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Luke, alone of the Gospels, speaks of the Word of God coming to him in the wilderness. This suggests a vocation and a commission which was unique amongst all the Prophets. For he stands at that intersection of time between the prophetic messages of the Old Testament and their fulfilment in Jesus Christ in the New. John is the herald of this fulfilment in the new age of Jesus Christ.
His likeness to the Old Testament Prophets and especially Elijah, with whom he is closely compared, is to be found in his fiery zeal and uncompromising utterances. This is truly man on whose lips is the word of God.
Even so, I'm not sure that I would want to meet John the Baptist on a dark night. The Biblical image of him is of a rather austere and strange man who wandered around in a camel's hair and whose diet was locusts and wild honey. He tended to shout at people an all them names like 'you brood of vipers' and his preaching was rather like the so-called hell-fire preachers. What is perhaps strangest about him is that though his message was fierce and uncompromising, the people flocked to him and that must tell us something.
Yet many Churches dedicated to him seem rather apologetic and aren't all that keen to be too closely associated with him. Here; in Loughton and in Buckhurst Hill, we much prefer to be known as St John's as if we would like to be associated with the gentle disciple of love rather than the fearsome disciple of repentance - as if the one excludes the other.
In order of the love of, and for, God to grow more deeply in our lives we need to look more closely at three words which we can glean from the ministry of John the Baptist. There are return, reflect and renew.
First of all, John the Baptist calls us to return to the Lord. This is the clear message of his call to repentance. Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near places our repentance in the context of the ministry of Jesus. It is Jesus who brings into being the Kingly reign of God which has the firm foundation of Love. Jesus calls us to a life lived within the Love. Jesus calls us to life lived within the Love of God which transforms and gives new direction to our own lives. But for that Love to truly grow in our hearts, we need to rid ourselves of those things which prevent it from really taking root in our souls. The things we know as Sin.
Charles de Foucauld, the inspiration for the religious order known as the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, and who himself had a first-hand knowledge of what sin can do to a soul, wrote from his heart when he said that:
We must be ... stripped of all love and
attachment for what is not God, utterly emptied of everything that is
not God ... thinking of nothing that is not God ... desiring nothing
that is not God.
Getting rid of the things that are not God in our
lives is what Repentance does.Now Repentance has become a bit unfashionable for many Christians because there is a tendency to see it as a kind of grovelling guilt and a bit uncomfortable. It is often viewed as a rather negative form of navel-gazing - a self-centred exercise with a touch of unhealthy self-accusation which leaves us feeling rather inadequate and worthless. Real Repentance is rather different from that. It sees sin as a real factor in our lives which has to be got rid of before we can become our true selves as children of God. It is not about wallowing in guilt, but about Returning to the Lord which is a re-turning of our lives back to God.
Throughout the prophetic books from Isaiah and Jeremiah to Zechariah and Hosea, there is this constant plea to return to the Lord and it is in this sense of pleading that we can place John the Baptist's cry to Repent. There is urgency in his call. The Kingdom of God will come with Jesus and Jesus is imminent so the people need to get on with it.
But it is also a call to us and this reading has been placed in Advent because as we approach Christmas and the celebration once again of the birth of the Christ-child we are being reminded of the Kingdom Jesus came to bring and of which he is the King. We are to make ourselves ready to receive our King and to enthrone him once again int he manger of our hearts. This involves us in sweeping away all that is not of God in our lives so that God's great gift of love may be reborn.
In picture language, it is as if we are walking in darkness in the dead of night. The darkness grows deeper but behind us, dawn is breaking and the sun is arising. We won't see it unless we turn around and when we do we are attracted by its dazzling beauty and walk towards it. This is what Repentance is like. We turn our lives around; we turn our backs on sin; and we walk towards the Lord.
This turning back on sin is itself an act of sorrow and there follows forgiveness and a restoration of life as it should be lived. In chapter 55 of Isaiah, the prophet urges: Seek the Lord while he may be found and return to the Lord, that he may have mercy for God will abundantly pardon. This is at the heart of John the Baptist's call to repentance.
Returning to the Lord leads to reflection. One meaning of reflection is to carefully consider what is good about our lives and what is not. In other words it can be about self-examination - something Christians are asked to do on a regular basis as we measure our lives against the life of Jesus and try to be like him.
