Where is Advent in Advent? Where is Christ in Christmas?

 

Sermon. 14 December 2025. St George’s, Saham Toney

Advent 3 (Year of Matthew)

 

A word about why today is “Rejoice Sunday” / “Gaudete Sunday”, and why today’s candle is pink, or, as we are all sophisticated here, “rose”. We light the rose candle. The answer may be that it comes from another age.

 

The short answer is that the tradition used to be that the Introit – the very first piece of music was a quotation from Philippians, namely:

“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!”

or in Latin

“Gaudete in Domino semper, iterum dico gaudete!”

So, you see: Rejoice/Gaudete Sunday.

 

The longer answer is that… this may seem to come from another age. In this age, in 2025, Christmas still means something in our society – and that’s putting it mildly. But how the secular Christmas and the Church Christmas fit together, is… difficult. I’m not making a lazy preacherly point about the dangers of “consumerism”. I’m referring quite particularly to timings. In the secular world (if we are honest), Christmas begins on 1 November. The moment the ghosts and ghouls of Halloween have been tidied away, at least the perfume adverts come out. And people throw themselves into it by December. Then, come (say) January 2^nd, they take down the tired decorations, and join a gym. In the secular world, January is the natural time to do a bit of pruning, to introduce a bit of self-discipline. So that’s: feast in December and fast in January.

 

In the Church (and I know this isn’t new to you), it’s precisely the other way round. Advent is (or is supposed to be) a season of penitence. Now, penitence doesn’t mean feeling bad about ourselves. That’s a misunderstanding. Very little spiritual growth comes up from the parched soil of feeling bad about yourself. Penitence means reflecting, taking time out, being still, being quiet, and noticing what emerges, what insights about how we are living we have. And, when we can just pause enough to be candid about ourselves, we can hurry to place ourselves under God’s forgiveness, we can receive God’s forgiveness, and find some newness of life. We can change things about our lives.

 

It is just the case that that stillness and quiet can go deeper, if we go without the things we normally rely on for comfort, reassurance, to get us through the day. So – it’s worth saying it bluntly – Advent is supposed to be in that sense about going without. It has been and can be called the “Little Lent”. Abstinence. Penitence… Scarcely Christmassy words. But this season of reflection then explodes into the joy of Christmas, and Christmastide, which lasts at least for 12 nights, but arguably goes on to Candlemas in February (40 days).

 

A little Lent. The next thing to say is that Church knows that it can be good for us to go without, and to be self-reflective and ask hard questions of ourselves. But! But we mustn’t place on ourselves a burden we cannot bear. So, when we have a reflective season, the Church is gentle, and allows ourselves to relax our discipline, roughly in the middle of said reflective season. We do this in the middle of Lent. That’s called Laetare Sunday, but you probably know it better as Mothering Sunday. And in the middle of Advent we do it on Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday… today. So the colour of the day is “lifted” from the darkness of purple to the lightness of rose – or, if you insist, pink.

 

What do we do when the Church calendar and the world’s calendar are frankly in opposition? Each sees the other as doing it the wrong way round. I don’t think we can simply ignore the world and make Advent a little Lent, and go without. If we end up not going to “Christmas parties” throughout December, or going to them but feeling guilty, we will simply convey to others that Christianity is the opposite of fun. But I also don’t think we can simply surrender, and start singing Carols in November. In truth, the Church year is like an intricate, delicate web, with fasts and feasts carefully set out. If we seek to cut out one bit, we may break the whole web. We may lose more than we think. What, then? How to find a good middle way? Well, I have given this some prayerful thought, and have some suggestions. They will be for next year now!

 

We might wish we did not have to face these questions. We might – not exactly to coin a phrase – we might campaign to “put Christ back into Christmas”. With Christ back in Christmas we can put Advent back in Advent! What do you think?

 

Now, that phrase – “put Christ back into Christmas” has been around for most of my life. I think I remember people saying in the 1970s/80s. Then it was meant as criticism for too much consumerism. Then in the 90s, there was, year in year out, a news item in the press claiming that some local authority or other had “banned” Christmas. It was never true. It was always the press putting two and two together and getting 22. But what is true is that the very idea that Christmas is the birthday of Jesus has receded into the background of wider culture over recent decades. And now this year the phrase “putting Christ back into Christmas” has taken on a third meaning.  

