Second Sunday of Advent

Prepare the way of the Lord.

During the decade of the 1970s a particular genre of film became very popular – the disaster movie. The story line of each film invariably took the same format. There was always someone who foresaw the disaster was about to happen and who tried to prepare people for what might happen or prevent it happening. And there was always someone else – usually someone in authority, who just wouldn’t listen to the warnings and so no preparations were made either to avoid the disaster or to lessen its impact. So for example Police Chief Brody is convinced that there is a killer shark preying on the beaches around the seaside town of Amity. But because it’s the fourth of July and the town's economy needs the money that the visitors to its beech will bring he refuses to listen to the chief’s warnings. No proper safety precautions or preparations are put in place – and so disaster ensues for everyone except the shark who enjoys a good dinner. The hero’s role is to warn of the coming disaster.

In a sense that is what John the Baptist was trying to do in the Gospel story for today. He was trying to warn people of a potential disaster: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord ‘says John the Baptist. And the way that people were to prepare a way for the Lord was by Baptism and repentance.

This Gospel passage for today is the beginning of St Luke’s account of the public ministry of Jesus. Typical of Luke he’s keen to point out who was in charge both of the Roman Empire and also of that small part of it in which Jesus and John would preach and teach. It’s a list of the names of the Roman Emperor, and the Jewish leaders in the Palestine of the time.

Someone once said that if you snoozed through the first verse of this passage then you missed the whole point. It’s just like a list of names but it’s important. St Luke is doing two things by repeating these names. First he’s demonstrating that the Christian message has relevance for the whole world. And that the Christian Message is relevant to the whole of life including the world of politics

The Christian message has therefore universal significance. Second he is pointing out that the message of John the Baptist and that of Jesus were first delivered to a [people who were suffering under the oppression of a foreign occupying power which was demanding and ruthless. They lived under the reign of the Roman Emperor and his puppet kings in Palestine. Living under that tyranny the people longed for God to act on their behalf. They longed for God to save them. There was therefore a strong expectation that God would do just that. That the Messiah would come from God and that when he came he would liberate the people from the tyranny under which they lived. The hope was for a warrior Messiah. A God-sent warlord who would lead God’s people to victory and freedom. That was the hope – maybe the popular hope – in the hearts and the minds of many people. And it had led to trouble with the Romans. Over the years there had been popular movements of resistance but they had come and gone – in some cases put down very brutally. Everybody knew that they couldn’t go on as they were.But what could they do? John the Baptist knew that the nation was heading for disaster. He knew too that he had been sent from God to warn the people of the disaster for which they were heading. He had been sent to show them another way. He had been sent to prepare for the one sent from God – the Messiah who would be a kind of messiah that no-one was expecting. And so he calls the people to repentance before it is too late.

The word repentance really means change your mind.   Change your heart.  Think and act in a different way. In the case of the people of john’s time it meant stop heading for disaster by looking for the wrong kind of messiah and giving way to violence. Start instead to prepare for God’s Messiah – Jesus- and allow him to change your hearts and lives and through that Change in you allow him to change the world. And he will do it not power of arms but the power of love. So John is essentially the preparer. The one who goes before to prepare people by changing hearts and minds so that they will be open to receive the message of Jesus.

What does John the Baptists have to say to us this Advent? How does his message of repentance challenge us? How do we need to change our hearts and minds and lives? Maybe part of our task this advent is to allow God to show us where we need to change – or rather to be changed by the power of his transforming grace and love. The people of John’s time didn’t know that they were going in the wrong direction. John’s task was to show them to warn them. So perhaps it may be with us. Habits of personal sin can be insidious. They creep up on us from within without us realising it – and then disaster strikes. For example we may give in to gossip, to tickle tackle as my mother used to call it. And before we know where we are we have done real damage to someone’s reputation – and besmirched our own as well. Or, perhaps just a little dishonesty here or a little untruth there and before we know where we are the whole thing becomes a lie. You see what I mean. It’s alright to treat that person in that way, to demean them or to use them. But what’s it doing to us inside- quite apart from the damage done to them. These ways of living and of being can take us over before we know it.

Over this past year as a civilisation and as a nation we have received a very painful and a very expensive wake-up call in the shape of the financial crisis. We have been living beyond our means without realising it. And perhaps more importantly we have been putting undue reliance upon money and possessions and lifestyle at the expense of things spiritual. Living as if this world and the things of this world are all that there is. Spiritual values, generosity, compassion and community and above all love are what make for human flourishing and they will never let us down. We need to return again to those values. That will require of all of us a change of heart.

There is as we all know another perhaps the greatest disaster ahead of us unless we take heed. That of the environment. We should pray for the leaders of the nations meeting in these next two weeks in Copenhagen. But all of us should resolve that we have got to live more simply in order that our grandchildren may simply live. Repentance means a change of heart and mind and direction. What better time than Advent  as the words of John the Baptist ring in our ears. And as we prepare to welcome the birth of him who offers a different way. John the Baptist says to us today:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’.