John the Baptist sermon

This sermon is focussed on the Epistle for this Sunday for anyone not wanting a wholly John the Baptist kind of a theme!

Readings:

Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon text:

"Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

So Paul writes to the early Christians in Rome in the letter we heard read today. These people had only recently learned of this Messiah and Paul tells them that history is there to teach them and indeed us.

As someone who has studied history, I am well aware of the need to look to the past in order to understand the present and from there look to the future.

Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us,
so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

These words are even more relevant for today as it is Bible Sunday.

These words of Paul talk of us using the scriptures in a process, involving endurance and encouragement and finally hope.

Surely this is what the time of Advent should be for us. A time of learning through the scriptures, and seeking for the hope of Christ’s coming at Christmas.

It is a curious thing that in many ways the Church’s year condenses all that came before Jesus into these four weeks. So much happened in preparation for Christ’s coming and yet we devote just these four weeks to it.

This morning’s selection of readings truly spans the centuries.

The passage from Isaiah was probably written some time in the 8th century BC and the words John the Baptist quotes from later in Isaiah may well come from the 6th Century BC. Paul was writing some time in the 50s AD and Matthew’s Gospel, though much debated was probably written some time around the end of the first or the beginning of the second century AD.

Many centuries intervene between the words of Isaiah and the time when both John and Paul looked back to them. Yet like that tree of Jesse, the Old Testament is the root out of which the, branch, the New Testament springs.

Because of this connection, We cannot make sense of the New Testament without reference to the old. To the Hebrew Scriptures

Paul knew this well.

Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Imagine that early church which had none of the Gospels we now have, Paul’s letters and the stories passed on to them were all they had of a New Testament. For them the Old Testament was what taught them about Jesus.

The Old Testament reading and the Gospel this morning both refer quite clearly to the coming of Jesus and Paul’s letter confirms that these and other sources were correct in foretelling Jesus birth and ministry.

The book of Isaiah was one that certainly appealed to readers of many periods. Its original message was calling its readers to turn aside from earthly allegiances to Assyria or Jerusalem and to turn instead to God. Isaiah clearly portrays God as the Saviour and Redeemer and this great high priest and king who is to come is a symbol of that Salvation.

John speaks very clearly about the one who is to come after him. The one whose sandals he is not worthy to untie.

Yet it is not only about Jesus that the passages agree but also about the kingdom that he will bring about.

Isaiah’s description of an amazingly implausible world of peace and harmony of wolf and lamb, infant and cobra is matched by Paul’s call to the early Christians to accept one another. John the Baptist talks of a leader who will not use earthly water for baptism but a Holy Spirit.

Yet the writers know that this is NOT how the world is. Isaiah is well aware that the world is not as he paints it. Paul talks of the need for endurance and encouragement.

All this could be possible in the kingdom of God and during Advent we look forward to the time when Jesus comes into the world and transforms it. As Isaiah says, all this will happen when the knowledge of God fills the earth.

How will that knowledge of God fill the earth. That knowledge is hope and through learning from the scriptures we can find that hope, as Paul says but it is also for us to spread that hope and to spread that knowledge of God in order to build that kingdom.


For in all this we are not passive observers. We are not called to listen to these words and sit back and wait. John’s message to his Jewish audience is that they mustn’t sit back on their ancestral laurels. They cannot rely purely on their heritage on their link to Abraham. They must build their relationship with God to build this promised kingdom and so must we.

What are we to do to bring about this kingdom?


John and Paul both give us answers to this question. John’s message is so clear that he shouts it out

Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near

This is not supposed to be a message to fill us with fear. Remember

Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

John does not consider repentance to be a time of woe and misery. He sees it as a necessary part, an endurance, of the process towards serving God. For after we have repented he tells us we must

Bear fruit worthy of repentance

What might that fruit be?

Paul’s message is one that follows repentance, for him the fruit is that of acceptance.

Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you.

When we have accepted ourselves and our mistakes – for such is repentance. We accept others and then, having learned from these scriptures we can find that hope and bring about what Paul calls the spirit of unity.

This is what the time of Advent is for us a time of repentance, of acceptance and of seeking for hope.

Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.