 

Yesterday, Mr Stephen Yaxkey-Lennon, who goes by the name of Tommy Robinson held an event in London (he called it a concert) to campaign to “put Christ back into Christmas”. It turned out to be rather modest. His account is this: he hated the church. Then he converted to Christianity in prison thanks to a chaplain (that can happen – I know that can happen), and now wants to make sure that others – indeed, the nation – celebrate Christmas, and that we rejoice in being a nation with Christian roots.

 

So far, so good. Of course, that all sounds wonderful. But it is not so simple. One of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s many convictions is for spreading hateful lies about a Muslim foreigner. And his public presence has been all about speaking ill of foreigners, and of Muslims, including Muslim Britons. So he’s long waved the flag and gone on about Britishness and Englishness in an intimidating way. And – and this is crucial – he hasn’t repented of any of that. There is no evidence that he has come to see that Christianity is all about care for the stranger, about hospitality… and about gentleness, about being vulnerable and not exercising power over others, about love, about a willingness to see and care for those who are harmed by the powerful or pushed out by the mob… and more simply is about respecting people and telling the truth.

 

Of course, repentance is ultimately a secret thing, a matter of the heart. But, when you’re a public figure, it’s fair to hope and to expect that something of that repentance will spill out into your public life. And in this case, it has not.

 

So, on this day when we remember John the Baptist, we need to remember the command he put to those around him:

“Bear the fruits worthy of repentance” [Matt 3.8].

“Don’t presume to say to yourselves: ‘We have Abraham as a father’” [v. 9].

Don’t presume to say: “I am a Christian in a Christian nation.”

But bear the fruit worthy of repentance.

 

When someone not only does not bear such fruit, but can express no interest in bearing such fruit, we have be aware of that. We need to be as wise as serpents. We don’t write the person or their faith-journey off. But we can be resolute in looking for those signs of an understanding of authentic Christianity in which flags and power over others don’t really figure.

 

Of course, we can only do that if we also spin the command of John the Baptist around to us.

“Don’t presume to say: ‘I am a Christian and have St George’s as my church’”. But bear the fruits worthy of repentance.

 

Now, one fruit of repentance – and there are lots – is joy, of course. We cannot all be joyful all the time. Life is not like that. You won’t find me pretending that it is. But we can, today, and over and over again, orient ourselves towards joy, so that when the time of full rejoicing comes, we are fit to rejoice.

 

And so let us say, on this Gaudete Sunday, this Rejoice Sunday:

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice! 

Amen.

Sermon. Christmas 1 and New Year's Eve. A Prison.

 

·        Isaiah 61:10-63:3

·        Galatians 4:4-7

·        Luke 2:15-21

 

Who remembers Christmas Day? It was only on Monday. As on Christmas Day, I will thank you for being here. I will say again that you do not have to be here. I have to be here. You do not. (And, as I said before, that is unusual in prison.) So, again, thank you for choosing to be here, and choosing to begin your week with worship.

 

I said on Monday that Christmas can be hard in prison. We all know it. I am not telling you anything you do not know. But it is sometimes – often – worth naming these things.

 

Well, today comes with difficulties of its own.

 

First, it is still Christmastide in the Church calendar. Our Gospel reading shows this most clearly. We are back with the story of the birth of Jesus.

Second – and again I am naming what is obvious – we meet on the last day of the year (the “secular” year – the year of our everyday calendars). Today is New Year’s Eve, and tomorrow is New Year’s Day. What, if anything, can we make of that?

 

Yet another obvious point is that many outside of prison will be partying hard this evening, and into the small hours. That’s not an option for you. Don’t get me wrong: we know you can find access to substances. But they won’t give you what they seem to promise. They won’t really provide a party atmosphere. So you may well be feeling a sense of loss, and additional one, on top of other senses of loss. (By the way, I am certainly not going to party; I am here again tomorrow.)

