Father Harry's Sermon – Sunday 5th December 2004

Well how's it going in Advent, or is it going in Advent?

Yesterday afternoon I went up to Morecombe to see my oldest sister, who's very ill and in a nursing home, with 24hr attention, which she needs. Anyway, this isn't a sob story, as I was coming down the corridor from her room, there was a nurse at the nursing desk round the corner (if you're all still with me), and I heard her say "Oh not more bloody carols again!" When I got round the corner, there was this 85yr old man, rather fragile, and somebody had given him a compact disc - the only one he possessed, it was Christmas carols. The young lass said to him "Do you not like Elvis?" I didn't hear a reply to that- but obviously Advent is a harrowing time for that poor nurse, who was constantly four or five times a day putting this CD on - so that this old fella could have his Christmas carols.

So, what about us - how are we doing?

Last week, I suggested that we might do worse than read the prophet Isaiah, a very important person at this time of the year, and our first reading today is a bit of a surreal reading in a way. All sorts of strange things going on like the wolves living with lambs and lions eating straw, the lion eats straw like the ox. Children playing over the cobra's hole, sticking their hands into the viper's nest. I don't think the RSPCA would appreciate things going on like that. But, this is part of God reassuring his people. The time that Isaiah lived was when he came on the picture the last year of King Uziah. But I know that won't set everyone on fire, but Uziah was the last of the 'goodies', the good kings. After him was rubbish, absolute rubbish and people like Ahaz were a disaster really. They were beset by all sorts of problems - the Assyrians; the Babylonians came along and had a go at them. Carted them off into exile and then when the remnants came back - the Greeks got at them. The remnants of Alexander's crowd also has a go - so all in all they had a pretty miserable existence.

Who had? - GOD'S PEOPLE! Then God sends along this great prophet - Isaiah. The first 12 chapters, well the first five are an indictment on the way they had been living; they'd not been faithful to God. They'd not kept their side of the Covenant bargain, just as when we're unfaithful to God. The next seven chapters are referred to generally as The Prophecies of Emanuel. How God is going to change all that, he's going to set things right, he's going to come and rescue his people. Emanuel, as you well know, means 'GOD WITH US', that God will be a God who comes among us and lives with us. All this poetic stuff about 'mountains' is a bit like 'back to Eden' - everything will be made right, Eden not just between human beings but the whole of God's creation. God won't just be doing this stuff but the vipers won't either, wolves and lambs will be at peace with each other. It's a flashback really as to how things started in the book of Genesis - God will make things new, but the important bit is he will be with his people; Emanuel.

If you can jump from the book of Genesis to the last book of the Bible, you know - the scary one, the Apocalypse. If you make that leap, many people will read the Apocalypse as an account, not as the end but of the beginning, where God restores his creation to what He intended it to be. He makes all things new. In our reading this morning, all this 'doing no hurt, no harm' is 'on My Holy Mountain'. Remember last week, the first reading of Advent, the vision of Isaiah's and of Amos, concerning Judea and Jerusalem - 'come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the Temple of God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His path'. This 'mountain' bit, again, we are not going to turn into professional alpinists or something, that's not what the imagery of the poetry is about. The Holy Mountain - is - being with God. Remember the other gorgeous description of being with God - where God sits us down on His Holy Mountain, gets out the vino and fantastic 'fat' food - beautiful. Those who diet - forget it - that's not what God offers on His Holy Mountain - it's the same today, in our first reading.

Paul has an interesting thing to say at the beginning of our second reading. He says, everything that was written long ago, in the scriptures, was meant to teach us something about 'hope'. From the examples scripture gives us and how people, who did not give up, were helped by God. Boy! That should ring some bells! The scripture Paul is referring to is not our Gospels and New Testament readings and things, they didn't exist. It's the Jewish Scriptures; Isaiah and Co. And Paul says what? - The people didn't give up on God - they stayed faithful to God and they are a source of hope for us. Their example and then in the Gospel, this morning, along comes not Jesus Himself, but his messenger, his cousin John the Baptist. Now things are really getting underway. The establishing of God's Kingdom is about to begin. The preaching first of all - that you and I must turn back to God - repent, but a much more accurate way of putting it is - we must change; change our way of life, our inner life, our values, our standards, all must change because the Kingdom of God is at hand, this restoration of all things in Christ. So, there is a lot to think about there in the readings this morning.

Perhaps the last thing I'd mention, is that John is not a character in his own right, he is a very humble person, he's been born for one thing, born of elderly parents, Elizabeth and Zachariah, well past the age of childbearing that Elizabeth is, God uses those two old people to produce the 'Voice of the Word', as John has been called, to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. If you read on in Luke's Gospel, then Luke has the birth of Jesus beautifully rounded between two old couples, Elizabeth and Zachariah and finally, after Christmas, we celebrate the Presentation of Jesus to His Father, in the Temple, and who is there to meet Him? - not the important people, the priests and all those who ruled things - no, two old people, who remained faithful, who stuck in there, "now let your faithful servant go in peace" says Simeon "for my eyes have seen your salvation, a light to enlighten the gentiles and give glory to God's people, Israel".

That's the way to look at it, not going through all this bash of parties etc. in Advent, but we're to look forward with hope. All of us are to keep on 'sticking in there'.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

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