Month: December 2011

Luke 2.15-21

Sourton, Germansweek (and by proxy, Bridestowe), 1/1/2012

 We gather together at the start of a new year. And we consider Mary, pondering, at the start of a new life. 

We are with Mary, pondering. In the aftermath of the birth of Jesus, following the visit by a group of very excited shepherds, who had left rejoicing after meeting with the special child, and broadcasted the news to everyone they could find, as Bethlehem subsequently buzzed with amazement, Mary treasured all the words that were being spoken, and pondered them in her heart.

The shepherds must had told Mary what they were telling everyone: of the host of angels appearing to them in the field as they watched over their flock, of the angel of the Lord standing before them, and the glory of the Lord shining around them, and of their terror at this turn of events. Mary treasured the words that the angel then said to the shepherds, ‘Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And Mary pondered in her heart the vision with which the shepherds concluded their tale: of the choir of angels standing among them, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace; goodwill…’

 So today we are with Mary, pondering these things. Pondering why God would entrust his only Son to the care of a plain ordinary couple in a plain ordinary Palestinian town. Pondering why God would entrust the broadcasting of the news of the arrival of the Saviour of the World to a group of simple shepherds. Pondering just how the arrival of this child would bring about the peace and goodwill of which the angels spoke. 

As we ponder them now, there seems no reason to these events. But as the spiritual writer Madeleine L’Engle once put it, in a profound four-line verse:

 This is the irrational season

When love blooms bright and wild.

Had Mary been filled with reason

There’d have been no room for the child. [1]

What Mary was filled with was a deep love for her God, a deep desire to serve him obediently, and Mary’s pondering was in no way passive. Our carols and received images of Christmas too often portray a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, we accommodate images of ‘the little lord Jesus no crying he makes’ whilst we understand in reality that if that child was truly human then he would have been as loud and needy as any other; and so too our received images of Mary as quiescent, inert, one who simply let all these things happen to her, is an unrealistic picture of one who in reality had strength, dignity and – above all – a lively and active faith, in abundance. 

No, Mary’s pondering was part of her very lively and active involvement in what God was doing with her. ‘Mary treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart.’ – this verse carries echoes of a text at the very heart of the people of faith, what we now call the Commandments, words of Moses which we ourselves repeat most weeks in worship. In Deuteronomy Moses tells the people, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.’ (Deuteronomy 6.5-6)

Moses begins with ‘love God’, and ends with ‘keep the commandments’. He nicely juxtaposes love and keep the commandments. The writer Walter Brueggemann says that this is because ‘doing the will of the beloved is the way we enact love.’

Moreover, he says, commandments are to be kept “in your heart”, that is, they are not extrinsic, imposed, or coerced, but inhaled and embraced as one’s own will and intention. [2]

No wallflower, Mary, but an example to us of a person who fully embraced the will of the one she loved – who took his commands into her heart. Her heart was full of him, her desire was all for him, she delighted in the activity of fulfilling in her life the desires of her God. Her pondering was not ponderous, but rather her pondering was a discipline she followed as a person embracing her role as a participant in God’s great plan. 

Mary would have known Psalm 19, and we can see that she fully embraced its revolutionary words:

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;

   the testimony of the Lord is sure

      and gives wisdom to the simple.

The statutes of the Lord are right 

and rejoice the heart;

   the commandment of the Lord is pure

      and gives light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever;

   the judgements of the Lord are true

      and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,

      more than much fine gold,

   sweeter also than honey,

      dripping from the honeycomb. (Psalm 19.7-10)

Mary was obedient to the law by taking her baby to be named and circumcised on his eighth day. And what Mary modelled for us, in her pondering, was a subversive obedience to her God. Obedience, because she fully embraced the law of the Lord, his statutes, his commandments, his judgements, seeing them to be the source of all goodness, joy and perfection; obedience because her heart’s deepest desire was the desire of her God. 

And subversive, because this was not the way of most people in her day. We do not hear of the shepherds or the rest of the people of Bethlehem again, treasuring the words of God in their hearts, playing  any further part in the unfolding story of the revolution of the kingdom of Heaven as announced and demonstrated by Jesus. Clearly for them the story of the angels and the child in the manger soon lost its edge as they almost certainly went on to embrace some other local excitement to keep the streets of Bethlehem buzzing awhile. They are in this respect not dissimilar to the people of our culture today, driven from one cause of excitement to another, but aching at the emptiness of their hearts.