 

But New Year’s Day is about more than partying, or recovering from partying. New Year’s Day can be when people sit down and think about their lives. They may have great hopes for the year ahead. They may have great plans for the year ahead. They may make New Year resolutions. They may feel a real sense of freedom. They may say: “I am free to do what I want in this new, fresh, never-before year. I am going to claim my freedom this year!” And these things are… not impossible in prison, but they are harder to say in prison. So you may be feeling an additional narrowness (constraint) here, along with all the other narrownesses (constraints) you feel here.

 

Or perhaps these days mean nothing to you, and you wonder why I am going on, in this way. That would be perfectly fair. After all, it is not New Year in the Church calendar. New Year’s Day is Advent Sunday, which was back on 3 December, this time around. Tomorrow is the 8^th day of Christmas, where we also mark the naming and circumcision of Jesus. If we want to let this New Year go unmarked, we are perfectly free to do that.

 

There I go again, saying: “we are free”. You may well say: “Be honest, Patrick. You are free, and we are not.” I get that. I do get that. But there are different kinds of freedom. And some freedoms (the freedom to think, the freedom to orient your life as you see fit)… these can be yours too.

 

Let us consider today’s readings. In the first reading from Isaiah, the prophet rejoices in Gd, praises Gd. You are free to do that. Christians believe that we are made to praise Gd – we are worshipping animals – and no person and no system can stop you from praising Gd.

 

One thing that many people of faith find really helpful is to begin each day thanking Gd. I invite you to do this. Begin each day thanking Gd that you are alive, and then find at least three other things to thank Gd for, They will be there, if you look for them. Even when things are really hard, there will be things to give thanks for. The freedom to do this is yours, here and now. Claim it.  

 

In the second reading, from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, Paul gives us some of the most encouraging words in the whole Bible. He says that as Spirit-filled Christians we have what we need to call Almighty Gd, Creator of heaven and earth… call Almighty Gd “Father”, “my Father”. Yes, this is one of the things you can give thanks for. “Thank you Gd, that you are my true Father; you love me with fatherly love; you will always love me with a fatherly love; you long for nothing more than for me to call you Father.” The freedom to say this and mean it is yours, Claim it.

 

And in today’s gospel we can give thanks for Jesus’s birth again, and for faithful Joseph, and the rejoicing shepherds. But let us pay attention especially to Mary. Mary

“treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”.

Again, here is something for you. You can imitate Mary. You can ponder the words of Gd, and the things of Gd, in your heart. How to? It is not a puzzle. I say start in this way: on your own, sit still. Sit still, on your own. Say to Gd: “Gd, my Father, I am here. Be with me in the way that you want to be with me, and in the ways that are good for me. I am in no hurry.” And see what happens. You are free to do this. Claim it.   

 

And, look, we are also free, free to do something creative with the fact that tomorrow is called New Year’s Day. Some traditions do use New Year as a time to recommit to Gd. They may even speak of “renewing the covenant”. A covenant in the Bible is a binding commitment. And in the Bible Gd makes covenants with Gd’s people. Gd commits himself to us, so that we can commit ourselves to him. That’s quite something, if you think about it. Gd commits himself to us, so that we can commit ourselves to him.

 

I am going now to read the words of recommitment, of the renewal of the covenant. I invite you to say them after me. At the moment, I am inviting you to say them, just to see how they feel in your mouths, to see if they form something you want to say Yes too. Because this is a serious prayer. It’s the opposite of a throwaway: “Gd, please give me what I want”. Listen out for the seriousness. There will be a chance to say them as a prayer, later in the service.

 

I am no longer my own but yours.

Your will, not mine, be done in all things,

wherever you may place me,

in all that I do and in all that I may endure;

when there is work for me and when there is none;

when I am troubled and when I am at peace.

Your will be done

when I am valued and when I am disregarded;

when I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;

when I have all things and when I have nothing.

I willingly offer all that I have and am

to serve you, as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

May it be so for ever.

Let this covenant now made on earth

be fulfilled in heaven.

Amen.[1]

 

---

[1] Common Worship: Times and Seasons, p 111. © Archbishops Council 2006

Sermon for Christmas Day - A Prison

Gospel: John 1:1-14.

I will be honest with you. I am not sure whether to begin with “please” or with “thank you”. But, actually, now I think about it, a good motto for life is: if in doubt about what to say, say thank you. It applies to human beings often, and to God always.

