‘Peace
through integrity, and honour through devotedness’
The
prophets proclaim the message of hope to Israel, in the midst of exile, when
times look dark, they are to wrap the cloak of integrity around themselves, and
put the crown of the glory of God upon their heads. It is the message of trust,
trust in God alone as the source of our hope, the only rock on which to build a
life of faith.
As
the people of God we are to trust in him and to live lives which prepare for
the second coming of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, our saviour and our
judge. To be a Christian, then, is to live a life where our love for each other
and for God increases day by day as Paul puts it. We are to grow in virtue by
being virtuous.
In
this morning's gospel we see the last of the prophets, John the Baptist, the
son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, as he prepares the way for the Lord. He
proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In our baptism
we promise to turn away from sin, the world, and the devil; we turn away from
what the world thinks and does, because our baptism makes us pure and blameless,
following the Commandments of God, and shown to us in the life of Jesus Christ.
The
church, then, must be a voice crying in the wilderness. What we proclaim may
well be at odds with what the world thinks we should say and do, but we are not
called to be worldly, to conform ourselves to the ways of the world. We live in
a fallen world, which is not utterly depraved, but the church exists to conform
the world to the will of God. To say to the world, come and have life in all
its fullness, turn away from selfishness and sin, to have life in all its
fullness in Jesus Christ.
The
world may not listen to us when we proclaim this; it may well choose to ignore
us, to persecute us. We have to be prepared to do this regardless of the cost.
We must bear witness to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit,
and their saving work even if it means shedding blood of losing our lives,
because it says to the world: we trust in something greater than you, we know
the truth and it has set us free, free to love God and to serve him, and to
invite others to do the same, to be baptised, to turn away from the world, and
be fed by word and sacrament, built up into a community of love, offering the
world a radical alternative, and holding fast to the truths which the church
holds dear, since they are given us by God.
It’s
a big, a daunting task, which if it were up to us individually, we would have
no chance of achieving. But it is something which we do together, as the body
of Christ, and relying upon God alone: it is his gospel, his church, and his
strength in which we will accomplish this. Too often we trust in ourselves and
fail, we need to trust in God and ask him to bring about the proclamation of
the Gospel through us. We need to be like John the Baptist, preparing the way
for the Lord who will come again as our Saviour and our Judge.
This is what we await in Advent, the coming of Our
Lord as a baby in Bethlehem and his second coming as Our Judge, bearing in his
glorious body the wounds of love, borne for us and our salvation. So let us prepare
to meet him and live lives which proclaim his saving love and truth to a world
hungry for meaning and love and thereby honour God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit, the consubstantial and coeternal Trinity, to whom be
ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion and
power, now and forever.
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