Obedience – to an other, even one who is your heart’s desire – is not attractive in a culture like ours which values autonomy, independence, above all (though that is an impossible goal); obedience – in living out the disciplines demanded by the one who is your heart’s desire – is not attractive in a culture like ours which prefers to be promiscuous and self-indulgent with time, effort and energy.

But Mary, pondering, is a model for us this new year. Her subversive obedience to her God challenges us to re-embrace our membership – by baptism – of the revolution of the coming rule of God, and to accept the disciplines which that membership demands – to order our lives around prayer and fasting, around helping and healing others, about practicing the values of the kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. Mary’s subversive obedience to her God encourages us to re-affirm our baptismal vows which speak of our true desire – ‘our eagerness to be with, commune with, delight in‘ [3] God. The writer of Psalm 73 says, 

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. (Psalm 73.25)

How powerful, how liberating, are those words today, in our ‘promiscuous, self-indulgent society that prizes autonomy’ [4]. So, on New Year’s Day, with new-found intensity, shall we treasure these words, and ponder them in our heart?

NOTES

[1] Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season, HarperOne, 1984

[2] Walter Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience: Truth-Telling and the Art of Preaching, London: SCM, 2011, p.20

[3] Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience, p.19

[4] Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience, p.1

Sourton, Lydford, Christmas Day 2011

Happy Christmas, reader. Hope it is a good one for you. Some seasonal contemplations for you, from recent services:

Zechariah – considering new possibilities

When he told me I was pregnant

.. and this morning's offering, Be My Baby, a reflection on the following, which I originally wrote for a Greenbelt Christmas special event at The Greenhouse 1992:

BE MY BABY 

Be my baby

Be my little bundle of fleshy joy

Be innocent

Be a gurgling, smiling distraction

For me

 

Be my baby

Be simply playful

Be soft to touch

And totally trusting

Of me

 

Be my baby

Let me hear your pretty giggles

Let me hold your tiny hands

Let your clear untainted eyes gaze

At me

 

Be my baby

Take my attention

Be the keeper of my hours

Make uncompromised demands

Of me

 

Be my baby

Be the giver of surprises

Be the source of troubled nights

Create moments of embarrassment

For me

 

Be my baby

Bind me to yourself

By your dizzying devotion

Trust the well-being of your body

To me

 

Be my baby

Make me feed you

Be my baby

Make me hold you

Make a sold-out suffering servant

Of me

Luke 1.26-38 

Okehampton Mothers Union Christmas Message, 14th December 2011;

How did Mary feel when the angel told her that she was pregnant?

It’s a good question to pose at Christmastime when we recall the very human stories through which God revealed his character to the world. It’s a particularly good question to pose to a meeting of the Mothers Union, because I think it’s safe to assume that a large proportion of those of you present have had moments just like Mary’s moment: moment when you were told that you were pregnant. And for those of us who haven’t had that experience, it’s still a fascinating question on which to reflect, for what it might reveal to us about how God meets with people, today as in the time of Mary.

How did Mary feel when the angel told her that she was pregnant?

I spent some time mulling this question over some years ago when I first had this gospel passage from Luke to reflect on. Clearly I needed the help and insight of those who had first-hand experience of being told they were pregnant. So I met with a group of young mothers who shared their stories, and the stories of other people who they knew, and reflected on the connections they could make between those stories and the story of Mary. 

One thing that quickly became clear to us was that it isn’t always immediately received as good news, being told that you’re going to have a baby. It’s not just the goings-on in TV soap operas which demonstrate this; it’s the ordinary fears of everyday people, which Mary must have shared and probably some of them were magnified many times over in her experience. 

The group of young mothers who met with me helped me to put together a short, simple dialogue, to help us to consider the question, How did Mary feel when the angel told her that she was pregnant? In the light of their experiences. I’d like to share it with you now, for your own reflection and contemplation. It is in two parts. So I invite you now to listen, carefully, prayerfully, to part one.

When he told me I was pregnant – Part One

[A]: When he told me I was pregnant I couldn’t believe it at first. It was the best thing that could ever happen to me. 

[B]: When he told me I was pregnant I sort of went numb. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. It was just a terrible shock. 

[C]: When he told me I was pregnant it was like my world lit up. I couldn’t believe it. What wonderful news. 

[A]: After the shock wore off I was just so happy. I was really excited. 

[B]: It took a long, long time for the shock to wear off. 

[C]: After the shock wore off I was full of joy. Hard to describe it really, just a real deep-down feeling of satisfaction, contentment. 

[A]: And then I got a bit frightened. 

