The one who is coming
Advent 3, December 12, 2021
Zephaniah 3:14-20 • Philippians 4:4-7 • Luke 3:7-18
Gaudate, my friends, ‘Rejoice’. ‘Gaudate in Domino semper’: rejoice in God always!
Our first reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, goes on:
Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Today, this ‘Gaudete Sunday’, we are invited into the beauty and holiness of God’s beloved community. Let us rejoice together in this welcoming sanctuary. May our concerns, our anxieties, even our anguish be comforted by the message, the reminders of life, and hope.
There is so much in the world around us that gives us reason for anxiety, even despair. There have been and continue to be so many unrighted wrongs: so much greed and brutality, indifference and abandonment. You don’t need me to catalogue our errors as a species.
And while each of us becoming ever more aware of the unvarnished and often ugly truths of our histories is a necessary part of the healing of the world, we cannot do this hard and challenging work without deep soul nourishment: the unquenchable, to quote from this morning’s opening collect, gift of God’s Spirit, ‘coming to us from another place, burning with life and hope’.
We meet John the Baptist at the river Jordan again this week, surrounded by crowds desperate for whatever healing he is offering. Calling them a ‘brood of vipers’ does sound somewhat harsh to our sensitive Californian ears, but it will certainly have got their attention, as it does ours!
Our gospel passage goes on:
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
John offers a message of healing, hope, and good news to his people. There is one who is coming.
One of my favorite poets for our more austere seasons of Advent and Lent, is the twentieth century Welsh poet, RS Thomas: an Anglican priest deeply in touch with both the beauty and the harshness of the farming life in Wales. He wrote an extraordinary poem called ‘The Coming’ which has touched my soul this week, opening me to good news that God offers to us all. Let me share it with you:
The Coming - R.S. Thomas
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.