Luke 3. 1-6; Malachi 3. 1-4; 2nd Sunday in Advent, 2009

As a child, I would often be amazed at my father’s work bench and surrounding machinery, tool cabinets and jars of nails and screws under the house. I was born and raised in a large Queenslander house the ones propped up on stilts to allow airflow underneath. And so under the house, for me, was the laundry, garage, storage space and my dad’s workbench and associated materials. There were no doors to lock us kids away from hammers, vices, screw-drivers and so, very often, they would become apart of our play equipment. As I watched my father build I learnt what each tool was for and as I got older he would show me how to use a hammer, a vice and so on as my skill increased. What I loved the most was when my dad would ask me to help him build something. For it would mean I… I could help HIM!, Even though I’d only bang a few nails in or hold something whilst his hands were full there was the honour and pride of being able to say ‘I helped dad with that.’

There is something about seeing a child love and learn alongside their parent. It is a special moment that sometimes gets lost and damaged under the busyness of life and misplaced values and priorities. But I have seen this great sense of excitement and determination as a child joins in, works together and participates with their parents.

It is this idea of participation that leads us into Luke’s gospel this morning.

As Luke often does, he triangulates characters.

Here, in these verses at the end of chapter 3, he triangulates between the authorities and John the Baptist. First, the Gentile or Roman authority, then the Jewish authority and then John, Son of Zechariah. His point is made as he moves through the three characters because first you have Caesar, the governor and tetrarchs and then you have your High Priest in Annas and Caiaphas BUT the word of God came to John not to these authorities. Just like the prophets of old, the word of God came to John who was in the desert or wilderness.

Luke places Isaiah 40: 3-5 at end of these verses but there is also today’s OT reading from Malachi 3: 1-4 that helps us to understand John as being a prophet of preparation for the Messiah. This is certainly how John the Baptist saw himself; he certainly knew that he himself was not the Messiah, despite people thinking along those lines. John saw himself unfit to un-strap the Messiah’s sandals and he saw that the Messiah was going to be even more powerful by baptising with the Holy Spirit instead of water. John’s ministry was a witness or a pointer to Christ and symbolic of what Christ would achieve. In the overall scheme of things he was a participant in God’s plan to reconcile the world and he seemed quite happy with that.

John came preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. To dig a little deeper here, the original word for repentance is more strictly understood as ‘changing your mind.’ So what is this baptism of a changed mind about, it is about the forgiveness or the ‘cancellation’ of sin. We see in Jesus the fulfilment of John’s ministry because we see, throughout Luke’s Gospel (usually over a meal), Jesus confidently releasing sinful people from who they once were and cancelling their sins which led people to change their minds or opinions of themselves which brought freedom and transformation. This cancellation of sin is something Jesus has accomplished for all people, as Luke quotes Isaiah 40, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

We mentioned earlier that, in the overall scheme of things, that John was a participant in God’s plan to reconcile the world. I would like to encourage us this morning that John’s way of seeing himself is the best way or rather the only. We see in John the Baptist both humility and a willingness to serve. I mean, roaming around the wilderness like in Israel’s history and like the prophet Elijah where his entire wardrobe consisted of a leather belt and something made from camel hair and a diet that consisted of locusts and honey… if they’re not signs of humility and willingness to serve I don’t know what is.

We see in John the Baptist a great depth of humility and willingness to serve for he knew he was apart of something greater then what money could buy; he was a participant in God’s reconciliation of the world.

What other options were there for John the Baptist? What other ways could John have seen himself?

Well, (1) he could have mistakenly thought he was the Messiah and tried to save the world on his own, or (2) done nothing and ignored the calling of God.

As we are in advent, which is a time of preparation for the coming of Christ, much like the ministry of John, I think these options are open to us all!

As we prepare for Christmas Day and as God calls each and every one of us into ministry and mission we are faced with three options. (1) We could ignore God altogether, which seems pretty simple. Or (2) we could not believe or trust God and so go off trying to do ministry and mission without him, which is a lot harder. Or (3), we can be like John the Baptist and see ourselves as participants in God’s reconciliation of the world through Christ.

A participant is an accomplice, a partaker, a contributor, a co-worker and strangely enough this is how God prefers to work with human beings and we observe this throughout the grand story of the Bible. God refuses to act alone but demands participation. St Augustine once said, “Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not.”

Paul said to the Corinthians, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5: 18-20).

On my ordination retreat, we reflected upon our liturgy (what we do in our worship time), and Bishop John made the point that it wasn’t only the bread and wine being consecrated for a special purpose. As we partake, as we participate we are being consecrated as the body of Christ in the world. And at the end of our time together we are sent out from here to be, just that, the body of Christ in the world; we are literally told to “Go!”

And as you go, May you, like those before you, take up this great call to participate with God in the world. May you too, like John the Baptist, be preparers of the way. May you prepare the way for the Lord into people’s lives and make straight paths for him in the world around us.