[B]: And then I got so terribly frightened. 

[C]: And then I felt really scared. 

[A]: It was like – what if something goes wrong? 

[B]: It was like – they’ll kill me when they find out. I’m in deep, deep trouble now. 

[C]: It was like – just how much our lives are going to change now the baby’s coming. 

[A]: I was sure it was real because I had a real strong feeling inside that it was. 

[B]: I knew it was true because the tests were positive, and then the doctor confirmed it. 

[C]: I knew it was true because – well, the angel, the angel, the angel told me. 

Unbelief, shock, numbness; joy, satisfaction, contentment. Fear, anxiety, anticipation of change. We can be fairly sure that the young Mary, in the presence of the angel Gabriel, experienced each of these emotions, probably in rapid succession or all mixed-up together. 

But a feeling of certainty too; certainty based for Mary, on the word of an angel. Mary was a young woman but a great believer. When an angel appeared to her, Mary had no doubt what was happening; when the angel told her she was going to conceive in her womb the son of the most high God Mary hesitated, but soon believed and accepted that too. Mary, like any woman who has ever been told she is pregnant, in that moment of receiving the news, had to deal with simultaneous feelings of belief and unbelief, come to a point of acceptance; and today women in that situation can draw strength and inspiration from Mary. 

And then there was the question of what she would do with the news she had been given. Easier for those whose partners are the father, than for others with more complicated stories to tell, and especially Joseph’s intended, the virgin mother of God……..

When he told me I was pregnant – Part Two 

[A]: I had to tell him – I couldn’t wait to tell him. 

[B]: I couldn’t tell him. I was too shocked, too scared to tell him. 

[C]: I had to tell him. But would he believe my story? 

[A]: I wanted to keep it secret, so I could feel in control of things. 

[B]: I wanted to keep it secret. I think I thought that if I kept it secret, it might never happen. 

[C]: I couldn’t keep it secret. My heart would have burst if I had. 

[A]: But when it came to the time to tell the news, I went speechless. I was so full of feelings, words failed me. 

[B]: When it came to the time to tell the news, I crumbled. 

[C]: When it came to the time to tell the news, the words just spilled out, the spirit just took off from deep inside me. 

[A]: I wanted to celebrate. 

[B]: I wanted to curl up and die. 

[C]: I wanted to sing praises like never before. 

[A]: I was full of my hopes. 

[B]: I was full of my fears. 

[C]: I was full of my God. 

Now we know what Mary did with the news she was given. She found the Spirit helping her to share it – with Joseph, with Elizabeth, with their community – knowing that their initial reactions would be shock, unbelief, even maybe anger. But trusting God to do the work in them, to help them accept the news and play a part in the glorious gestation of God which followed.

The question for us is: what do we do with with the news we are given by God at Christmas? We are ordinary believers. But then – so was Mary. The truly great thing about the Christmas gospels is that they tell a story of ordinary people, and how their lives were touched by God, in the birth of his son Jesus. We Christians believe that these gospel records show us where to find God in our own stories; these scriptures can throw light into the hidden corners of our everyday lives.

Mary, the girl that God made pregnant, gives us some of the best insights of all. And her story connects with the stories of each and every woman who today, is told she is pregnant.  The ones who with their partners have been trying for years unsuccessfully for a child, and today will hear that at last their hopes have been fulfilled. The ones who are happy to be becoming parents but whose own health causes them and their carers concern about how they will cope. The ones whose pregnancy is unexpected and might be unwelcome. The poor ones who know that they will struggle to bring up a family, hoping for help to ease their situation.   

Today hold each and every one of them in our prayers, and hope that whatever their circumstances, they might embrace and make their own, the prayer which Mary prayed from her heart:

 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’ [Luke 1.46-55]

Now I conclude with a suggestion which might surprise you and maybe excite you or unsettle you, in the same sort of way that Mary was surprised and unsettled. Here today, I propose, I am in the role of the angel Gabriel – the messenger, bringing God’s news – and you are Mary, receiving it. The news is this, if you will believe it: that you are pregnant with God.

For the experience of Mary is the experience of all believers – when we open ourselves to God, receive God in our lives, then the Holy Spirit comes to us, and the power of the Most High overshadows us, and we find ourselves carrying the life of God in our lives, holding the heart of God in our hearts. 

The message of Christmas is this: if you are a believer then into those areas of your life where there has been barrenness, God brings new life. His Holy Spirit is here with us, making things new in our hearts, souls, bodies, spirits.

