Confused Anticipation

John wants to be sure that his auditors develop a two-fold response to his message; both a change of heart and a change of action, and not one without the other.

Both of them are important.

Our hymn-writer today expresses it very elegantly:

He is the rock of our belief,

The heart of mercy's gentle self. [LBW#32.2]

John doesn't worry about elegance, but about getting through to people.

He says, “Don't kid yourselves. If you don't listen to me, God is able to raise up replacements for you, even from the stones lying around your feet.

That's how powerful he is and how inconsequential you are by yourself.

He makes it clear that he is not the Messiah himself, but that his words and deeds are pointing others toward the Messiah.

Since that is the case, the small amount that we have from his work and words is far more about actions than it is about his thought.

He wanted to effect a change in the day to day behavior of the people who heard him.

He seems to be counting on the change in behavior leading to a softening of hard hearts then readied to hear the next part of the Good News, the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Can it be that he is thinking that someone who gets involved in the doing of the tasks suggested by John may come to faith in the course of the doing of those tasks.?

We usually think of it the other way around: that someone comes to the faith and afterward takes on tasks that fit the new faith.

John shows that the change in behavior happening first can also be a fertile ground for the growth of faith to come later.

Does it really matter in which order the two things happen?

Just that they both occur in us.

And God is determined that this shall happen!

Let's imagine for a moment a person having a dream.

And in this dream Sam decided that he is not going to do the things that fit with the status of being a believer, and so he decided to get on a boat and sail away, much like Jonah did.

And it was just as ineffective.

God said, “I will cause the wind to turn your ship around and drive you back to port.”

And it was so.

Then Sam said” I will head down the road and not look back.”

And God said,”And I will bend that road around the hill and bring it right back to the place whence you began, where there are people waiting for your experienced hand in working on their particular situations. You know what to do, so get at it.

And Sam said, “Am I my brother's keeper?”

And God said, “Jesus already taught you the parable about that one.

Go look it up if you need to.

I don't think you do; you just want to keep talking in hopes that I'll forget and you can go on to something else.

No such luck.”

And Sam said, “Than what I'll do is sit right here and do absolutely nothing, think nothing, just be a vegetable.”

And God said,”And I'll follow you even into that attempt at nothingness,

Even a single breath of life is my gift to you, of which I will remind you.”

We could imagine this back and forth conversation continuing.

In this exchange we are pointing to the joy and the burden of the Incarnation, the fact of God become man.

God is come to us a real human being in Jesus.

Now there is nowhere for humanity to hide from the awesome truth of God with us.

There is nothing that we can say or do that will ultimately defeat God's intention to get at us

and nothing that will thwart his desire to redirect those whom he calls.

Do we sometimes get stuck along the way?

Perhaps it is by misusing the doctrine of justification by grace, by saying that since I am saved by faith and cannot do anything toward my salvation, therefore I will do nothing!

Hopefully we see through that fraud quickly.

The alternate problem is not trusting justification by grace enough, and thinking that we have to help it along by cooperating in salvation with good deeds; they put us over the top.

This idea is attractive but also a fraud.

Or perhaps we could be thinking that appearances are more important that actual deeds.

I read this week about a congregation that decided to have a food drive late one fall.

They put a large banner out in front of the church so that all passersby would know what was happening. The climax of the campaign was to be at Christmas, when they hoped to have accumulated enough canned good to stock their local food pantry for several months.

One of the church's members called and said that they were going to have guests from out of town in their home for Christmas.

They had looked forward to bringing the guests to the Christmas Eve service, but because this “really unattractive banner was on the lawn of the church” they decided to go to another church for Christmas Eve.

“That banner appealing for stuff just doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Christmas,” they said.

Oh, really?

They were wrong.

Our Advent preparations are in fact calling us to do things, good things, things that are the growing ground of faith, the work-yard of faith, and perhaps even the playground of faith.

Let me tell you about the flour-flingers baking 2,000 cookies Saturday a week ago.

Let me tell you about a whole crew wrapping and packing boxes for Operation Christmas child a month ago.

Let me tell you about three car-loads of folks in and out of vehicles laughing and singing carols last Sunday as most of our congregation's share of the cookies was delivered.

Let me tell you about the smiles on the faces of at least some of the 19 women we visited at the Selinsgrove Center Wednesday 2 weeks ago when we sang a few carols and told the Christmas stories, and left presents for them, when no other group will venture in to them.

We do need to be doing some very specific things, because of God's love already granted to us that we come to know in head and heart and practice with our hands.

He is the rock of our belief,

The heart of mercy's gentle self.

Let's get un-confused about our anticipation this Advent

The baptism with Spirit and fire is Good News; it is the cleansing, purifying fire which we investigated last Sunday, and the Spirit of Pentecost's explosion.

It is what we need.

It is that to which John pointed.

It is what Jesus effects in us.

We're not going to run the other direction.

We're not going to ignore our problems.

Where there was only darkness and dismay, it is new life. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.