’ (Luke 3.18)

 

Pray. Fast. Forgive and be forgiven. Lead godly lives. Be joyful.

 

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;

shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem!

Prepare the Lord's path

Baruch 5:1-9 God means to show your splendour to every nation

Philippians 1:4-6,8-11 May you become pure and blameless in preparation for the day of Christ

Luke 3:1-6 The call of John the Baptist

 

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

 

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You don’t have to go far at the moment, in and around Croydon, by car or by bus to find a road closed and a diversion in place.

 

Even on foot, pavements are blocked and you’re forced to go around barriers, stepping into the road, often putting life and limb at risk from traffic.

 

Diversions can be a real pain and nuisance.

 

They delay and frustrate us from our intended destination.

 

Worse still is a roadblock with no sign of a diversion route.

 

We often speak of the spiritual life as a journey, and reflect on the meanderings of faith, but the message of the readings today is ‘prepare the way of the Lord’.

 

It is the Lord who is coming, as the prophets and John the Baptist tell us, he is coming and we are to clear the diversions and roadblocks that we put up in our lives.

 

What are those diversions and roadblocks?

 

Advent is the time to ask that question of ourselves: how do I block God’s grace and presence in my life?

 

Often it comes down to our pride: when we place ourselves at the centre of things and pay little attention to God or neighbour.

 

It can come down to lack of trust: when we just don’t believe that Jesus Christ would even deign to come to us, that can be a genuine sense of unworthiness, or another form of spiritual pride.

 

‘Lord I am not worthy’ is not a lot of use without the follow up, ‘but only say the word and I shall be healed’

 

It can come down to a sheer lack of expectation that the Lord will come, will break into our lives, will transform us and lead us to the ultimate destination of what is known in the spiritual masters as the Beatific Vision – the vision of heaven.

 

The task of the prophets is to smash our illusions and pretences such that we are spiritually purified so that we ‘may be’, as St Paul put it in our second reading today, ‘pure and blameless for the day of Christ’ (Philippians 1.10)

 

This ‘day of Christ’ he refers to is what the prophets point us to, the day when, ‘all flesh – everyone - shall see the salvation of God’ (Luke 3.6).

 

It’s what we profess in the Creed when we declare, ‘and he shall come again in glory, to judge both the quick (the living) and the dead’.

 

The overarching prayer of Advent, par excellence, is ‘our Lord, come’ (1 Corinthians 16:22) ‘Amen. Come, Lord Jesus’ (Revelation 22:20)

 

If you are praying that someone will come to you, the last thing you would do is then put in place diversions, roadblocks or send them on the wrong path.

 

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’

 

How can you do that?

 

If pride, lack of trust and lack of expectation are the roadblocks you put up – and you may identify more – then the way to make straight the Lord’s paths is humility, fostering faith and an expectant heart.

 

The greatest barrier to the coming Saviour is, in the words of St Augustine, living life turned in on itself, in the Latin incurvatus in se.

 

If I am turned in on myself then I am declaring myself self-sufficient in no need of a Saviour, and so actually utterly unable to entertain the presence of Christ.

 

And that takes us to the habits of sacrifice, patience and service, when we give up our own preferences, curve outwards not inwards, to make way for our neighbour and for God.

 

At the heart of this is love: love clears the space in our lives to look beyond self and to the life of God and needs of others.

 

Love is the fulfilling of the Law, a person receiving and reflecting the love of God can never be a roadblock to the coming Saviour.

 

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’

 

 

As the famous painting by Holman Hunt, ‘The Light of the World’ shows, Christ stands at the door knocking: are you ready, first, to hear his voice and then to open the door of your heart to him?

 

Let’s live lives of humility, trust, expectation and love, turned out to God not in on ourselves, for then we are unblocking the way, allowing Christ to enter, allowing the flow of his grace to run down the channels of our lives bringing life, and hope, truth and peace.

 

To Christ glory and kingship

Daniel 7.9-10, 13,14 I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man

Revelation 1.4b-8 Jesus Christ has made us a line of kings and priests

John 18.33-37 Yes, I am a king

 

Preached at the Eucharist with Holy Baptism of Naomi

 

To him was given dominion

and glory and kingship,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him.

(Daniel 7.14)

 

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To confer baptism today, as we celebrate the kingship of Jesus Christ, is beautiful and very appropriate.

 

The thread that weaves baptism and kingship together is anointing.

 

Anointing is the act of applying oil, in baptism it’s olive oil, which consecrates a man or woman and realises the inward anointing of the Holy Spirit.

 

In the scriptures, priests, prophets and kings are all anointed with oil; empowered by the Holy Spirit of God to fulfil their God-given task.

 

It’s water that makes baptism: water of life, cleansing and birth. Light signifies the light of the resurrection of Christ. Oil, for anointing, tells us we share in the life of the Anointed One.

 

Now, you may be thinking ‘who’s this Anointed One?’ he’s talking about!

 

So, the Hebrew for ‘Anointed One’ is  mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ,) and the Greek is chrīstós (χριστός).

 

Sound familiar? Mashiach, Messiah; Chrīstós, Christ.