And the message of Christmas is this: if you are a believer then God trusts you to nurture his life and bring it to birth in the world. How can our neighbours know about Jesus today? Only by us telling them his story. How can the world see the power of God at work today? Only by believers living lives which show God’s love to the people around, especially those most in need. 

So, what do we do with with the news we are given by God at Christmas? First of all let us accept it warmly, keenly, openly. And then let us celebrate and give thanks. Let us cast our fears and concerns onto him and share that good news with others, by telling the story of how our God has come to us and woven his story together with ours. We are people of the Spirit. We are pregnant with the possibilities of God.

Note

When he told me I was pregnant is a modified form of a piece written with a group of women at Ridley Hall, 2000, for a Cafe Emmaus Service. Used here to provoke discussion about Mary, our ‘pregnant’ selves and the Marys of today. See also my talk from December 2005, here. 

2 Samuel 7.1-5,8-11,16, Acts 13.16-26, Luke 1.67-79

Bratton Clovelly, Bridestowe, Christmas Eve 2011

One of the joys and the challenges of Christmas is that it throws together people who don’t usually spend any time with each other – and when that happens the chemistry is fascinating. So at the family gathering the grandson’s new girlfriend unexpectedly hits it off with the matriarchal grandmother, for they find they share the same sense of humour; and so at the works party the executive manager finds himself in a long and fascinating conversation with a temporary security guy over a subject they unexpectedly have in common. And in the naming ceremony in the place of worship, a very old man holds a tiny eight-day-old baby in his wrinkled hands, and over the child’s head the elder speaks like he’s never spoken before, a hymn of praise to his God for the child and the significance of that child’s coming into the world.

Our gospel reading tonight is not about the central characters in the Christmas story; we are nowhere near the stable in Bethlehem; the shepherds, the angels, the holy family and their kingly visitors are nowhere to be found. This is not the material of nativity plays. We are introduced instead to one who we might consider peripheral to the story of God which is told at Christmas, but who is there in the story, and whose presence there invites us to consider why – and how his story might connect to our own life story… this Christmas.

 Zechariah’s story in four headlines:

FIRST – A LIFETIME OF SERVICE IN THE TEMPLE – each week of his long life Zechariah had performed priestly duties in the local place of worship; obedient to his family’s calling, their role in their community.

SECOND – IN A CHILDLESS MARRIAGE – Zechariah and Elizabeth had long given up any hope of children, and at the time of the story were way too old to even consider it any more. 

THIRD – VISITED BY AN ANGEL – who told Zechariah to expect Elizabeth to bear him a son, who they should name John, and who would be ‘great in the sight of the Lord … filled with the Holy Spirit … [who would] turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, [who would] turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’ 

FOURTH – STRUCK DUMB FOR THE TERM OF THE PREGNANCY – when Zechariah expressed unbelief about this turn of events the angel responded by saying, ‘Because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.’ And so it was, for Zechariah, who couldn’t tell anyone what the angel had told him, who became a passive observer of the unfolding events of his wife’s pregnancy, until the moment at which we met him in his story – the day he took the new-born child to the temple for the ceremony of circumcision, and as a debate raged among his relatives and friends about the name of the child, Zechariah took a writing-tablet in his hands and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ At which point Zechariah’s voice returned, and from his lips came a great song of praise, for God’s great doings in his own life and across the sweep of his people’s history.

Zechariah is a peripheral character in the Christmas story, and he did things differently than the sainted Mary and the faithful Joseph. Life had let him down until these events, and his doubts about the possibility of the power of God making any difference to him is in stark contrast to the faith of Mary and Joseph and their pure acceptance of God’s expressed purposes for them.

But maybe Zechariah is in the story because he seems more like me and you than those characters on whom holiness has been heaped so high that we’ve now lost sight of their humanness. Zechariah’s demonstration of doubt that God could do something new in his life, is perhaps more the sort of response that you or I would make in that situation. Zechariah’s disbelief that God could intervene to do something new in the life of the world is very like the instinct that we and most of our contemporaries have about the power of the divine acting here, in our world, these days.

Maybe Zechariah is in the story because, then struck dumb, he was given time to think about what God was doing in his life and in the world: and that is something which the story invites us to do too. To take time to think about what God is doing in our life and in the life of the world today. To consider the possibility that the words of the angels are to be trusted and embraced.