If in doubt about what to say to God, say thank you.

And I want to say thank you to you, my brothers. Why? Because you are here. You do not have to be here. In prison life (we know) you often have to be in certain places at certain times, or penalties follow. But none of you has to be here. The only one who has to be here is me (well, and the Officers who are kindly assisting us). That’s worth thinking about.

You have chosen freely to come here, and together we mark Christmas as one. We mark Christmas not with great feasting – I don’t have turkeys and mince pies hidden away – not with feasting, but with worship. We are here to worship. And I thank you for it. Thank you.

Christmas in prison is hard. We do not have to hide from that. I am not going to say it is a good thing to be a prisoner in prison on Christmas Day. I won’t insult you. Only, there is just this one thing, one aspect of Christmas in prison:

it just is easier to strip away the false layers.

The voices that say it is all only about partying and excesses, and getting on with everyone without any effort “because it’s Christmas”. These voices we can shut up. Or we can let them fade away.

What is left? I am going to put it simply:

what is left is the truth of the Christmas story,

the earthy story of the birth of Jesus.

You know, you know already that the story is of difficult times:

·        a difficult announcement by an angel,

·        difficult journeys,

·        a difficult search for a place to rest,

·        a difficult ruler

·        making for a difficult flight.

There weren’t any crackers or tinsel or sparkling lights. There probably wasn’t even a party, at least not one that took weeks to plan. So be it! This is the reality. And we, even here, even now, are free to embrace that reality. The real Christmas can be ours, can be yours, even here, even now. Thank you for being here. Here, where the real Christmas is.

And so to my “please”. I want to say “please” to you, brothers.

“Please… forgive me”.

Please forgive me, if you came here today expecting the whole Christmas story I have just referred to – you know, with angels and shepherds, and journeys, and Mary and Joseph, and the manger.

It’s perfectly fair that you might expect that.

Now, you do get a lot of it in our carols. But it is true that you don’t get any of it in our readings. And I am sorry about that. Sorry, but it had to be. Had to be, because in my Church the one reading you simply have to have at Christmas is the Gospel reading we have had. And that is the opening of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…” and so on. Why? We’ll come back to that.

After my thank you (thank you for being here)

and my please (please forgive me),

I want to add one other thing.

That is: “I wonder”.

I wonder… if you can tell me something.

I wonder if you can tell me where Jesus was born?

[Participation]

There are many answers you can give: in Israel/Palestine; in Judaea; in Bethlehem; within the family of Mary and Joseph; in a manger. But, sure, among the answers that people tend to give, we’ll always have:

in a stable.

But! But you will not find any mention of a stable in the gospels, or anywhere else in the New Testament for that matter. We in the West have tended to think about a stable, because of that reference to a manger.

What is a manger? ... A feeding trough. So animals are around. If they are not right there (they too are not actually mentioned), they must have been near enough by. As they would be in a stable.

But! But there are other possibilities.

One is that Jesus might have been born in a cave. There are caves around Bethlehem to this day, and a cave is, of course, a good place to shelter animals. It’s a natural shelter. All you may have to do is put a feeding trough in, and, there you are: an animal shelter. So was Jesus born in a cave?

Another thing to bear in mind is that, in the ancient world, families and animals often stayed under one roof. People didn’t have the money for more than one building. So, when the weather was bad enough for animals to need shelter, the animals slept in one part of the building, and the people slept in another part. What this means is: Jesus gave birth in a back room which animals would also use, not in the guest room, a guest room with some luxuries, some comfort.

So, I wonder. I wonder what you think?

Was Jesus born in a stable, a cave, or a back room?

I cannot tell you. But I also wonder this: I wonder if it makes any difference. I myself think it makes little difference. What is important is what Luke’s gospel makes very plain: Jesus was placed in a feeding trough,

because otherwise there was no room for him.

That is, I think, the most difficult part of the difficult story of Christmas.

God comes to us, to us, human beings, and we have no room for him. We give him no room. He is pushed out, pushed to a place which will do, but only just. There is no room for Jesus, who has come to help, guide, and heal us. We human beings say – all of us in different ways – to Jesus:

“No. Not here. Not with me. Go over there.

