Sunday 16 Dec, Advent 3: Important births - 'John the Baptist'

READINGS: Luke 1:5-25; Luke 1:57-66; Luke 1:67-80

SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, amen.

A little earlier we lit our third Advent candle thinking of the theme ‘joy’ ...
Joy.
It’s a word that, for me, has an immediate link to the comedian,
Rikky Fulton and his great creation, the Rev. I. M. Jolly who is anything but jolly and joyful in look and in attitude.
And so friends, today, I get to say his immortal words:
‘Hullo...  today we’re thinking about...   ‘joy’'
It’s such an old sketch, but it still gives me the giggles – because it was so beautifully done.
So, today, we’re going to think about joy – joy and John the Baptist.
And rather than a long, depressed, I. M. Jolly reflection, let’s begin with some really
diabolically bad... I mean, fabulous, John the Baptist jokes –
because, yes, there are some floating about.
Are you ready?
Then here we go:
What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common?
A/ They have the same middle name.

Why did John the Baptist take his shoes off before going into the water?
A/ He wanted to save soles!

Thinking about the young John:
Little Johnny's mother looked out the window and noticed him
"playing church" with their cat.
He had the cat sitting quietly and he was preaching to it.
She smiled and went about her work.
A while later she heard loud meowing and hissing
and ran back to the open window to see Johnny baptizing the cat in a tub of water.
She called out,
"Johnny, stop that! The cat is afraid of water!"
Johnny looked up at her and said,
"He should have thought about that before he joined my church."

And the last one, this when John was older:
John the Baptist used to walk through the desert in his bare feet.
This left his feet tough, which is understandable –
the hot sand and rough terrain would leave anyone's feet tough.
He was known to receive signs from God and occasionally perform mystical feats.
He subsisted on a diet of locusts and honey.
Without access to dental hygiene at the time, this left him with somewhat bad breath.
It also left him frail, as the diet wasn't varied and would have required an immense
intake of food to be remotely sustained.
I guess that you could say that he was...
okay, are you ready it...I'm really, really, sorry...:
a super-callused fragile mystic vexed with halitosis.

I could keep telling jokes, but you might just stone me.
So, joy, and John the Baptist:
In our first reading, we meet Zechariah, John’s dad.
He’s a priest, and when we meet him, it’s his turn to serve in the Temple.
There he is, going about his job in this most holy of places when God shows up:
or, more precisely, God’s messenger, the angel, Gabriel.
It’s occasionally amused me that Zechariah, a servant of God,
is actually surprised to have an experience of God in what is the house of prayer,
but, nevertheless, he is.
On the other hand, if we're being generous, perhaps it’s a lesson in not taking God for granted.
The angel tells Zechariah that he and his wife, though now quite elderly,
shall have a child, a son.
And there are conditions placed upon the way this child is to live out his life:
he is never to touch wine, or fermented drink of any kind...
Now, for those of you here last week, does this story not rather have
very strong echoes of the birth story of Samson?
In this case, however, the son will not be a deliverer of God’s people,
rather, he’ll prepare them for the coming of God’s deliverer – the Messiah long foretold.
Further, Zechariah is told by the angel what name to give to the child –
and, as we discover later, it’s not a name that has ever done the rounds
of that particular family group.
This new child will have a new name – marking him out as special.
The angel also tells Zechariah that John will be
‘a joy and a delight’ to Zechariah and Elizabeth,
but the joy doesn’t stop there:
many will rejoice because of John’s birth.
What amazing news.

So, there Zechariah stands:
in the temple,
in the holiest place in the temple,
faced with God’s messenger, the angel, Gabriel, hearing this incredible message.
Now, remember, when angels tend to appear to folk in the bible,
the first thing they often say is:
‘Do not be afraid...’
Angels, clearly, are pretty imposing beings.
But there's no real indication that Zechariah actually *is* afraid.
Instead, having seen the angel and heard the news, Zechariah says:
‘How can I be sure this is true?’
Seriously??
A plaguey great angel is standing there in front of him and he asks this?
And, as we heard in our reading, Gabriel pretty much responds with:
‘Okay, how about this – I’ll cause you not to be able to speak for a while.’
Effectively an angelic ‘time-out’ for Zechariah to use to do a little deeper reflecting.
Eventually, he emerges from the Temple –
and, because he’s been in there so long,
and he’s suddenly lost his ability to speak,
everyone there knows something’s happened.
Despite his speech problems, he still manages to communicate
to Elizabeth what’s gone on
and, what’s going to happen.
She accepts the news, and, in a little foreshadowing of Mary’s story shortly after,
Elizabeth says, as Mary will also:
‘The Lord has shown his favour to me.’

At the right time, this special child is born –
and again we have this theme of joy coming in:
it’s not just Zechariah and Elizabeth who are joyful – the whole community shares the joy.
But what to name the child?
All sorts of family names are suggested by family and friends –
so, when Zechariah affirms Elizabeth in the choice of the name ‘John’ everyone is surprised.
It’s at that point when Zechariah’s long silence is broken.
And his first words?
A wonderful song of joy:
from ‘how can I be sure’ to a joy-filled affirmation of faith.
To a nation under Roman captivity, Zechariah’s song declares God’s faithfulness:
that God will come and save his people,
that God has not forgotten them,
that God has chosen them to serve him without fear –
unlike having to kow-tow to their Roman masters for fear of retribution.

Zechariah then sings of his son, and the role that John will have in God’s plan:
he will be a prophet,
he will prepare the way for the Lord –
by teaching God’s people of God’s mercy and forgiveness;
by pointing them to the light that shines even in the darkest places,
even in the shadow of death.
John, the prophet,
will guide them to the way –
Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life;
Jesus, upon whom the hope of  all God’s people is founded;
Jesus, the Prince of peace, who will lead God’s people to the path of peace –
where there will be no more war,
no more being crushed under the heel of earthly Emperors and empires,
where there will be no ‘other’ only brothers, and sisters.
John, the one who will be a joy and a delight to Zechariah and Elizabeth,
and be a cause of rejoicing to many,
will lead God’s people to joy –
to Jesus,
the One who is the joy of all God’s people:
for in him there is freedom, life, liberation.

In this season of Advent, John still points the way for us,
the way to Jesus, the Way –
John beckons us, as God’s people
to follow the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life;
he calls us to prepare our hearts,
to make room,
to let in ...not just... a happy feeling, for feelings come and go...
but that great, deep, profound joy that only Jesus can give:
a joy based upon God’s great faithfulness,
a joy that shines not just in the good times,
but shines in the hard places we find ourselves;
a joy that comes from serving God not out of fear, but from being loved.
This is the good news, which causes us to not only love and serve God,
but the whole of creation, and all humankind –
not for our own gain, but for sheer love’s sake.
It’s a joy that has at its heart the knowledge that
we are God’s and that we are not forgotten.
As you continue to watch and wait and prepare once more
to remember the coming of the Christ-child,
may you hear John’s message of joy,
may his message unsettle you in a good and curious way
so that you seek to know more of the deep, profound, and real joy of the God
who casts away fear
and calls us all to transform the world in love. Amen.