Second Sunday of Advent

[cappie]

 This week and next, our Gospel readings invite us to consider John the Baptist and his relationship to Jesus. John the Baptist appears in the tradition of the great prophets, preaching repentance and reform to the people of Israel. To affirm this, Luke quotes at length from the prophet Isaiah. John baptizes for repentance and for forgiveness of sins, preparing the way for God's salvation. In this Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 3:1-6), Saint Luke begins his account of John the Baptist by giving us the time and place of his ministry. Luke tells us the names of those holding power and the names of those serving as high priests. That information lets us know that the ministry of John the Baptist began around the year 28 AD. Besides giving us the time, Luke gives us the place. He tells us, “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan.” 

Luke gives us those details to make it clear that he is telling us about a real person, actual places, and true events. He describes how God acted in the life of John the Baptist.

 We need prophets. The people who sit in darkness, in deep despair, need prophets. The people who look around and see destruction and desolation, need prophets. The people who have no voice, no rights, no hope need prophets, because prophets proclaim a new and better way. Prophets are truth-tellers to a world longing and praying and looking for glimpses of hope.

The message foretold by John breaks into our world and shatters the dark of despair with the light of love.

Rachel Held Evans reminds us, “Biblically speaking, a prophet isn’t a fortune-teller or soothsayer who predicts the future, but rather a truth-teller who sees things as they really are—past, present, and future—and who challenges their community to both accept that reality and imagine a better one.”

We need prophets especially when we have grown so full of ourselves that we neglect to see the orphan, the refugee, the migrant, the widow, and the stranger. We need prophets to call us back to God, back to a place where hope is found not only in church, but in the world around us—in the interaction of strangers, the joys of difference, and love.

Like Jesus and John, we are tasked to be open to a hope-filled future to which God calls us. Now more than ever, our communities, our nation, and our world are in desperate need of the glimmer of hope found in Jesus Christ. Now more than ever,  we, as the church, the people of God, the followers of Jesus, are called to claim our prophetic birthright and be the voice of the voiceless, the hope of the hopeless, the love of the loveless.

Often in the church, we can feel small and powerless, wondering how we will survive, being concerned about ourselves rather than those in need. But God’s prophetic grace often falls not on the powerful or the mighty, but on extraordinarily ordinary people who turn the world right-side-up. We are called to remember that we are not a group of people who believe all the same things; we are a group of people caught up in God’s plan of redemption and salvation with Jesus in the centre.

The question facing us as Christians, who seek to follow where Jesus leads and to heed the call of John is “Are we willing to be prophets?” Are we willing to let God’s light shine through us so much so that we can show the world a new and better way? Are we willing to be prophetic enough to walk out in faith and break bread with people who may not look like us, or talk like us, or vote like us or speak like us? Because that is the Good News that we have to share; that is the prophetic vision that has the power to transform our world.

There is still darkness and despair and shattered dreams. There are still sins to be forgiven and enemies to turn into friends. It may not look like it, it may not sound like it, it may not feel like it, but in Jesus Christ, love has already won. The light of love and the glimmer of hope has broken through the gloom. Look and you will see the salvation of our God breaking through in a thousand pinpricks of light.

So,  be the prophet who points to Jesus coming once more into our world.