I am giving you no room.”

And there is this. This of course means that Jesus is from the beginning close to those who are also told that society has no room for them. I won’t labour this point. You get this point. It means

Jesus is from the beginning especially close to you, brothers.  

So, why must we hear, today of all days,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh…”?

There is a reason. A good reason.

Today (and every day) we need to hear that

the Word was (and is) God, and the Word became flesh.

Became flesh and blood like you and me.

God is God as God is God.

And God is a human being as human beings are human beings.

So what?

What this means is that when we meet with God in Jesus,

it really is God.

It is not a faint echo of God.

It is not some idea of God.

It is not even some teaching from God.

But it is God as God is God.

 

You see, Christianity is all about intimacy.

We meet with God.

You meet with God.

You are invited,

here and now (and always) to meet with God.

You are invited to be with God.

That’s the best Christmas invitation of all.

And it is for you.

 

We can say “thank you” to God in Jesus for this closeness.

We can say “please” to God in Jesus, 

that we will be helped truly to make the most of this.

We can say “I wonder” –

I wonder how God can love us so much

that God freely comes to a place where there is no room for him.

Amen.

Sermon: Our Need for the Prologue to John

 

Sermon. St Mary’s Little Ilford. 25.12.20 (live-streamed only).

Christmas Day

John 1.1-14

 

As the Church throughout the world has her traditions, so individual churches have their traditions. You know the sort of thing. These are the expected carols. The tree goes up then and goes there, and is taken down then. We call the candle of the Third Sunday of Advent the pink, no the rose, no the pink, no the rose candle.

 

Well, families and persons have their traditions too. (I am not telling you anything you do not know.) Here is one of mine. Whenever I preach on Christmas Day on today’s Gospel reading, I first apologise. I apologise in case there are people in the congregation, perhaps guests (who are very welcome), who came to church precisely to hear what gets called “the traditional Christmas story”. You know its parts: the angels, their song, the shepherds, their listening, the Holy Family, the journeys, the lack of room, the child bound up safe in a manger. You get none of that in today’s Gospel. None. So I always allow for the possibility of disappointment, at precisely this point in the service. (And this year I can’t see quite how disappointed you are! And I am quite a connoisseur of your disappointed expressions, for reasons to obvious to name!)

 

Some may even feel more than disappointment. They may feel a frustration bordering on resentment. “Why do we have to have this Gospel reading?” they may be thinking.

·        They may think: it’s poetry, doubtless melodious in the original, but it has no point of contact with my life.

·        They may think: it’s abstract theology, that just shows us that some people in the early church had too much time on their hands, and turned to empty speculation about the inner workings of Gd.

·        They may think: in truth it’s ideology. It’s a power thing. All that talk about our Founder (and only our Founder) being one with Gd and being Gd is just an elevated way of saying “Our Gd is bigger than your god”.

Well, I won’t surprise you one tiny iota, if I say that any who are thinking any of these things have got things really rather wrong. I go further: I feel this Gospel reading - this Prologue to John – this headline message to the whole Gospel of John - may be just what we need to hear, here and now.

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen [the Word’s] glory…”

 

The Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd. There is in truth nothing abstract here. Here is Gd’s revelation, Gd’s promise to us that Gd is (in Gdself) communication. Even before – outside of – the creation of the universe, Gd is love and communicative Love. It is not so much that we find love in the world (though we do), as that we find the world in Love.

 

Anything but abstract, here is our bedrock hope. If in this strangest of all years, at this strangest of all Christmasses, we have found ourselves close to rock-bottom, then we need to hear and dwell on the fact that at the bottom is this Rock. This. Rock. Love, communicative love - love which finds the words, the gestures, the silences, the actions, the songs, the dances which show love, which show you how loved you are – this love, in all its varieties, is there to be found and always will be. Because it is out of such communicative Love that the world is made, that you are made. 

Preachers often preach about the love of Gd. Perhaps too often. In any event, we can hear the words of the love of Gd, and have them wash over us. We can think: "That's the reference to Gd's love, done and dusted. So far, so predictable." So I cannot know if anything that I say here will hit home. But I do insist: whether we can hear it fully or not, here is bed-rock. Here is the rock. 

