Second Sunday in Advent - Bags packed

This is an outline of the sermon preached om the second Sunday of Advent 2018 The theme of the second Sunday of Advent is ‘The Prophets’ and so today we turn to the prophet Malachi and his words and ask ourselves, “What do these have to do with ‘Gladness and Generosity’?” The words before us are not a Hallmark card, gentle Jesus, moment are they?

If I were to give you tickets to a fantastic holiday what would your response be to my act of generosity? I’m guessing that you’d be out there buying clothes and getting the stuff you needed for the event. I reckon you’d probably be packed and ready and raring to go long before the day came. You’d find out about what you needed and what it would be like so you could be prepared.

Malachi’s words speak of the coming of the Messiah. That hope which the Jewish believers look, and cling, to. He asks the people, ‘Are you prepared? Are you ready For the ‘day of the Lord’? Are your bags packed and your tickets safe? Malachi points to the actions of a generous God who is sending the most amazing present the world can envisage.

And then, as his words die away, nothing more is heard for some four hundred years. Then the generosity, the kindness, the consolation of Israel comes to this earth in the shape of a child born in odd circumstances (and a stable as delivery room is certainly odd) who will soon become a refugee (as the family leg it to Egypt) and eventually end up whipped, kicked, beaten and crucified.

The Jews looked to a great and victorious king – bringing peace and judgement – the marriage of gladness and concern (for here fear is a natural response made less fearful because of the love that surrounds it). They also expected it to come quickly – but it didn’t and so the four hundred years of silence brought the need for someone to stand and say to them, “This is it!” Or they would have perhaps stopped being excited as the bags were unpacked and the tickets (and the enthusiasm) misplaced and forgotten.

The messenger? With the benefit of hindsight we see is as John the Baptist, don’t we?
The refining and purification that looked to making a holy people was, for those hearing Malachi, about the restoration of a people who had been bruised, broken, exiled and returned. And for those hearing John it was about a heart response, a change of direction (which what ‘repent’ is).

It’s about responding to God’s generous giving with a gladness (a joy that knows no limit) and a refining (which requires heat) to make us (Jew and Gentile alike) ‘ready to meet Him’.

Perhaps we need to change our Christmas message to: Jesus is coming – be afraid?

Or better still we could just look at the self-examination that is the purple season of Advent and, pointing to Jesus in all that He is and merely ask the question, “Are you ready to meet Him?

And our New Testament reading, about those followers of Jesus in Phillipi. Paul, telling them, tells us, about the importance of sharing the Good News (the Gospel) with each other and those outside the family. We need to keep reminding ourselves of God’s generosity and tell those who don’t know about it and this takes more than words: It takes the giving of ourselves as generously as Jesus came, took in flesh, and gave Himself.

We need to tell of God’s marvellous act of salvation made real for all humanity in the Christmas gift that is Jesus. We need to take upon ourselves the life of a believer: Generously serving others.

We need just to love, give, and live for Christ and like John the Baptist, we need to proclaim that very same message Malachi started us off with “Stop what you are doing and turn away from the wrong stuff.” Get your spiritual bags packed. Put your tickets behind the clock on the mantelpiece (or wherever we put things now the fireplaces have gone) and nod towards Isaiah and his words about flattening hills and making straight path – for the journey to Jesus (with regard to the disability that is our sinful  nature) is truly disability friendly – even the most sin damaged person has access to the Christ and the following of Him with gratitude for our reconciliation to the Godhead through the generous gift of God that is Jesus the Christ.

And that truly should make us glad enough to live like Him in the family that is Church and in the lives of those yet to find His overwhelmingly kind (and frightening) love. And he offerings we bring (ourselves) will truly be acceptable in the sight of the Lord.

Pity we are Anglicans, in other places that would truly be worth a ‘Hallelujah’!

Malachi 3.1-4
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Philippians 1.3-11
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Luke 3.1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,  make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in,  every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

Post Communion Prayer
Father in heaven, who sent your Son to redeem the world and will send him again to be our judge:
give us grace so to imitate him in the humility and purity of his first coming that, when he comes again, we may be ready to greet him with joyful love and firm faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect
Almighty God, purify our hearts and minds, that when your Son Jesus Christ comes again
as judge and saviour we may be ready to receive him, who is our Lord and our God. Amen.