This in itself can lead to repentance, but there is another meaning of reflection and we can see it in John the Baptist. No matter how wild his appearance seems to be, He reflects the image of God to us. We often say of saintly Christians that they reflect the holiness of god and one of the reasons we contemplate the lives of saints is to discover the qualities in their lives which make them special. What makes a saint truly special is that we see God in and through them. They reflect his holiness to us in much the same way as a mirror reflects an image of what is looking at it. Their lives encourage us to do the same because we too are called to reflect God. Repentant, forgiven and healed Christians themselves reflection of the love of God that others may see.
There is an old proverb which says that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. In Orthodox spirituality it is believed that the most important part of an Icon painting of a saint is the eyes because, being a mirror into the soul, they reflect God.
One of the reasons why I chose the particular painting of St John the Baptist for our icon is that Sister Irčnč chose an image by a Russian Icon painter, St Tikhon, which shows John with gentle and serene eyes. It is unusual because most icons of St John the Baptist have fierce and blazing eyes. The eyes of our icon look away from John towards something else. In the original Icon by St Tikhon, this figure was part of a Triptych with the Blessed Virgin Mary and both are looking towards the middle panel of the triptych - which shows Jesus. It is Jesus that is mirrored in the eyes of our saint and that is true not just of images of Jesus but of John the Baptist himself. His life and ministry pointed people towards Jesus of whom he was to say - He must increase, I must decrease. And just as we see Jesus reflected in the eyes and life of John, so our own lives must be so directed towards God that fixed on him, our eyes, the eyes of our soul, become reflections of Jesus. People should be able to look at us and see Jesus just as we must look at each other and see Jesus reflected, not only in our eyes but in our souls. If we see Jesus in each other it makes a huge difference in the way we deal with each other.
In my ministry I have heard a lot about evangelism and I have learned a great deal about how we should go about it, but in truth I have never thought that anything is so effective as people who simply reflect Jesus in their lives. Holiness is contagious. If I see Jesus mirrored in someone's life that is much more convincing than any words or strategies about evangelism. If we reflect Jesus as John the Baptist did, then others will see Him in our souls. That is a most convincing witness.
Finally, John the Baptist calls us to renewal. He uses baptism as a sign that those who chose it are seeking a re-direction and a re-dedication of their lives. The Baptismal waters are both a sign of cleansing from sin, from all that is not of God in people's lives but also a sign of new life - because water is life-giving. It is Refreshing and it renews us. In baptising the people who heard his cry to Repent, John is calling them to Renewal - to renew their dedication to God. Later this re-dedication finds its focus in Jesus who speaks of Himself as the Water of Life who through grace and the Holy Spirit refreshes and renews us.
There is a lot in the Church today that seems negative and to the world, trivial. We get bogged down and distracted by our own internal concerns whether they be about the Anglican Covenant, Women Bishops, or, more locally, finance. These may be important concerns at one level but what we should be much more concerned about is the Renewal of our faith, both corporately and as individual Christians. In the Baptism services of the Church of England there is an Affirmation of Commitment part of the renewal of our Baptismal vows. In it we are asked whether we will, amongst other things, proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ. That is what John the Baptist was preparing the people to experience. It was then a future event but the people flocked in droves because he offered a promise of wonderful things to come. If those people, who had yet to know of Christ, were prepared to embrace John's teaching on a promise, how much more should we embrace the One who fulfilled that Promise!
Unlike them, we KNOW the Good News of Jesus Christ. We profess to both share it and proclaim it. We must never allow ourselves to be sidetracked form this truth. We must never turn our backs on this Good News and we must always make it a priority in our lives, our thoughts, our conversations. If when we are talking about the Church either amongst ourselves or with others, we are not talking about the Good News of Jesus Christ, we need to Renew our Vision of the Kingdom of God. We need to refresh our faith by Repentance and we need to be so steeped in the Word of God that is Christ Jesus that we will Reflect Him in our lives. Nothing less will do.
Today, John the Baptist reminds the Advent Church, waiting again to celebrate the Good News of God in the Christ child of Christmas that we have a duty, which should be our joy, to return to the Lord - to fix our hearts on Jesus and sing of his saving Love to all humanity. That's what it means to be the Church. That, above all else, is what God expects of us. We must not fail him.