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen [the Word’s] glory…”

 

That the Word became flesh is

·        both a natural development of the Hebrew story, because in that story Gd is constantly accommodating Gdself to be alongside weak and foolish human beings,

·        and something utterly shocking, for flesh is weak.

We know it, brothers and sisters. Our flesh is weak. Not only is it vulnerable to knives and guns and such, but this year we have had it put right in front of our eyes how our flesh is vulnerable to microscopic attack, how invisible entities that are so insubstantial that biologists aren’t even sure they can be called organisms in their own right, can enter into our flesh, and send us into agony, and kill us. (Over time, you wouldn’t thank me for dressing this up.)

 

Gd knows just how weak we are. In our weakness (in all of its parts) we have not shocked Gd, or let Gd down. Gd knows our weakness. From the inside Gd knows – is acquainted with – our weakness (all its parts). He is in solidarity with us, and our anxieties and sadness, our legitimate anxieties and sadness. We are flesh, and Gd knows how fleshly flesh is.

 

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen [the Word’s] glory…”

 

Do we see the Word’s glory? Our instinctive answer may be: No. Not now, no. The glory has departed. All we get to do is muddle through at best, and desperately fight stress, and heaviness of heart, and terrors, and harm, and pain, at worst. No glory here. Except there is – there is – glory here. When we care for each other, picking up the phone (as you do). When we care for ourselves and others, donating to food banks and refugee organisations (as you do). When we care for the world by speaking out about the wrongness of racism and all the rest of it (as you do)…

if we have eyes to see – when we have eyes to see – there is the Glory of Gd the Word.

 

Not that that is all is all that is to be said about the Glory of Gd the Word. We are here – and I do want to say that we are all “here”, we are gathered as one - to worship. We are drawn to worship. We know – even if we don’t say it – we know that Gd is attractive, is beautiful, draws us in. Our orientation to worship already intimates the Glory that is there to greet us. And this is our birth-right. (That’s a message in today’s Gospel too; I invite you to read it over again in the course of the day.)

 

It is true that so many of the prompts that make for the sense of the glorious worship of the Glorious One are diminished or just plain absent right now.

·        No singing together.

·        No processions or elaborate liturgical flow.

·        And, saddest of all (or at least joint first with not singing together – I am a realist), no sharing of a meal of bread and wine, such as has sustained us, year in, year out.

But Gd is unchanged.

 

The angels, their song, the shepherds, their listening, the Holy Family, the  journeys, the lack of room, the child bound up safe in a manger. We have given you none of that in today’s Gospel. But if ever there were a need to replace the microscope, which examines the story in its finest details, with the telescope, which enables us to see the biggest possible picture, to see the panorama, that need would be ours today.

 

Seeing the panorama

·        reveals Gd is Love, is communicative Love, with a longing to communicate love to you, not because you’re always simply lovely, but because that is who Gd is;

·        reveals that Gd knows what it is to be flesh, to be weak as flesh, and so is alongside us in our weakness (in all its parts);

·        reveals that Gd’s Glory is found in every single act of kindness, and overflows (precedes) all our actions and intentions, such that Gd is saying to us always, in season and out of season, in church and out of church, in pandemic and out of pandemic, “Come to my Glory, bathe in my Glory, rest in my Glory".

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen [the Word’s] glory…”

 

Merry Christmas. Christ is born. Glorify him. Amen.

One Sent From Gd...

 

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 13.12.20

Advent 3: Gaudete (Year B)

John 1.6-8, 19-28

Today’s Gospel is full of negatives and absences. What a way to begin! I really don’t wish to lower the mood – the Gaudete mood. I know we all need comfort and hope, and a reliable supply of both and more, in these days. And there are, of course, good things in today’s Gospel. But, at a rather technical level, today’s Gospel is full of negatives and absences.

Negatives.

Let’s recall John’s dialogue with those sent from Jerusalem to Bethany, across the Jordan:

J: “I am not the Messiah!”

O: “Are you Elijah?” J: “I am not.”

O: “Are you the prophet?” J: “No.”

This ever-more brutal exchange is consistent with what the Evangelist has already told us:

“He was not the Light.”

