Why Advent needs the strange figure of John: a homily for the Second Sunday of Advent

Why Advent needs the strange figure of John

At the early Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Advent - 5.12.21

Luke 3:1-6 (Year C)

It is not just a list of the great and good, a bit of historical background, that we hear Luke recording at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading.

No, this list would have produced awe, reverence, fear across the ancient world. The Emperor Tiberius; Pontius Pilate the Roman governor; Herod, Philip, Lysanias, governing on behalf of the Romans; Annas and Caiaphas, the high priestly family in Jerusalem, permitted to rule by the Romans.

Here was a dominant combination of political, military, economic, and religious power: claiming the right, by divine sanction, to determine the life and the fate of millions.

Surely it was to these names that one would look to know heavenly meaning and divine purpose: to their overwhelming power, their exalted claims, their laws and proclamations.

Luke, abruptly, suddenly, definitively, says ‘no’ to this. Why? Because “the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness”.

Not to those who exalted themselves and made proud claims in Rome or Jerusalem, in the court of Herod or in the headquarters of Pilate. No, the word of God - God’s proclamation of His purposes - came to the strange, odd figure of John in the wilderness.

It is one of the startling messages of Advent, cutting across the claims of this world, its power, wealth, celebrity, influence. It is not there that we will encounter the revelation of God’s purposes … but in the wilderness of Judea, and in that strange, odd character of John the Baptist.

It is in John that ancient prophecies from the story of Israel come to pass. He is the voice “crying out in the wilderness”; he is the one who will “prepare the way of the Lord”.

He is, yes, an incongruous figure amidst our festive preparations: the wilderness, after all, is not the scene most of us picture in our minds at this time of year.

But this is what is needed - an odd, strange figure, in a harsh landscape, to cut through our complacency and our assumptions.

An odd, strange figure, in a harsh landscape, capturing our attention, telling us that the purposes of God are revealed in the One whom John announces. That the ancient words of Isaiah the prophet are coming to pass, “and all flesh shall see the salvation of our God”.

This is John’s Advent proclamation. He is pointing us to the One in whom God’s saving purposes are found, revealed, embodied: Jesus of Nazareth. As we will shortly pray in the Great Thanksgiving: “we remember his passion and death, we celebrate his resurrection and ascension, and we look for the coming of his kingdom”.

It is not in the powers of this world that we find the saving purposes of God. Truth and meaning are not found in the values encouraged and stories told by the powers of this world ... but in the One proclaimed by John, the One whose saving cross and resurrection are set before us in this Eucharist: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

On this Second Sunday of Advent, may the strange figure of John in the wilderness, and his stirring proclamation, call us, amidst distractions and other voices, to encounter afresh the saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ.

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

Search This Blog