For God responded to Zechariah’s doubt by giving him the gift of contemplation. And out of that time of contemplation came a moment of wonderful clarity. The very old man held a tiny eight-day-old baby in his wrinkled hands, and over the child’s head the elder spoke like he’d never spoken before, a hymn of praise to his God for the child and the significance of that child’s coming into the world. John, the son of Zechariah, would become in adulthood the herald of the coming Jesus, announcing the arrival of the one whose Kingdom of Heaven is a virus of self-giving love, a virus, eating away at the hatred and pain of the world until the time comes when the hatred and pain of the world will be no more. Zechariah’s eyes had been opened to the good news of this coming Kingdom, and so he said:

“By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
   to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

If Zechariah was singing his hymn of praise today he could accompany it with the words of Nina Simone / Michael Buble: “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life. For me. And I’m feeling good.”

 Is there anything in Zechariah’s story which connects with yours?

Perhaps a sense that your story is peripheral to the story of Christmas with its great heavenly characters and interstellar significance?  Then you might be surprised to learn that one of the great messages of the Christmas gospels is that God draws the peripheral ones right into the heart of history; you are significant, your story and God’s story intertwine.

Is there anything in Zechariah’s story which connects with yours?

Maybe you can identify with the doubt he had that God has any power to intervene in world affairs, in our affairs. Maybe like him, God is challenging you to contemplate this theme, to silence the doubts within, to see if your perspective can change as you look back and consider those events in your life where perhaps God was present, and consider the possibility of inviting God to be present in more of your life events in the future.

Perhaps for all of us the global financial crisis – which hits us here in terms of fuel bills, housing costs, employment prospects, pension futures, inequality and poverty – is an opportunity to reassess our values and our way of seeing the world; perhaps working away beneath this crisis is that viral Kingdom of Heaven, quietly eating away at the hatred and pain, the fear and the anger of the world; that viral Kingdom of Heaven, gently creating new dawns, new days, new lives, through people who are embracing new ways of living together, learning how to trade in transactions of self-giving love.

One of the joys of Christmas is that it creates unexpected comings-together, which create new, evocative relationships, which open our eyes to new possibilities. This holiday, may we permit God to open our eyes and our hearts to these things happening in our lives.

Isaiah 40.1-11, Mark 1.1-8

Sourton, Bratton Clovelly, Advent 2, 4/12/2011

Sparkford, West Camel, Advent 2, 6/12/2015

Queen Camel, Corton Denham, Sutton Montis, Advent 2, 10/12/2017

[Talk begins by drawing a letter from a previously-opened envelope; preferably a dried locust also falls out] 

My name is John the Baptiser. And this is an open letter from me to all the people of God at the Church in [parish]. 

I wanted to write to clear up a few misunderstandings about me that seem to have built up over the years. I want to do this, not because I’m proud or arrogant but because I want to make sure that Jesus Christ gets the glory. Because we were close, and had so much in common during our time on earth, what people think about me reflects back onto what people think about Jesus. I think if people understood a little more about me they’d appreciate more about the Son of God as well, whose sandals I’m not fit to untie. 

I’m just a bit worried that people have written me off as a bit of a freak. The wild man who came in from the desert ranting and raging. 

Most of the artists who have painted me over the centuries have shown me out in the desert, surrounded by wild beasts, a hairy bloke, dressed for the wild outdoors. Lots of painters picture me with long, scraggy hair, sticking up in a way that makes me look like a Ken Dodd or a Russell Brand – windswept and out of control. 

Mind you, I’m impressed with Caravaggio’s paintings. He’s got my age about right – I was a young man when I was out in the desert, and he’s made me young, strong and supple, and if I may say so, quite attractive looking. In one picture I’m fighting off wild animals barehanded. But while the other artists give me bad hair to make me seem wild, Caravaggio’s given me a look on my face which suggests I’m going through some sort of deep inner torment. It’s like my mind is alive with massive, monstrous ideas, and that I’m struggling to come to terms with them out there alone in the wilderness. And, to be honest, that’s close to the truth. 

Because, as the 20th century writer Daniel Berrigan says, the desert is a place of combat and rebirth. I didn’t go there to escape. I went there to wrestle with my faith, to give myself totally and completely over to God in thought and prayer, to discover who God wanted me to be. 