We are being led to see who John the Baptist is not, and thus already being nudged to think that there is one for whom all these negatives will fall away.

And, on cue, the Baptist says as much:

“I baptise with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

I think this is carefully crafted. I think the hearers of this tale are meant to feel intrigue, excitement. Who is this one? This one we know not, but who is already among us?

Do we feel that excitement? I think it’s unlikely. For most of us, we’ve heard – we’ve read – the story many times, from start to finish. And let me add, that is fine. The Gospels were written to be heard, over and over. If we are comfortable with the story, all is well.

Yet, where we cannot necessarily feel intrigue or excitement, we may yet wonder - wonder if there isn’t here an invitation to hear the story anew. We know the name of the one who is already among us. His name is Jesus. We know him, know aspects of him. He is no stranger. We need not pretend he is. And yet, do we know him as well as we could? Is he not in many ways still strange to us? Might we as-it-were start again: begin a new journey of getting to know

·        the one who changes everything, who is already among us;

·        the one who is already among us, who changes everything?  

*

And so, from the negative to the absence. I suspect you have already sensed that today’s Gospel reading is a real cut-and-paste-and-cut-and-paste job. If you look at the chapter and verses, this is confirmed, What we have are two separate excerpts taken out of the opening of John’s Gospel. And we may well have at the back of our minds the texts in that opening which are absent today. Here are some of them:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Gd, and the Word was Gd…

In [this one] was life, and the life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…”

That’s all rather different from the tale of intrigue. This isn’t a story of people pointing to people. This is a grander-scale narrative, a panorama, a view of everything, of all that this. The themes are creation, and the nature of Gd. And it is not prose, but poetry.  

How then does it all fit together? Is it meant to? Or did the writer, or some later scribe, make a mistake? I am confident that they are meant to fit together. We hear of the origins of the universe and the nature of Gd. But before we have any chance to fool ourselves we’ve taken it seriously in, we change focus. And this too is carefully crafted. Intentionally, we are led from the telescope to the microscope.

“There came a person, sent from Gd; John, his name.”

What do we learn from this? I will put it slightly challengingly: we learn that Gd does not care about humanity! I mean: Gd does not care about “humanity” in the abstract. Gd cares only for human beings in particular.

·        For you.

·        For me.

·        For the person next to you.

·        For the person impossibly distant from you, in all possible ways.

·        For the ones you love.

·        And… for the ones you can’t stand.

We human beings cannot sustain that loving attention for literally billions of people. But, then, we are not Gd. Gd is Gd. And Gd does not care for “humanity”, but for human beings. From the absence, we learn this.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, John, his name.” And, being sent from Gd, his presence makes all the difference. This one is the very herald who says the Word-made-flesh is already among us, sometimes known, sometimes (more often, perhaps) not known.

So, indeed, today is Gaudete Sunday. Today is a day of rejoicing, albeit it of gentle rejoicing. Today is our pink (or, as we are perhaps learning to say, our “Rose” day). We are in the middle of our Advent “fast” (how’s that going, brothers and sisters?)! Better put: we are in the middle of our Advent reflections and preparations, leading up to Christmas. And here we relax any restraint we’ve put ourselves under. We, in a gentle and understated way, anticipate Christmas.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, John, his name.” And, being sent from Gd, his presence makes all the difference.

Sisters and brothers, I repeat a theme I have brought before. And I make not the slightest apology for the repetition. (You may chide me, but I will not budge.) What is said of John, can be said of you. You may think of your name; I invite you to.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, their name was [Name]. And, being sent from Gd, their presence makes all the difference.”

And, today, I am not even going to set you (to set us) the task of thinking about all the ways we might be sent from Gd into the world. There is of course a time for that. Of course, being sent from Gd implicates us in a task. Yes, vocation is a task,  a burden even. Yes, further: hardship and risk and danger and sacrifice are all involved. But! But, today (anticipating Christmas) I say: even before and outside of that task, if we are in the world (and here we are), we are sent from Gd. Our very being is sent-from-Gd.

“There came a person, sent from Gd, their name was [Name]. And, being sent from Gd, their presence makes all the difference.”

Gaudete! Let us rejoice! Amen.