As Christians we are
called to live in between Our Lord’s Resurrection and his coming as our Saviour
and our Judge. We know that our redemption has been brought about: by Jesus’
birth and by His Death and Resurrection. This is the greatest news of all human
history, and, as Christians, we should be glad, we should live lives full of
joy. And yet somehow we don’t – we are tired of waiting, or perhaps we are not
convinced of the truth of the message, or perhaps too distracted by the cares
and worries of daily life.
I wish
that I could say that this doesn’t apply to me, but I’m afraid that it does, I’m
not a better Christian, though I long so to be. Thankfully, Advent is a time of
preparation, of waiting, and hopefully of putting our own spiritual house in
order, to greet our Lord when he comes, as the baby born in Bethlehem and as the
Judge of all mankind.
At one level, the idea of judgement worries me deeply, as I
suspect if I were all up to me and my efforts, and were I simply to be judged
on my own life I would not get to heaven – I cannot earn my way there. I, like
all of you, and indeed all of humanity, are simply miserable sinners in need of
God’s grace, his love and his mercy. We need Christ to be born, we need Him to die
for our sins, and to rise again to give us the hope of eternal life with Him.
It
probably does us all some good to think like this from time to time, not so
that we feel wretched and depressed, but so that we recognise our need for God,
that we turn to him again, that this time of Advent is part of our ongoing
spiritual journey – turning away from sin and towards Christ. The Christian
faith is the work of a lifetime, and of a community: it is something we all have
to do together.
Thankfully,
we as Christians know that he will come to be our judge is our redeemer, who
bore our sins upon the cross, he is loving and merciful. Just as the arms of
the prodigal son's father are wide open to embrace him, so too Christ's arms
are flung wide upon the cross to embrace the world, our judge will come bearing
wounds in his hands, his feet, and his side, because they are the wounds of
love. We can have hope and confidence in this.
John the Baptist, the last of the
prophets is the voice crying in the wilderness of which the prophet Isaiah
spoke. He has an uncomfortable and uncompromising message: Repent for the
Kingdom of God is close at hand. It may not be what people want to hear, but it
is, however, what people NEED to hear. Thus people flock to him, they are aware
of their sin, aware of their need of God, of His love, mercy, and forgiveness.
His message is one of repentance, of turning away from sin, from the ways of
the world, a world which seeks to change our celebration of our Lord’s nativity
into an orgy of consumerist excess. His is the birth, his is the way by which
we can find true peace, we can turn to Christ, we can be like Him.
John the Baptist’s message is uncomfortable
and yet it is GOOD NEWS – our prayers are answered- that for which we hope, for
which our soul deeply longs is ours.
Regardless of what we might think or feel,
from a divine perspective things look very different. A thousand years are like
a day, just as the Psalmist says. Ours is a God of patience and mercy, who
wants all to come to repentance, a God who loves Creation, and who created us
in His image – He’s interested in the long game – a God of love and patience.
How then
do we respond? We respond by living
lives of godliness and holiness, by striving to be found by him at peace, a
peace which prepares for His coming. We are patient, we wait in expectant hope,
living out our faith, and encouraging others so to do so that all the world may
be saved and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty,
glory, dominion, and power, now and to the ages of ages.
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