 

Interestingly the first person to bear the title Maschiach was one of the most famous kings in the Bible, King David. And one of king David’s most distinguished ancestors is Naomi, the name of our candidate for baptism today!

 

And that’s why it’s significant that Jesus was born in the city of David: but let’s not get ahead of ourselves; we’ll enjoy that link at Christmas!

 

To be anointed in baptism we come to share in the life of Jesus Christ, the Anointed One: the Great High Priest, the Word of God and ascended and glorified King of all Creation.

 

No day or action is more important than the day of your baptism, it’s when we are grafted into the life, death and resurrection of the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

 

Naomi, today you become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. You are recreated, reborn and take on the mantle of priest, prophet and king.

 

So, let’s look at those three aspects of being Christians – priest, prophet, king - which some of us have carried for many years, some more recently, Naomi as of today, and, who knows, there may be someone here not yet baptised who is being called to be.

 

Priest.

 

Let’s first be clear, I am ordained as a priest. But my priesthood comes first from the baptism I share with you: the ministerial priesthood - i.e. what I am ordained into - exists within the priestly body of believers.

 

My priesthood expresses and reflects the priesthood of the whole Church, all the baptised.

 

My first call, like yours, is to be baptised: how you and I serve Christ is down to discernment and wisdom and the gifts we have to offer to the whole Body.

 

You may not wear priestly robes, though at baptism St Paul tells us we ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 13.14; Galatians 4.24). Our “clothes” are compassion, kindness, humility and such like (Colossians 3.12,13).

 

The white robe I wear today, the alb, is the robe of baptism, the first robe that goes on me, and goes on you – be clothed in Christ!

 

What did our second reading today say? Christ ‘loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father…’ (Revelation 1.5,6)

 

That’s why we speak of the Church as ‘a royal priesthood, a holy nation’ (2 Peter 2.9)

 

The task of the priest at its heart, is to pray and offer sacrifice.

 

In prayer the individual priest stands representing God to the people and the people to God.

 

As a priestly people we stand representing God to the world, and lifting the world in prayer to God.

 

You are a priest of the priestly people of God.

 

You, with all the baptised, are to pray: praying for the sake of others, and offering your life, as I will bread and wine, ‘as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God’ (Romans 12.1).

 

We are most clearly the priestly people of God when we come together at the Eucharist.

 

Here, hidden in bread and wine, God presents himself to us, and we present ourselves before him, and we offer that sacrifice, which spills out into the world He made: ‘may our sacrifice be acceptable to God, the almighty Father’.

 

Go for it priestly people!

 

And you’re anointed as a prophet.

 

A prophet is one who receives God’s word, takes it to heart and proclaims it to the world beyond him or herself.

 

Being baptised we receive the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and are called to read and meditate on the scriptures as the ‘lively oracles of God’

 

A brief self-examination on what ‘goes in’ and what ‘goes out’ is worth doing.

 

On what goes in: how faithfully do I receive the Word of God? How often do I read the Bible? Do I seek out guidance and insight in reading that word? Do I have a bible in the house? Do I have a Bible app on my phone?

 

On what goes out: Am I ready ‘to give an account to others for the hope that is within me?’ (1 Peter 3.15) How do I help others gain insight into God’s word: my family, friends, colleagues, fellow believers? Or do I keep it all to myself?

 

When you’re addressing those questions then you are becoming prophetic. It is being, like Daniel, one who is prepared to look into and sound the depths of God and then reveal them.

 

Throughout scripture we see that being a prophet is never cost free: it’s not Cross-free.

 

But the anointing Holy Spirit gives grace, power and help to us to do that.

 

Try it! It sounds frightening, but it’s life-giving.

 

After all, as St Paul tells Timothy, ‘God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and love, and self-control’ (2 Timothy 2.7).

 

So, priest – a life of prayer offered sacrificially to God.

 

So, prophet – receiving and speaking God’s living word.

 

What of king. Now, you might say, ‘I get that I have a priestly role or a prophetic role as a baptised Christian, but king?!’

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary testifies, ‘[The LORD] has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate’ (Luke 1.52)

 

In the psalms it says that the Lord raises you up and crowns you, like a king: God, ‘who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion’ (Psalm 103.5).

 

Baptism is a coronation of the people of God; baptised into the ‘royal priesthood’ of the holy people of God.

 

To speak of kingship, is to speak of sovereignty and where authority lies.

 

First, in our lives as the baptised, we have to allow Christ to crown our lives; that is what the anointing of baptism does.

 

This is about mastery of self, the Spirit’s gift of self-control, not being like autumn leaves blown about, tossed to and fro by every breath of fashionable opinion, but being governed by the Spirit’s gift of ‘power and love and self-control’.

 

It’s about exercising wise sovereignty in your dealings with others, about how you reveal who is sovereign in your life: Christ, the King.

 

So in baptism the Christian is anointed: consecrated as priest, prophet, king.

 

This reality now touches Naomi’s life, as it has touched mine and yours, and might yet the life of someone you know.

