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The Second Sunday Of Advent
Merciful God, who sent thy messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the HolySpirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Second Sunday Of Advent
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Scripture citation(s): Luke 3:1-6; Isaiah 40:3-5
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Luke 3:1-6; Isaiah 40:3-5
✛
Repentance: The Highway to Joy
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We have just heard a gospel reading that ends with some words of one of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa 40.3-5
Isaiah wrote those words to encourage the people of Israel after everything had fallen apart for them. Southern Israel had already witnessed the destruction of their sister kingdom to the North, and what was left of Israel in the South was besieged by enemies on every side. In an effort to stave off invasion from one quarter, the Israelites forged alliances with first one and then another nation in hopes that this would save them, but these alliances kept proving untrustworthy. A recurring message throughout the book of Isaiah is to not trust in these man-made alliances, but to trust God, to walk in his ways, to be his people, and he would prove himself faithful and trustworthy to them. But the people of Israel could not, or would not resist the temptation to align themselves with everyone but God. Despite God’s continual warnings that the nations would fail them and that the result would be destruction, the people persisted in going their own way until it all came tumbling down, literally.
The particular sin of Israel was they were unfaithful. But in general, sin is more than just doing something bad, it is a human condition that breeds the bad things we often do. The condition and the actions together exist in opposition to God’s purposes. Repentance is simply turning away from that condition of life, and the things we do in it that oppose God. And where do we turn to when we repent? We turn back towards God and his purposes. That’s what Isaiah kept exhorting the people to do. Turn away from Egypt or Assyria or Babylon, and turn back to God.
In the end, Israel did not repent, and was conquered by the Babylonians. Jerusalem, and its temple were destroyed, not one stone left upon another, and the people were carried away into exile. The prophets had warned them and warned them, begging that they please turn back to God. But the people did not heed the warnings, and they were destroyed at the hands of their enemies.
But it was not total destruction. There was a remnant of the nation that was preserved. Not in property, or power, but in people. In the midst of this remnant, Isaiah raises a cry of hope, as one crying in a wilderness of despair, and he says, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
In time, Israel was freed from exile, and permitted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their city and their temple. National life resumed, but things were never really the same. They were never as powerful politically, militarily, or socially as they had been at their height under Kings David and Solomon. And so the centuries passed.
Some seven hundred years after Isaiah, Tiberius, an emperor who proclaimed himself a god, was ruling over a vast empire that had subsumed Israel. There were Herodian tetrarchs, puppet kings appointed by Rome who oversaw the territory. A Roman governor was also appointed, Pontius Pilate, who strove to keep order in a land hostile to his empire’s presence. Caiaphas and Annas, the chief pastors of the people, adhered to a philosophy of Judaism that denied the resurrection of the dead and the authority of scripture. Living in such a morass of megalomania, political oppression and incompetence, and religious revisionism, one might have been tempted to put one’s trust in any number of things and to establish loyalties and alliances in any number of quarters just to survive. The temptations must have been great. It was in the midst of this complicated situation that a ray of hope appeared. A prophet came out of the desert with a familiar word from God, and he was preaching repentance for the remission of sins; “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
That prophet was John the Baptist and he was sent by God (in answer to prayer) to go just ahead of God’s own son, Jesus. John’s vocation was to prepare the way and to help people get ready to meet Jesus. And he did this by preaching. And the substance of his preaching was repentance. If the people were going to greet the coming of the Lord with joy, then what was needed above all else was repentance from sin.
Repentance from sin is to forsake something that does you no good so that you can fall into the arms of the one who will do you every good. That is to change the condition of your life, and to redirect your steps. But the fear we each have in this is that if I forsake something, or turn from it, walk away and leave it behind, even if it is separating me from God, will God be sufficient to replace the loss I will feel? And one thing that might keep any of us from turning is that we don’t trust God that he will be sufficient. So we forge alliances with all sorts of habits, addictions, behaviors, and powers that we think will save us, but in the end can only betray us and bring us to destruction.
At the beginning of this service, after the Litany, Father Wallace led us in a prayer. The first part of this prayer was an acknowledgement that God sent prophets into the world to do two things; that is to preach repentance, and to prepare the way for our salvation. And then we asked God for the grace necessary to heed their warnings, and to forsake our sins, so that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ.
This prayer articulates an essential bit of Christian work for Advent. This season sets forth the truth that Jesus is coming. First, we will celebrate his birth, so you will meet the baby Jesus very soon. Or as Isaiah put it, all flesh shall see the salvation of God. But even now the resurrected and living Jesus sits at the right hand of God, and the Father has appointed a time when Jesus will come again in power and great glory. We the church anticipate this appearing and we pray that God hasten it.
And when Jesus comes again, how do you want to meet him? With joy, of course. That joy must be born in your heart though. But there has to be room there for it to take root. You make room by forsaking those things that crowd out the good and threaten to choke out Christ. Turn, and leave that clutter behind you. Let the Lord come to find you doing the daily good work of turning and turning and turning again. This very moment, begin to forge a new alliance with God your Father founded on trust in his sufficient love for you. And continue to ask God in prayer to give us the grace to heed the prophets’ warning, to forsake our sins, and to greet with joy the coming of our salvation in great power and majesty, even Jesus Christ our Lord.
