Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 15 December 2024.
• First Reading: Zephaniah 3: 14-20 (The restoration of Israel)
• Epistle: Philippians 4: 4-7 (Do not be anxious but with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God)
• Gospel: Luke 3: 7-18 (John the Baptist: ‘Brood of vipers…’)
I suppose that the difference between a museum or art gallery and an office or workshop is that you can visit the museum or gallery, see what you want and then you go away. You may have been informed or inspired but when you go, you leave the displays behind as well.
An office or workshop is a place where things happen. They are places of work, and when you go there it is to get involved in what is happening in the here and now. The past may be relevant but it is the present and possibly the future that engages you.
This is worth remembering when looking at today’s lessons. It applies to the lessons on any occasion, but especially to today’s.
The first, from Zephaniah, is a solemn but joyful promise to the children of Israel.
He may have been writing at the same time as Jeremiah and this was a time when Jerusalem was under threat.
The northern kingdom of Israel had already been invaded and its people deported by the Assyrians: life in Judah was precarious. The reforming king Josiah had repudiated the paganism of his forebears and was leading a back-to-God movement.
But the times were still dangerous, and Judah was the meat in the sandwich between Egypt and Assyria.
Like our own times, they were precarious and threatening.
And yet in all this the people were being encouraged to take hope for God had not abandoned His people. In due course, He would move mightily to rescue them, restore the lost to their land, and restore the people as a whole to Himself.
But right now, they were being called both to a repentance and refocussing on God and to a new kind of hope and trust in Him. His promises were sure and He would move mightily to fulfil them.
And so they were to look to the Lord for their salvation, and engage with the rest of the world in keeping with that faith and outlook.
But the promises were for real, and God does not make jokes about such things.
But look at John the Baptist.
He too was speaking of a great deliverance.
The exiles had returned from Persia, the kingdom was restored and the temple and the city walls rebuilt.
In time, again the people had again fallen into complacency. Their teachers of the law had fallen into legalism and prurience.
The law had ceased being used to liberate the people into the will and love of God. Now it was being used to constrict and coerce. Its love had grown cold and the enthusiasm of the psalmist for the law was quite dissipated.
And so John was also calling the people to repentance and faith. To turn away from dead lives and dead works and to look for the coming Messiah.
Again they were to engage with the present as they reviewed their lives, and to embrace the future as they joined John in looking for the One who is to come.
Meanwhile there was to be a new dispensation of integrity of living. A generosity of spirit in their relationships. A godliness in their worship and devotion. Let their meditations be directed towards the promises of the Lord and to living at peace with Him and one another.
And yes, He would come. He would judge – and He would restore. Above all, He would be there to lead people from lives of judgment into lives of fruitfulness.
The era of the Holy Spirit would empower and sustain this work – even after the days of resurrection and ascension of the Lord.
And this is where Paul gives an extra dimension to the life of the church. It is not just a reaction against the evils and sins of the times.
It is also an engagement with the future in the purposes of the Lord: a future animated by the Holy Spirit as He leads the church into the agendas and promises of Jesus. And yes, this is done in every generation, for it needs to be real for every generation.
Just as John had criticized the Pharisees for assuming that descent from Abraham was guarantee enough, so we also need to let Jesus be real in our generation and in the things that inspire and lead us.
This is never a matter of treating the church as a museum: very interesting but of no relevance in the home or the street.
More, it is the workshop of the soul, the place where hearts and spirits are raised up before God in joyful expectation.
Here we are engaging with the present and the future. Our lives and those who are younger.
So, no need for fear or doubt: let praise and worship be joyful, even exuberant. Let prayer be genuine. Let love be about the needs of the other person and not just a satisfaction of our own needs and emotions.
For the Lord is coming, looking for a harvest and a fruitful people. He has placed us there to be that people and to yield that harvest, because He also believes and trusts in us.
• Photograph: Freepik
