Advent 2 2021
Mal 3: 1 – 4
Luke 3: 1 – 7
It’s Advent and the dark of the year is upon us. The alarm clock rings and it’s still dark outside. The last of the leaves have been stripped from the trees. There are rain- soaked boots and coats drying in the hallway, and it’s time to draw the curtains at four o'clock. For Christians in the Southern Hemisphere Advent falls in the middle of summer, but for us in the Northern climes we wait for the coming of Christ, the light of the world while there is darkness outside – and that makes this Advent season even more meaningful for us.
The light shines in the darkness, says the Christmas Gospel. And there's more to that darkness than short, murky days. In the Midlands a child is killed by those who should be caring for him. How can such things continue to happen in our relatively wealthy, well-resourced society? What is this darkness in human nature that enables a human being to hurt and kill a defenceless child? We speak of human beings being made in God’s image, and yet the reality is that human beings can choose to inflict callous violence towards the vulnerable.
The light shines in the darkness, the Christmas Gospel assures it, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The darkness has not overcome it, and yet the darkness of human sinfulness is a present reality. The judge pronouncing sentence on Arthur’s killers observed that they had dehumanised him, and that enabled them to do the terrible things they did. And this is a pattern we have seen repeatedly in human history. When a person ceases to view the other person as a child of God, and see them rather as an object, as less human than they are, then the human potential to inflict dreadful suffering is unleashed.
The abuse of power, the exploitation of the vulnerable: it's the dark reality of human sinfulness. It's a pattern we see repeated in the stricken towns of Syria and Yemen, in the villages of South Sudan. The strong prey upon the weak: human beings created in God's image become objects to be manipulated. Lives held cheap, children carrying guns, executions on camera. It's wrong, it's unjust, it's utterly not how God wants the world to be.
So much injustice in the world that is crying out to be put right. We human beings cannot fix this on our own. We need hope. We need a saviour.
In our 24-hour news era we are potentially exposed to too much of the world’s injustice and moral darkness. And this carries risk for us. There is risk that we become de-sensitised and compassion fatigued. On the other hand there is a risk that we accept this as a true narrative of how things are, rather than a careful crafted and edited narrative devised by news editors. We can easily become forgetful of God’s goodness and saving grace.
There are good reasons to limit our news input, turn off the newsfeed and spend time quietly with God. The news offers us a random disconnected stream of events. Spending time with God in prayer help us to integrate what we know about the world: to understand the world in the light of what the bible has to say about our human moral darkness, and the light of divine goodness.
John the Baptist came to prepare people for the coming of the Saviour, and his did this by inviting people to be baptised, to be washed as a sign of a new beginning, a turning away from sin. John took people down into the waters of the Jordan and raised them up again as a sign of their repentance: a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of life.
This is still echoed in our Christian baptism service, in which we still promise to renounce evil, to turn away from sin and to turn towards Christ.
In a church where I used to minister there was a fourteenth century font with very unusual carvings around its base, taken from the bits of the nativity story that we often” edit out”. On one side was Herod brandishing a sword, on the other was the angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream. You will remember that Herod in his fury at the birth of the Christ child issued an order for all the baby boys in the area to be put to the sword – the “slaughter of the innocents.” Joseph is warned in a dream to take his child to safety, so he and the family take refuge in Egypt.
I found it very powerful that these images should be carved into the font, which symbolises the power of God in Christ to save and rescue us. It was a graphic illustration of the human illustration of the violence and cruelty of human sinfulness, from which, by the grace of God, we are raised to new life in Christ.
The Advent season has always had a dual meaning for Christians. The first meaning is preparing ourselves to celebrate the joy of the incarnation - of Christ's coming into the world, divinity lighting up his and our humanity. Christ coming into the world as the fulfilment of prophetic hope – to be the one, who, in Malachi’s words would come to purify his people, to strip away the impurities just as a silversmith refines his precious metal.
Yet speaking from our 21st century perspective we know that Christ has been born, has completed his earthly ministry, has died and risen. Christ’s saving work is completed and yet the darkness of human sinfulness still persists.
The meaning of Advent speaks to this sense of discontent that we have: to our cry that goes up, how long? How long must children like Arthur suffer needlessly? When will the wrongs of human sinfulness finally be put right?
In the words of the old hymn, "the saints their watch are keeping, the cry goes up, "How long?"
Advent reminds us that God has not finished with us yet. The kingdom of God has got started with Jesus – but it is nowhere near complete. Every time we pray in the Lord’s prayer “Your kingdom come” we recognise this incompleteness.
History will remain incomplete until the coming of Jesus in justice and judgement at the end of all things.
"We believe that he will come again to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end" as the words of the creed put it." That's complicated to get our heads round. The final judgement is an aspect of Christian belief we tend not to talk about much.
And yet it is important and needed. Christ’s future coming in judgement responds to the incompleteness of a world still damaged by human wrong, and our deep longing for God to rebalance the scales of justice.
How do we think about Christ's second coming? Do we think of it as a spiritual reality for each of us at the end of our lives? Or do we see it more as a cosmic event - the end of time ?
Whichever was we picture it, the important truth that Advent tells us is that God is coming, and he hasn't finished with the world yet. With the coming of Jesus, God's kingdom, God's rule has begun, and is moving towards its completion. We can look to the future in the confident hope that that future belongs to Christ. God's creative and saving power overarches all space and time. This is the grounds of our hope as Christians. This is why we can say with Mother Julian of Norwich that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
“God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon, to illustrate all shadows” writes the poet John Donne. The light will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. Come, Lord Jesus.