 

As priest, prophet and king, live the life of the Kingdom, a kingdom described by St Paul as a kingdom of ‘…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 14.17)

 

The Temple of the Body

Daniel 12.1-3 Some will wake to everlasting life, some to shame and disgrace

Hebrews 10.11-14 When all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin-offerings

Mark 13.1-8 Jesus said to them, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.

 

‘There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.’

(Mark 13.2)

 

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Today’s gospel reading is dramatic and unnerving.

 

Jesus foretells the destruction of the Temple and speaks of the signs of the end of the age.

 

It sounds chaotic, destructive and frightening: we might well ask, ‘where is the Gospel, the Good News – in all of that?

 

Today is the annual ‘Safeguarding Sunday’.

 

Safeguarding is tremendously important to me and a priority as Vicar.

 

To my shame ‘Safeguarding Sunday’ is not something I have ever emphasised in the life of the churches in my care.

 

All that went on last week, and what led to it, resulting in the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, shows that safeguarding is not for one Sunday year.

 

Safeguarding is not an inconvenience, a bureaucratic exercise or something to sigh and shrug our shoulders about: it is about creating a culture across the church where the voices of victims and survivors of abuse of body, mind or spirit are heard and all who are vulnerable, not least the young, are safe.

 

The Church has not always been that place of safety; we have not always modelled the life of faith and hope and love we espouse.

 

So what might the gospel today speak into that bleak scenario?

 

One way in is to consider the Temple: the physical Temple in Jerusalem; the Temple of Creation; the Temple of the body.

 

The Temple of which Jesus foretells destruction is the Temple in Jerusalem.

 

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” (Mark 13.1)

 

We construct edifices of great beauty and power.

 

That’s true of the Church of England, but for too long those at the heart of the Church of England have stood gazing at the Church and thought ‘how wonderful’ and, in doing so, have gazed on their own grandeur and glory and worried about ‘reputational damage’, as if their wonderful stones, what they have built and lived in, will be pulled down.

 

‘Yes, it will’, says Jesus, ‘When you build to your own glory and not to God’s, then the edifice will crumble’.

 

Furthermore, the Church of England, through her Bishops and Synods, has for too long sought the approval of society, protecting a worldly reputation and not being right with God.

 

All we see of God in the face of Jesus Christ is compassion for the victim, for He Himself becomes the Victim without blame, the Spotless Lamb, who is one with every victim of violence and abuse, in a way the powers -that-be in the Church of England have not been.

 

To see the Cross at the heart of our faith is to see the association of Christ with the innocent victim and nothing of worldly reputation.

 

This moves us to the Temple of the Creation, because the Temple in Jerusalem was conceived by God to be a microcosm of the Creation, the meeting point of divinity and humanity, where right worship is offered.

 

At the heart of the Temple in Jerusalem was the representation of the Garden of Eden – creation as God intended it - before the whispers of sin, through the wiles of the Enemy were heard and acted on, taking humanity away from God and in need of rescuing, salvation and redemption.

 

Sin is the corrosive force that attacks the Creation itself, yet even then God’s redeeming power is at work.

 

In nature and human society, we see destruction and war, and our natural instinct is despair: but our instinct  as disciples of Christ must be hope: hope, not that we can save ourselves, but that we have a saviour.

 

God’s capacity - repeatedly demonstrated in the scriptures - is to turn our destructive ways into the ‘birth pangs’ (Mark 13.8c) of a new age, the pain of the close of an old age.

 

What does that look like on ‘Safeguarding Sunday’?

 

The Church of England is at the close, we pray, of a former age.

 

It’s painful for we who live through it but, as the new child knows, from the safety, warmth and security of the womb delivery into the world is traumatic, yet ultimately about life, new life, abundant life.

 

What we live through now will, by God’s grace, deliver us into the life of the New Creation.

 

All this is a reminder of the spiritual wisdom - expressed in the service of Holy Baptism - that we die to sin, to live with Christ.

 

This takes us to the Temple of the body.

 

In St John’s Gospel Jesus says that the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem -  to which we might add, the Temple of the Creation - is a sign fulfilled in the destruction of his body on the cross, which will be raised after three days.

 

St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians extends this Temple imagery saying,

 

…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6.19,20)

 

For those who say Christianity is anti-the-body, re-read that passage!

 

It tells us that the body is precious, to be cherished, not to be abused, hurt or destroyed.

 

That has a bearing on the body of the unborn, the terminally ill body, the marred body, the pained body, the tired body, the elderly body.

 

Every body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God.

 

That is why abuse of another person’s body is so wicked, it is a blasphemous destruction and violation of the sacred ground of another person’s precious body.

 

And so too is psychological or spiritual abuse that assaults the God-given human spirit within.

 

‘Safeguarding Sunday’: it might sound like a niche cause, or theme enforced on the Church, but I hope we see on this Sunday, and every day, that safeguarding is integral to the protection of the human body, which is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, the meeting place of divinity and humanity in God’s good creation.

 

And may the Church, which is Christ’s own body, honour her call to be compassionate, loving, kindly and gracious, and purge away the sin that clings so closely, but over which Christ, the High Priest, has triumphed.