The true meaning of the Gospel of Grace

"The true meaning of the Gospel of Grace is this: that God unconditionally calls each of us to seek release from our selfish ways so that we can join the self-giving fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and his love is so at work in us to transform us that one day we will enjoy fellowship with God and one another as much as God enjoys fellowship within Himself."

The Rev. Canon Dr. Ashley Null in an interview with David W. Virtue from virtueonline.org

Buber on false images of God

An atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than a believer caught up in his own false image of God.

~ Martin Buber

Who can say it like T. F. Torrance?

"Like Christ the Holy Spirit is one in being and of the same being as the Father, but unlike Christ the Holy Spirit is not one in being and of the same being as we are, for he incarnated the Son but does not incarnate himself, he utters the Word but does not utter himself. He directs us through himself to the one Word and Face of God in Jesus Christ in accordance with whom all our knowledge of God is formed in our minds, knowledge of the Spirit as well as of the Father and of the Son. This is the diaphanous self-effacing nature of the Holy Spirit who hides himself, as it were, behind the Father in the Son and behind the Son in the Father, but also the enlightening transparence of the Spirit who by throwing his eternal Light upon the Father through the Son and upon the Son in the Father, brings the radiance of God’s Glory to bear upon us. We do not know the Holy Spirit directly in his own personal Reality or Glory. We know him only in his unique spiritual mode of activity and transparent presence in virtue of which God’s self-revelation shines through to us in Christ, and we are made through the Spirit to see the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father. While the Holy Spirit thereby guards the transcendence of God who infinitely exceeds what finite minds can grasp, nevertheless through his personal presence to us he brings the ineffable Being and Reality of God out of his unapproachable Light to bear upon us, and brings us out of our distance and darkness to have communion with himself and through himself with the Father and the Son. Because through him the Word of God continues to sound forth and is heard and believed, because in his light we see light and by his creative operation we come to know the unknowable and eternal God, we know the Holy Spirit, although personally distinct from the Father and the Son, to be no less Lord God than the Father and the Son, both as he is toward us and as he is antecedently in the undivided oneness of God’s eternal being."

(Thomas F. Torrance, “The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons,” 66-7)

Rationalistic Fundamentalists

". . . Rationalistic fundamentalists are those who think they can treat biblical statements as independent from the ultimate Being to whom they refer. Once this move is made they can then apply preconceived rational structures to fit biblical statements (such as “God is love”) into a dogmatic system. But this would be to commit the error that is referred to elsewhere in this article, namely to impose our own systems of logic on the subject matter of enquiry rather than letting it teach us its own inherent logic. Such systems of doctrine tend to be legalistic constructs of our own minds where we may seem to put grace at the center of a theological system but instead end up with a new legalistic system that does not really set people free in Christ."

(taken from: Participatio: Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, 22-23);

Bits of Calvin on Atonement

Now someone asks, How has Christ abolished sin, banished the separation between us and God, and acquired the righteousness to render God favorable and kindly toward us? To this we can in general reply that he has achieved this for us by the whole course of his obedience …. In short, from the time when he took on the form of a servant, he began to pay the price of liberation in order to redeem us…

This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that by taking our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us ….that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself [which oppressed us], he has clothed us with his righteousness.

Institutes of the Christian Religion (2.16.5 /

4.17.2

Blessed Trinity - St John of the Cross

1.

In the beginning the Word

was; he lived in God

and possessed in him

his infinite happiness.

That same Word was God,

who is the Beginning;

he was in the beginning

and had no beginning.

He was himself the Beginning

and therefore had no beginning.

The Word is called Son;

he was born of the Beginning

who had always conceived him,

giving of his substance always,

yet always possessing it.

And thus the glory of the Son

was the Father's glory,

and the Father possessed

all his glory in the Son.

As the lover in the beloved

each lived in the other,

and the Love that unites them

is one with them,

their equal, excellent as

the One and the Other:

Three Persons, and one Beloved

among all three.

One love in them all

makes of them one Lover,

and the Lover is the Beloved

in whom each one lives.

For the being that the three possess

each of them possesses,

and each of them loves

him who bears this being.

Each one is this being,

which alone unites them,

binding them deeply,

one beyond words.

Thus it is a boundless Love that unites them,

for the three have one love

which is their essence;

and the more love is one

the more it is love.

2. On the communication among the Three Persons.

In that immense love

proceeding from the two

the Father spoke words

of great affection to the Son,

words of such profound delight

that no one understood them;

they were meant for the Son,

and he alone rejoiced in them.

What he heard

was this:

"My Son, only your

company contents me,

and when something pleases me

I love that thing in you;

whoever resembles you most

satisfies me most,

and whoever is like you in nothing

will find nothing in me.

I am pleased with you alone,

O life of my life!

You are the light of my light,

you are my wisdom,

the image of my substance

in whom I am well pleased.

My Son, I will give myself

to him who loves you

and I will love him

with the same love I have for you,

because he has loved

you whom I love so".

3. On creation

"My Son, I wish to give you

a bride who will love you.

Because of you she will deserve

to share our company,

and eat at our table,

the same bread I eat,

that she may know the good

I have in such a Son;

and rejoice with me

in your grace and fullness."

