Given by Revd Clare Hayns on 15th December 2024 – Advent 3
Zephaniah 3. 14-end
Isaiah 12. 2-end
Philippians 4. 4-7
Luke 3. 7-18
‘You brood of Vipers!’
This is not normally the way to encourage church attendance or win a congregation over!
There is something rather bracing about John the Baptist at this point in Advent isn’t there.
We get two seemingly contrasting commands this morning. On the one hand we have John emerging from the desert calling people to baptism with talk of vipers, axes, repentance and fire – not something you’d find on a festive Christmas Card!
And on the other, we have prophet Zephaniah:
‘Sing aloud.. rejoice and exult with all your heart’. (3.14)
And Isaiah – “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously” (12.5)
And then, St Paul in Philippians:
‘Rejoice in the lord always, again I will say Rejoice’ (4.4)
These seems rather more festive, seasonal and Christmassy?
It’s a bit like near the Westgate where you have the street preachers shouting at passers-by, ‘repent, save yourselves, the end is nigh’, right opposite the carol singers wrapped in tinsel singing ‘Joy to the World’.
Is it all a bit much! If we’re honest, both exhortations can be uncomfortable.
Being commanded to rejoice is never normally very effective. It’s like the ‘cheer up love, it’ll never happen’ that women often get told. It always makes me feel incredibly grumpy and very far from cheerful.
It’s not easy to hear a command to rejoice when things aren’t particularly joyful – when we have things which are deeply troubling us, globally or personally; when we are worried about a health scare, or when we’re worried about money in the run up to Christmas, or any number of other concerns. How are we supposed to rejoice, for example, when our hearts are breaking? What ‘songs of gladness’ can we sing when despair, exhaustion, and fear darken our lives? Do these readings advocate pretence and inauthenticity? Are we meant to fake it?
We might know that we should be joyful at this time of the year, but find it hard to muster up the ‘sparkle and shine’ that seems to be required at this time of year. Many churches do a ‘blue Christmas’ to recognise that Christmas can be tough for people – maybe it’s something we should consider for next year.
Perhaps a dollop of John the Baptist at this time of year is actually quite welcome – like an alka-seltzer after a Christmas party! One commentator called John, ‘John, the curmudgeonly Baptist, the killjoy of Christmas’.
But, let’s look more closely and focus on what John the Baptist is actually saying to the crowds who flock to him in the desert as told to us in Luke’s gospel. Perhaps we can see things differently. Perhaps they are not two separate things, and being joyful is somehow wrapped up in repentance.
Because we read that crowds flocked to John the Baptist to hear what was ‘good news’ (v. 18) And they are so enamoured by what they hear from John that their response isn’t to run away, but to ask:
‘what should we do’?
We hear this three times – from the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers.
‘What then should we do’.
Given John the Baptists outer appearance and his demeaner (he wore camel shirts and at locusts according to Matthew’s gospel) they might have imagined that the answer to this question would have been more obviously radical. They might have expected him to say, “be like me, abandon your homes and families?” “Dwell in the desert?” “wear a camel shirt”, “Start a revolution?”
But he doesn’t say this at all. The answer to ‘what should we do’ is much more challenging, and easier to miss.
You should go back home. It could be summarised as:
‘Go back home to your families, your neighbours, your vocations. Stop searching for God far away from the ordinary stuff of your daily life. Instead of waiting for a holy someday that will never come, inhabit the stuff of your life as deeply and as generously as you can right now. Share now. Be merciful now. Do justice now. Because the holy ground that matters most is the ground beneath your feet.
To the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus says – “Don’t allow your religious background make you arrogant or complacent.” (v8)
To the tax collectors, he says, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” (v12)
To the soldiers: “Don’t extort money by threats or false accusations; be satisfied with your wages.” (v.14)
To everyone who has anything: “whoever has two coats must share”. He’s saying, ‘You have gifts to give. So stop hoarding and share stuff.’
Repentance, in this way of thinking, is indeed Good News. It’s about changing direction. From ways of living and being that get in the way and cause damage to our relationship with God, with one another, and with our world.
The Old Testament word for repentance is shuv, which means ‘to turn around’, and in the New Testament the word is metanoieo, which means ‘to rethink, change the mind’. Combining the two gives a full understanding of repentance. When we repent, we change direction, and we rethink our lives. We turn towards ways of living and being that bring life, that are fruitful, that are deeply joyful.
What John is suggesting to his listeners is that holiness is not the ethereal, mysterious, elite thing we tend to make it. John’s examples are practical and every day. And they start where we are now.
This week I met a chap who is turning his life around after a time of drug addiction. He was talking to me about wanting to take his Mum and his Nan into Oxford to see the Christmas lights. The care and concern he was taking over the detail of this really moved me. He had turned away from a way of life which had caused harm to himself and his family, and he wanted to show he was healthy and wanted to bless his family.
He was a great example of the fruits of repentance, and I know his care will bring joy to his Mum and Nan who no doubt have been worrying about him in the past, and I hope this will also bring deep joy to him as well.
John the Baptist understands something hard and gritty about joy. Which is not sentiment. Joy is not happiness. Joy is not cheap. Joy often involves sacrifice, repentance, turning back to God who forgives us again and again and again, deciding to live lives that different, that are open and generous.
John points his listeners away from himself and towards the one who was coming after him. Jesus, the one who IS the Good News – the one who would embody this way of being to such an extent that he’s eventually killed because of it. John points to Jesus, who forgives, heals, makes whole, and who brings ‘life in all its fulness’. All he asks is we turn towards him.
During communion this morning we have the opportunity to come for prayers of healing. This is a gentle moment where we can come before God recognising that we are in need of healing in some ways, be that physical, spiritual, emotional, mental.
This could be that we long for the deep joyfulness we’ve just heard about. It may be that we long for healing in our bodies, or in our relationships.
If you would like to come for prayer then just sit to the side after you’ve received communion, and you will be prayed for and anointed with oil, a sign of the holy spirit.
I will end with the prayer of St Paul to the Philippians, and perhaps we can hear it, not as a command, but as a promise:
‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice’.
- This was inspired by Debie Thomas - https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2030-what-then-should-we-do ↩︎