Isaiah 35.1-6a,10 ‘God himself will, come and save you.’
James 5.7-10 ‘Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at
hand.’
Matthew 11.2-11 ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for
another?’
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Here’s a
question: what sort of people live in cells?
An obvious
answer is prisoners: a prison cell is where prisoners are incarcerated.
A prison
cell is a place of captivity, restraint, darkness, confinement.
But before
the word ‘cell’ was used of prisons it was used of the room that a monk or nun would
live, eat and pray in.
That sort of
cell, the monastic cell, is a place of intense relationship with God where
one’s true self is found through prayer, contemplation, meditation and
adoration: that cell is a place of
freedom.
Part of the
spiritual life is to discern when you’re trapped in a cell of captivity and
darkness, and when you inhabit a cell of light and freedom in God’s presence.
This relates
to our experience of the Christian life; its light and darkness.
It is
absolutely normal, and to be expected, that in our lives as Christians we
experience ups and downs, what the great spiritual master, St Ignatius of
Loyola, called times of consolation and desolation.
Sometimes
God feels very near, prayer flows, and at other times God feels distant, prayer
is arid or a struggle.
This isn’t
to be confused with feeling good or feeling bad.
Spiritual
desolation, distance from God, can be experienced when all is going well in
life, sometimes more so: things are great, going swimmingly, and I forget God
and distant from Him.
So the ‘ups’
of life can be spiritually desolate.
Equally it
can be in times of testing, and even the depths of despair, that we are
particularly near to the God who loves and sustains us.
Ironically,
the ‘downs’ of life can be spiritually consoling.
In times of
desolation, says Ignatius, recall the warmth, sweetness and intensity of God’s
presence to draw you back to Him.
In times of
consolation, says Ignatius, to recall how dry, sad and unfulfilled we are when
we are from God.
So, what’s
all that got to do with today’s readings and our Advent journey?
John sends emissaries
from his prison cell.
He has been
arrested by Herod and cast in jail for speaking the truth and rebuking vice.
Even locked
away in prison word of Jesus, the one he has lived for and proclaimed, breaks
into his cell.
It’s from that
cell of darkness John sends his own disciples to ask Jesus, if he is the One
Who Is to Come.
Is it a
moment when John was dispirited, in desolation?
Has he got
it all wrong? Jesus, are you really the one I have said you are?
Was it a
moment when he felt abandoned?
Or was it a
moment when he abandoned himself more fully to Jesus Christ?
The funny
thing with the word ‘abandon’ is that when we are abandoned by someone that
is entirely negative; when we abandon ourselves to something or someone,
it is a beautiful and good thing.
John’s whole
life is centred on God; his life was one of abandonment to the Divine Will.
He went out
into the wilderness to proclaim the One Who Is to Come, that is the Messiah,
the Christ, and what his disciples come back to tell him is the evidence for John
to assess for himself.
Is he the
One Who Is to Come?
Here’s
Jesus’ answer again:
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are
cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have
good news preached to them. (Matthew 2.5)
This echoes
the promises of the Beatitudes and the prophecy of Isaiah, and it’s not just
about the words, or good teaching, but what is put into action: the mighty acts
of God, who brings life to the world, just like a crocus blossoming in the
desert.
Go and tell
that to John, what you hear and see.
John had
proclaimed his message of turning to God and preparing for the One Who is to
Come out in the physical wilderness of Judea and now Christ comes, bringing
life and hope to the world and to the wilderness of human hearts.
Is he the
One Who Is to Come?
Oh yes!
John’s
vindication has come.
Yes, I am
the One Who Is. I am the One Who Is to Come.
What
consolation!
John was
indeed the messenger who goes before the face of the Lord: he wasn’t wrong to
say of Jesus, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’ (John 1.29)
John knows
who Jesus is; and Jesus knows who John is.
Through the
one Who Is to Come – Jesus Christ - the cell of darkness is transformed into a
cell of light and freedom through faith in him.
As Isaiah
also prophesies:
“I am the
Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I will give
you as a covenant for the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring
out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison
those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42.6,7)
In this
Advent season, as we rejoice in the Lord and prepare our hearts, minds and
bodies to receive him, may we know the Lord who comes to release us, and all
the world, from the cell of darkness into the radiancy of his light.
