Grace Episcopal Church Sheboygan, Wisconsin The Second Sunday of Advent (A) Isaiah 11.1-10 Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19 Romans 15.4-13 Matthew 3.1-12 May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen. [Singing] “Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh,/ O’er the fields we go, laughing all the way! Bells on bobtails ring …” Hang on, a minute, I don’t think that’s quite right for today. After all, it is Advent, and “Jingle Bells” frankly has nothing at all to do with Christmas, even if Christmas were already here. When we’re honest, we admit to a certain smug satisfaction in being able to kvetch a bit to our friends, to point out that it’s Advent. But, even allowing for the temptation to smugness, we do know that there is a difference in how we, as Christians, approach the “Holiday Season”. Our frame-of-reference is different. Whether we are focusing in Advent on preparation and repentance, or we have fast-forwarded already to Christmas, we know that the ultimate focus, and the very reason for joy, is the nativity of Jesus, the cosmic reality that God became one of us in order that we might become one with Him. A worldly focus will be one that seeks “happiness”—however that is defined, or (perhaps I should say)—however the world might seek to define happiness with reference to stuff that’s on sale. A spiritual focus will allow us to experience the real joy of Christmas, and to experience this joy more fully because we have experienced Advent; we have heeded the call to repentance in order that we might bear the fruit which God intends. Notice, however, that when it comes to inviting others into the joy of God’s grace, a lot of what we have to do involves pointing out to others where to focus. That’s why it’s so common in art depicting John the Baptist that he is shown pointing, pointing as in “Behold! The Lamb of God.” John points in other ways, too. He is, in fact, what we might call “pointed,” calling his hearers a “brood of vipers”. John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers in the context of his call to repentance. If we were to do the same today—recognizing that we as well as those to whom we might speak must both repent—it’s a pretty fair guess that we’d not be heard. Most humans do feel the need for something beyond themselves, and do recognize that changes in their lives are necessary, but to speak to the world only in the language of sin and repentance would mean that most of our hearers would simply tune us out. They’d tune us out not because they aren’t seeking some kind of answer (recall that the Pharisees and Sadducees come to John seeking the baptism of the forgiveness of sins), but because the language of sin and ...
