The Old
Testament prophets spoke of a return to God and to keeping Gods laws as a basis
for living in peace, peace with God, with one another and themselves. When
God’s people wander away from their true calling, and forget the plight of
others, they become aimless and empty, and their souls are not fed. Only God
can satisfy the hungry soul, and so Gods prophets cry in the emptiness and chaos,
because in their hearts is a dream which refuses to die. Isaiah speaks of a light in the
darkness. Its an everlasting promise, there will be light in the darkness for
Gods people, because as the prophets say a child will be born who
will save the people.
And so like the
rest of the church throughout the world we are waiting for that child to be
born again in our hearts, in our lives, in our communities, God with us. And so the preparation is a spiritual
one, we turn to God to put ourselves in order, much as a confession before
receiving communion, in order to be ready for the coming of Christ in our own
lives. The Christmas festival is
symbolised by light, a light shining in darkness and the coming of hope. The
story of the coming of Christ is a vehicle, a carrier of hope for us all to
feed our spirits and our imaginations.
On this the third Sunday of the season of Advent we traditionally
remember John the Baptist and his call to repentance. The Greek word for
repentance is metanoia and it means a change of direction. We are not concerned
with a superficial change. We are being asked to stop doing what is
destructive.
The passage in John reminds us of the symbiotic relation of God to the
incarnation. This is God with us, born as a human being suffering as we suffer.
Today this message challenges us to live lives
according to gospel values rather than those of the society that
surrounds us. God given hope is not optimism, or sentimentality, based on
ignorance or naivite. It is based quite simply in a trust in God., the God who
brings light into darkness. and speaks to us.
This Christmas
there will be no hope in the noisy shopping rituals and the exchange of
presents if there is not also a humbling, a waiting, a vulnerability, to
Christ’s coming again, the perspective of God with us-Immanuel, can change us,
forever, completely. For many of us we need to feel the brush of angels wings
and the whisper of hope this Advent, this waiting time, to give our lives to
Christ, knowing our own inadequacies and failings and by the presence of the
Holy Spirit living a new and changed life.