"I am very grateful,"

the Son answered;

"I will show my brightness

to the bride you give me,

so that by it she may see

how great my Father is,

and how I have received

my being from your being.

I will hold her in my arms

and she will burn with your love,

and with eternal delight

she will exalt your goodness".

4. Continues

"Let it be done, then," said the Father,

for your love has deserved it.

And by these words

the world was created,

a palace for the bride

made with great wisdom

and divided into rooms,

one above, the other below.

The lower was furnished

with infinite variety,

while the higher was made

beautiful

with marvelous jewels,

that the bride might know

the Bridegroom she had.

The orders of angels

were placed in the higher,

but humanity was given

the lower place,

for it was, in its being,

a lesser thing.

And though beings and places

were divided in this way,

yet all form one,

who is called the bride;

for love of the same Bridegroom

made one bride of them.

Those higher ones possessed

the Bridegroom in gladness;

the lower in hope, founded

on the faith that he infused in them,

telling them that one day

he would exalt them,

and that he would lift them

up from their lowness

so that no one

could mock it any more;

for he would make himself

wholly like them,

and he would come to them

and dwell with them;

and God would be man

and man would be God,

and he would walk with them

and eat and drink with them;

and he himself would be

with them continually

until the consummation

of this world,

when, joined, they would rejoice

in eternal song;

for he was the Head

of this bride of his

to whom all the members

of the just would be joined,

who form the body of the bride.

He would take her

tenderly in his arms

and there give her his love;

and when they were thus one,

he would lift her to the Father

where God's very joy

would be her joy.

For as the Father and the Son

and he who proceeds from them

live in one another,

so it would be with the bride;

for, taken wholly into God,

she will live the life of God.

5. Continues

By this bright hope

which came to them from above,

their wearying labors

were lightened;

but the drawn-out waiting

and their growing desire

to rejoice with their Bridegroom

wore on them continually.

So, with prayers

and sighs and suffering,

with tears and moanings

they asked night and day

that now he would determine

to grant them his company.

Some said: "If only

this joy would come in my time!"

Others: "Come, Lord,

send him whom you will send!"

And others: "Oh, if only these heavens

would break, and with my own eyes

I could see him descending;

then I would stop my crying out".

"Oh, clouds, rain down from your height,

earth needs you,

and let the earth open,

which has borne us thorns;

let it bring forth that flower

that would be its flowering."

Others said: "What gladness

for him who is living then,

who will be able to see God

with his own eyes,

and touch him with his hand

and walk with him

and enjoy the mysteries

which he will then ordain".

6. Continues

In these and other prayers

a long time had passed;

but in the later years

their fervor swelled and grew

when the aged Simeon

burned with longing,

and begged God that he

might see this day.

And so the Holy Spirit

answering the good old man

gave him his word

that he would not see death

until he saw Life

descending from the heights,

until he took God himself

into his own hands

and holding him in his arms,

pressed him to himself.

7. The Incarnation

Now that the time had come

when it would be good

to ransom the bride

serving under the hard yoke

of that law

which Moses had given her,

the Father, with tender love,

spoke in this way:

"Now you see, Son, that your bride

was made in your image,

and so far as she is like you

she will suit you well;

yet she is different, in her flesh,

which your simple being does not have.

In perfect love

this law holds:

that the lover become

like the one he loves;

for the greater their likeness

the greater their delight.

Surely your bride's delight

would greatly increase

were she to see you like her,

in her own flesh".

"My will is yours,"

the Son replied,

"and my glory is

that your will be mine.

This is fitting, Father,

what you, the Most High, say;

for in this way

your goodness will be more

evident,

your great power will be seen

and your justice and wisdom.

I will go and tell the world,

spreading the word

of your beauty and sweetness

and of your sovereignty.

I will go seek my bride

and take upon myself

her weariness and labors

in which she suffers so;

and that she may have life,

I will die for her,

and lifting her out of that deep,

I will restore her to you".

8. Continues

Then he called

the archangel Gabriel

and sent him to

the virgin Mary,

at whose consent

the mystery was wrought,

in whom the Trinity

clothed the Word with flesh.

and though Three work this,

it is wrought in the One;

and the Word lived incarnate

in the womb of Mary.

And he who had only a Father

now had a Mother too,

but she was not like others

who conceive by man.

From her own flesh

he received his flesh,

so he is called

Son of God and of man.

9. The Birth

When the time had come

for him to be born,

he went forth like the

bridegroom

from his bridal chamber,

embracing his bride,

holding her in his arms,

whom the gracious Mother

laid in a manger

among some animals

that were there at that time.

Men sang songs

and angels melodies

celebrating the marriage

of Two such as these.

But God there in the manger

cried and moaned;

and these tears were jewels

the bride brought to the

wedding.

The Mother gazed in sheer wonder

on such an exchange:

in God, man's weeping,

and in man, gladness,

to the one and the other

things usually so strange.

St John of the Cross, Romance on the Gospel text In principio erat Verbum, regarding the Blessed Trinity