Now this is something important I’d like to get across: in all of this, I had my family behind me. My father was a priest and both my parents were devout religious people, always in the house of God in prayer. They were fond of saying that my birth was miraculous, and so it seemed because they were very elderly when I came along, and through dreams and visions they knew for sure that it was God’s doing; that’s why old Zechariah, my dad, insisted on calling me John – which means ‘God’s gift’, rather than naming me after himself like everyone expected he would. All the people in the district expected that I’d turn out to do something significant for God, and soon after my birth my father spoke some words about me which Christians still say often today: 

You, child, will be called the prophet of the most high, 

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 

to give his people knowledge of salvation 

by the forgiveness of their sins. [Luke 1.76-77]

Those words were really my commission. Or my calling. I carried them with me through childhood and when I grew a bit older and my elderly parents had passed on, I had to work out what this commission meant. You yourselves know, as people of God, that if you feel you’re being called you have to do a lot of thinking, a lot of praying, a lot of listening to God, to work out what your next moves should be. So I went into the desert to do this. 

I suppose in some respects that does make me seem like a wild man; because especially in the 21st century people are encouraged to be individualistic but they’re not encouraged to be different. And especially if they decide to follow the way of faith in God – that’s too different; that’s freaky; that’s wild behaviour. 

But it didn’t seem that way to me at the time. I was the child of a priestly family following my own call into ministry. And there were plenty of other people out there in the desert, practising their own particular ways of serving God. I got to know some of the people who called themselves the Essenes, who lived in small communities and devoted themselves to studying the scriptures. Repentance meant everything to them and they had what they called ‘purification baths’ in which they made themselves clean. 

I didn’t become a member of their community but seeing what they did helped me decide that my ministry should involve offering people a baptism of repentance; I took that idea back out of the desert into the country places around the river Jordan. 

And the other thing that became clear to me out there in that place where I encountered God, was that the words of the prophet Isaiah, 700 years old, somehow applied to me. It was my task to open my mouth and to be the ‘voice of one calling:’ 

In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; 

make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 

In other words, I was calling people to repentance, I had to tell people to clear a way in their lives for the coming of God, in all his glory. Levelling the land in the desert. Speaking out Isaiah’s words made me sound like one of those 17th century English Levellers, a religious agitator for just living, proclaiming that all people are equal before God and need to change their ways to demonstrate that with integrity and righteousness.

And so the shape of my ministry became clear. 

Some people have portrayed my message as harsh and sombre. All this stuff about axes and winnowing-forks and unquenchable fire. I think calling people to repent of their sins is bound to sound harsh; but when they do repent it brings them a glorious new beginning in their lives. As for my message about the coming of God, there’s wonder and joy in that which I think some of your Anglican hymn writers have captured really well: 

On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry 

announces that the Lord is nigh; 

awake, and hearken, for he brings 

glad tidings of the King of kings. 

My call was to wake people up to something wonderful, something that should make them sing. Because as Isaiah puts it, people are like grass, tossed around by every breeze that life blows at them, liable to wither and fade away, and the good news of the coming of God into the world is that they don’t have to be like that any more. People who are prisoners to themselves or their circumstances can find release. They can turn to him and bear fruit. 

Jesus preached about healing for the broken hearted, good news for the poor – and demonstrated all that in his life. Jesus preached that his good news was for everyone; now, coming to Jesus, receiving his forgiveness, anyone could be one of Abraham’s children. It was my honour to announce that in advance. I like to feel that I helped to prepare the people for Jesus and I helped to prepare Jesus for the people. 

Like me, Jesus went into the wilderness to work out his calling. And he heard what I was saying about him, he knew I was getting people ready for this man who would bring in God’s new way of doing things. He let me baptise him – though I didn’t want him to because I didn’t think he needed it – and that connected us together; it made sense of my ministry and it started off Jesus’ ministry. After that, he knew what he should do. He took on the role the prophets of old had announced, and brought up-to-date in the message I proclaimed. 

Some people through the centuries have called me the last of the Old Testament prophets. That’s a grand title. I’m content to be remembered as the man who prepared people for Jesus; a sort-of divine warm-up act; the one who came onstage first to set the scene, to get the audience in the mood for the main performance. Like all warm-up acts my talent is tiny compared to the one to follow; but I hope this letter has helped you understand that what I offered wasn’t freakish or crazy, not in God’s terms. I hope I was faithful to the reverence my parents showed almighty God, and true to the story that God continued telling through Jesus. Whose sandals I’m not fit to untie. To him be all the glory. 

Yours,

John the Baptiser 

Notes 

This sermon was first given in Liverpool in 2001 and 2004, and slightly modified through the years. The talk is enhanced by  illustrating it with various pictures of John the Baptist – icons, Hieronymus Bosch, Caravaggio. On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry, Charles Coffin, 1736 [words and tune here].