Isaiah 12: 2-6 (New Jerusalem Bible)
Luke 3: 7-18 (Common English Bible)
The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as “Love Sunday” representing the love Jesus has for humankind. This is the reason why the pink candle is lit today.
Yet, as we meditate on the scripture passages for this Sunday, we should be aware how painful this season can be for many people, people who are lonely, people who are grieving for the loss of a loved one and people too poor to even enjoy Christmas. There is far more to Christmas than merchants want us to believe.
During the weeks of Advent with the Old Testaments prophets like Isaiah and New Testament prophets like John the Baptizer, we hear both judgement and hope. Today we hear John saying to the religious leaders, “You’re children of snakes. Who will warn you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon. Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives.”
The many people who came to hear John’s message considered it as good news. Some even started to wonder whether John was the messiah they have been waiting for. The Jewish people during this era were having a very difficult time. They were living under Roman occupation and the mercy of tyrants like Herod and dishonest, greedy tax collectors. Things were wrong, but the Jewish people were hoping God was going to do something about it.
But John criticized the Jewish people with their bogus righteousness since they believed they were the chosen people of God. John told them, don’t even think about using Abraham as your ancestor as a defense for your bad behavior. That will not spare you from judgement.
Father Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest and the writer of many good books including my favorite “The Universal Christ,” suggests that John the Baptizer was probably more important than we realize. As written by Father Rohr, John cries out in the wilderness, radically questioning the very legitimacy of the existing religious order.
When John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, it was revolutionary. The religious leaders were shocked. Jews were supposed to follow the Law of Moses and the Holiness Codes of the Torah, and this upstart was making it too easy for God to love and forgive them.
In Charles Dickens' play, “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge is London’s most notorious miser. He is a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be. When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the knowledge that he will die someday humbles him to the reality of his mortality. He is overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living. Ebenezar repents. He has seen the light of truth after living in the dark so long. And what follows is his rebirth into a new life of joy.
This Advent, John the Baptizer comes to us, telling all people that we should look at the world in a different way. The message of Advent is that God in Christ, is coming into the world. Through Jesus, the Christ incarnated itself to live among us as a human being. What came into being was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.
What should we do, as we yearn for God’s peaceable kingdom in all its fullness? We learn from history and be guided by faith. During Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, and remember he did win the majority of German voters in 1933 which was the last free election that nation would have for many years, too many religious leaders and others were supportive of him. When fear and xenophobia prevail, there can be terrible consequences. And, unfortunately we’re seeing that right now in the United States.
One can think about parallels between the immigrants today fleeing from the violence of drug cartels like the Jewish people fleeing from German occupied territories on the eve of WW II.
Among the many who tried to escape was Otto Frank and his family, his wife Edith and daughters Margot and Anne. As historian Richard Brietman wrote, “Otto Frank’s efforts to get to America ran afoul of strict American immigration laws along with racism against the Jewish people. And I never knew there was so much racism among Americans against the Jewish people during that era, until I saw a documentary about it on PBS.
But, in contrast there were people who cared. In occupied France by the Germans, Jews were captured and sent to the death camps numbering in the thousands. And the really sad thing is some of the French assisted the Nazis doing that evil. But there was a small town in France, Le Chambon, that said, enough of this evil, we have to do something about it. So the town’s citizens took in and sheltered more than 5,000 Jewish refugees to escape the Nazis. You can read about this in the book, “Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.” The French citizens of Le Chambon were Reformed Christians descendents of Hueggenots. And if you know French history, the Huguenots themselves faced persecution and death when the Roman Catholic French King Charles IX in 1572, ordered the extermination of the Huguenots in France.
In the present what shall we do? In the book of Isaiah chapter 12, the prophet affirms that God is salvation. The prophets' very name stands as a kind of testimony to God’s amazing grace. As the prophets and Jesus said, we are called to feed the hungry, minister to the sick and to show God’s mercy and justice for all. On this day of Advent, there is good and joyful news. No matter how bad the darkness looks, we know the darkness does not have the last word. The Christ is coming as a newborn infant to grow into the Light of the World.
AMEN
