I find that there is no time of the year when I am more aware of how time both moves onwards and yet also comes round full circle than strikes me at this time of Advent. The new liturgical year began last Sunday. We began, as always, looking forward to the end times, when Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead - as we say in the Nicene Creed whose 17th centenary we have been celebrating this year – yet this announcement seems only to repeat what we experienced this time last year. Still we are waiting, and still Christ has not yet returned. How are we to understand this, without cynically concluding that the Second Coming is not really going to happen, or if it does, it is still a long way off? We must listen anew to that old voice: the voice of one crying in the wilderness: John the Baptist.
But why does John appear at all? Could Our Lord not have begun His work without John going before Him as His herald? Of course He could have done had He chosen to do so. But the coming of a great prophet as the Precursor of the Messiah (i.e. “Anointed One”) was foretold in Scripture. It was generally held by the Jews in Our Lord’s time, that the Prophet Elijah would return to the earth shortly before the Messiah appeared, in order to prepare the way for Him. So when John burst onto the scene, people not only took notice of what he had to say, but also of what it might mean. Was the coming of the promised Messiah imminent?
We learn more about John’s impact on the religious society of his day in next Sunday’s Gospel. But for the present we can think about the implications of “a voice crying in the wilderness”. How often do we use that phrase to mean a lonely voice, a person isolated and without supporters or believers? John’s message is uncomfortable, as is his appearance and the environment in which he operates. He is not a city man. Those who wish to hear his message must leave the city and come out into the wilderness to hear him. Of course, many do just that, as we will hear in detail next Sunday. But the importance of John is not only in the content of his message, but in its timing. He comes to reawaken the sense of longing for God that the Jewish people had lost. Nor is this something that happens only to the Jews. It can happen to all “religious” people. We can all fall into the trap of finding a comfortable routine that suits our life well. We can so easily think that we know exactly what God wants of us—just so much and no more. But God is always far beyond the limits of our imagination and dealings. John comes to remind us of this basic fact. God is infinite and cannot be confined within our images of Him.
And so as another Advent steals upon us, are we simply just listening all over again to the same message as last year and the year before? Or is there in reality something different? Well, the message may not seem to have changed much since we last heard it, but the difference lies in the fact that we have. We are not the same people that we were last year, or three years ago when we last heard these same readings we have just listened to. John the Baptist comes to say to each of us: Of course you have changed since last year, that is not at issue, what is at issue is this question: how have you changed since I last cried out to you, ‘prepare the way of the Lord’? For in truth we do all change willy nilly. But what is open to question is: have we changed for the better – or for the worse? I don’t know how you all read your consciences, but I know I recognise that I have not changed for the better in all the ways I know I should have done. But then again, how can that be done? How can any of us change for the better, and do so consistently and permanently?
The answer lies in realising that we cannot improve ourselves. We need someone who can do that for us, not without our co-operation but still in a way that transcends our own power to change ourselves for the better – to overcome our faults and failings and to keep God at the centre of all that we do. In other words, we need one whom John has come to prepare us to receive. We need the Saviour who alone can change us into His own image and likeness.
Now John is a mortal man like us, though one who is empowered in an extraordinary way by the Holy Spirit to be His prophet, the Spirit’s spokesman to the people of John’s own time and to us. But the Saviour whom God will send to us is no ordinary mortal but His own Son made man. Again we recall the words of the Nicene Creed: this Saviour whom John announces and for whom he prepares the way within us is ‘the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.’ John comes to make His paths straight. But what are those paths? The valleys, mountains, winding ways and rough roads are within us as well as in society. Just as soon as we think we have done everything He wanted us to do or be, God makes greater demands of us. That does not mean that God is a hard taskmaster, but that He knows what will best weed out our faults and weaknesses, and develop our qualities.
Not only is God far beyond the limits we put on Him, but so also is His plan for us. John comes as a stern messenger with a strict message. In a way, John is the ideal of the Prophet, God’s mouthpiece who brings word from God, but can bring no more. The One whose coming he prepares us for is quite different. The Son of God is more than a prophet, He is God. Everything that God is, so is He. That means that the Son of God will bring more than a message from God, however sublime—He brings God’s mercy and love. John binds up the sinners in chains of guilt. He convicts us of our sins. Our Lord goes further– He brings forgiveness for our sins and healing for our spiritual wounds. He awakens in us the love of God and the presence of His mercy. It is Our Lord who will reveal to us that God is not only the Almighty, but is the Father, who in His infinite love has sent us His Son as our brother and Saviour, and still sends us His Holy Spirit to make us holy in Him and bring us to know Him even in this life, as a preparation for the eternal life with which He will reward all those who have waited patiently for His coming and have striven to do His will in their lives on earth.
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