Unexpected Places

Advent + 2

Year C

8 December 2024

Baruch 5:1-9

Canticle 19 pg. 88

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

Stir up our hearts, Lord God, to prepare the way of your only Son. By his coming give to all people of the world knowledge of your salvation; through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

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What does it mean to us when we hear the words from Baruch, for today? Or when we revisit Zechariah’s song in today’s canticle?

As we move through the season of Advent, we gradually move from expecting the return of Christ the King in his glory to the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem at Christmas.

Both are causes for joy for those of us who believe, and yet, we are unable to have any closer an association to this source of joy than that state of “now but not yet” that the theological world refers to as ‘eschatology.’

Now when we isolate the word ‘eschatology’ we tend to look only at the End of Days passages. We focus on the final time in each of our lives before we are in God’s presence, but it has come to have a broader and yet more nuanced definition.

A definition that includes, for example, when the people of All Saints weren’t able to access their building for worship, whether it was because of Covid restrictions in the diocese, or because of plumbing issues. Eschatology then is this yearning to be someplace, and yet being physically unable to be there.

As Christians it is our desire to be residents in the kingdom of heaven, to be in the presence of God, as we see described in Revelation with the New Heaven and the New Earth; and yet, it is the events of our lifelong journey that brings us ever closer to this reality, yet still not fully there.

Or the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven that we work toward in the actions of our lives, yet it lives in our heart more easily than in the world all around.

So then, the message in all of today’s readings, is to open the way in each of our lives, in each of our hearts to welcome the Messiah into not only the world, but into our lives, as well.

The Song of Zechariah, today’s canticle, talks about the miracles that come from God.

And when we look at how God has been working in the lives of all who believe, we’ve come to realize that miracles creep into our lives. They’re not necessarily within our awareness unless it is something for which we are looking, and more often than naught we’re looking in the wrong direction when that miracle arrives.

In the case of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s miracle it describes how God fulfills not only prophesy but also how God moves forward with God’s salvation for the whole world in an unexpected way. In a way that is outside of the realms of what we consider to be possible, normal, or expected.

But God doesn’t suddenly drop God’s salvation upon the world, rather God announces it through John, through the miracle that came to the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth. A miracle to benefit the whole of Israel who listened and came to John for repentance.

The gospel tells us of how God’s miracle in the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth is active in the world, in the lives of those who are or want to be faithful.

It reminds us: “2bThe word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, … 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’” (Lk 3:2-4a, 6)

A miracle for the whole world who because of John’s words.

A miracle that encourages us to look for and find our Lord and Saviour and the light of God’s love.

A miracle that invites us. It prepares each one of us to invite and to welcome the love of God into our lives and hearts through the teachings of Christ, and the grace of God.

When we look at the passage from Baruch, it talks about the joy of the coming of God.

He equates our outer garments to the overshadowing of God’s glory in our lives: a glory that we are able to become accustomed to in the same way we put on a new coat, or a new pair of winter boots.

He tells us: “Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,   and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.2 Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;   put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;3 for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.4 For God will give you evermore the name,   ‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’.” (Bar 5:1-4)

But it’s so much more than just being clothed in the glory of God.

Through Baruch’s words, we embrace God’s message of love, of forgiveness, and of grace until this message shines through each of our lives for all the world to see.

“9 For God will lead Israel with joy,   in the light of his glory,   with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.” (Bar 5:9)

So, the question becomes how do we embrace this message?

How do we, each one of us become an embodiment of the love of God? Of the nearness of God’s kingdom to where and how we are in the world, today?

Karl Marx was known to have said that religion was an opiate of the masses. He saw such messages of the future nature of the kingdom of God, of the potential of the glory of God other than separate from this world, as a future anticipated only in the next, not right around the corner.

But from our perspective, from our seeing the unexpected joy to be found in the Song of Zechariah, or the passage from Baruch, we are able to see that the glory of God is fully meant to be realized here, in our lives and in our hearts.

We are able to see the glory of God realized in our communities and in the way we live our lives today so that when we stand before God then we do so filled with God’s love and grace for each one of us.

But it takes effort. It takes work.

It takes trust that although, on the larger scale, we can’t see that Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and the birth of John as a miracle, it’s a miracle that brings hope in 30 years.

But for Zechariah and Elizabeth, it brings hope for tomorrow, today.

Marx’s interpretation of such texts stemmed from the way he saw such “now but not yet” texts interpreted in the world of the early 20th century, and how he saw the average person live a life without much of a way to move forward, upward in society.

Facing all of this today, as much as when Marx penned these ideas, the love of God doesn’t descend upon us with drama, with fanfare, with mandates to love each other as we wish to be loved.

Rather it’s the news that a woman beyond childbearing will give birth to the prophet who proclaims the arrival of the messiah.

Rather it’s the embracing of the message that God’s love for each one of us is not just around the corner, but right here in our midst waiting for us to put it on, and to share it with the world.

Looking at the epistle, at Paul’s words to the Philippians we are able to see how the love and the grace of God is able to become more than an outer garment to each of our lives.

Paul says: “3 I thank my God every time I remember you, 4constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 6I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.” (Phil 1:3-7)

Paul teaches us to pray. He teaches us to pray for each other, encouraging us to live into the love taught in the gospels no matter who we are or where we find ourselves.

Then its through these actions toward each other that the kingdom comes closer.

It’s through our hospitality toward the stranger in our midst that we realize the love and grace of God in our lives.

It’s through our embracing the love of God found in both the second coming of Christ in his glory, and in the miracle of the infant birth that we are able to challenge the perceptions of scholars like Marx and show them how the love of God is realized today, as well as tomorrow.

It's not just through the miracle that brought John into the world.

It’s not solely through John’s message of the coming of the Messiah, but it’s through each one of us carrying this message of love and of hope into the world as John carried to the regions of the Jordan.

It’s a message that we carry like a new coat, a new garment, so that we are able to embody, to manifest the atmosphere of “now, but not yet” that is the waiting for the promises of God to be realized, to be made manifest.

Not just in each of our hearts, but it’s found in our world when we look where we don’t expect.

Amen.