When does Christmas start?
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When does Christmas start? Is it when the first adverts appear on TV? Immediately after bonfire night? The start of Advent? The 1st of December?
For us Christmas starts in June, because that’s usually when our main holiday is, and we’re looking for a vineyard to buy some English wine as Christmas presents.
Preparation
Oh, but I’m asking the wrong question really, aren’t I? - Because that’s PREPARATION for Christmas, that’s not Christmas itself. Christmas really starts on December 25th as we try to time the singing of “O Come all ye faithful” to just after midnight, so we can sing the Christmas day verse.
Advent
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We are in the season of Advent, at the start of the church year. It is described as a season of expectant waiting and preparation, not just for the coming birth of Christ, but for the year ahead and also for the return of Jesus at the second coming. Both our readings today have that sense of looking ahead, but they are not necessarily looking at the same things.
Isaiah Reading
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Let’s look at the reading from Isaiah first. The Israelites have been through a lot. They have been defeated and exiled from their country. Eventually, 70 year later they are allowed back.
Chapters 60 and 61 look forward to a better future now that they have repented of their sins. Once again they can take their place as firstborn among the nations. Once again they can become priests to the world, and to be a blessing to all nations. All the peoples of the world will see this and acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.
It’s just what a defeated people need to hear. Their God is on their side and has great plans for them.
The year of the Lord’s favour (verse 2) relates to the laws of jubilee in Leviticus 25, when slaves were freed and land returned to its original owners. Things are set back the way they ‘should be’. Justice will prevail, the Lord will have vengeance against His enemies (Isaiah 1:24).
Jesus is speaking
The first verse of our reading starts “The Spirit of the Lord is on me”, so we have to ask who the 'me' is. It is likely that the original readers of Isaiah saw this as Israel personified, but with the benefit of hindsight and a few additional centuries, we know differently.
Jesus uses these verses to announce Himself in Luke (4:19-20), so these verses look forward to the Messiah, and beyond.
Justice
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Jesus, too, promises justice in the parable of the persistent widow he says:
Luke 18:7-8a And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
So there is no conflict between Jesus and this passage.
But remember vengeance is not our job, that is Gods exclusive domain as Paul reminds us in Romans 12:19:
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
Isaiah – a distant future
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While the Isaiah reading looks forward to the distant future and the far distant future, pointing to Jesus, the Messiah, and events that have not happened even in our time, the reading from John looks to the very immediate future.
John the Baptist
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John, Jesus’ cousin, was sent by God to identify Jesus to the people. He is by any standard a very strange man. He lives in the desert, wears camel hair clothes and eats locusts and wild honey. Collecting that must have had its dangers.
His Ministry
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He starts a ministry of baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Now you might think that someone who lives in such a strange way, and begins a new religious ceremony might be shunned by most of the population.
This is not the case for John, many people are coming to hear him and to receive his baptism in the Jordan River. Too many in fact, for the religious leaders of the day. They want to know what he’s up to, and probably more specifically, whether he is a threat to the established order.
Delegation
So a delegation is assembled and sent out into the desert to find out who he was. They confront him while he is baptizing.
“Are you the Messiah?”
“No, I’m not the Messiah”, there’s no hesitation, he knows what he’s about, but as yet is giving nothing away. The Jews were expecting a Messiah (or Christ, if you’re a Greek) to come and rule over them, to free them from the oppression of the Romans, and return Israel to glorious independence – the sort of thing that Isaiah was talking about.
“Then are you Elijah?”
“No”
Elijah the prophet was taken up to heaven in a whirl wind, so there is no record of a conventional death. Malachi, the prophet, says that Elijah will return before the “great and dreadful day of the Lord comes” (4:5-6). Jesus identifies John with Elijah in Matthew 11 (12-13). Maybe John could not admit to this because of the expectations that went with it, we will never know for sure.
“Are you the prophet?”
“No”
When the Israelites become fearful of their all powerful God, in Deuteronomy (18:15-19), Moses says “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.”
It would have been simple for John to make that claim, but that is not who he is.
Final Question
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Frustrated they finally ask an open question.
“Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
Now the pressure is off, and they think the worst fears of the leaders are not going to be recognized. But they have no idea what is to come.
“I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ”
They seem to miss the significance of the full quote:
Isa 40:3-5 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
God, in all His glory is coming, and things are going to be arranged in such a way that you cannot miss it.
Having missed it, (the significance of the quote, not God arriving) they move straight on to what he is doing. You can just hear the petty officialdom in the question (or is that just me):
“Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
It seems that John’s baptism was similar to proselyte baptism. That makes sense. When we sin we put ourselves apart from God, so one way of getting back is to do the same thing as those that have always been apart from God have to do.
Then comes the bad news for the delegation, but John is vague enough for them not to get it.
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
John puts himself in the position of the lowest servant in a household, the one who washes visitors feet, and says that compared to the person he is speaking about he is not worthy of even that lowly role. Surely this can only be the Messiah.
John has pointed them at Jesus. He will go on to point all his own disciples at Jesus and encourage them to follow Jesus instead of him.
Passages have in common
That’s what these passages have in common for me, from different distances in time and from different view points they point their readers towards Jesus. That is all we are asked to do. John is called a witness – someone who give evidence of something they have seen.
That is the same thing I am doing here this morning, just reporting what I have seen, in my case for this morning's message mainly in print. But it doesn’t matter.
That is the thing we are asked to do as we prepare for and then celebrate the birth. Just point people towards Jesus.
It sounds easy, but it isn’t. The prophets suffered and died for it, John died for it, the disciples, mostly, died for it.
Point people towards Jesus, it’s all we have to do.
