14.3.10

Sermon for Advent 3

One person dominates the two middle Sundays of Advent. That is John the Baptist. He is a compelling figure – dynamic, larger than life – the sort who would always stand out in a crowd. From birth, he was marked out as someone special, unlike anyone else. As an adult, he lived out in the wilderness, shunning society – but the crowds flocked to him to hear what he had to say. And what he said was disturbing and uncomfortable: he told them to change their ways, to repent: “get ready, something is about the happen”. But John was clear that he was only the messenger. His spectacular ministry was pointing away from himself, towards Someone else, “I baptise with water, but there stands among you – unknown to you – the One who is coming after me, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals”.


John is important for what he says: also important because he is the link between the O & N Testaments. He brings the one to an end, while marking the beginning of the other. There was a tradition among the pious people of John’s day that before Messiah arrived in Israel, Elijah the greatest of the prophets, would return to this earth to proclaim the nearness of his coming. Some people thought that John the Baptist might be Elijah, but, while he declares openly that he is not Elijah, the Prophet’s own mantle does fall on his shoulders. John is the immediate forerunner of Christ – it is he who must announce to Israel that Jesus, his own cousin, is the longed-for One, the human face of God. He is not the light itself, but he comes to speak up for the light.

“To speak up for the light”. That phrase could well define the role of a prophet. When others are living in darkness, or their eyes are blinkered so they cannot, or will not, see. God raises up individual men and women, and gives them a vision to share with others. When the night seems darkest, a voice speaks out to reveal the way ahead.

For many in today’s world the late Pope, John Paul, fulfilled the role of a prophet. Wherever he could, whenever he could, he spoke of the innate, God-given dignity of each human person. To a world which is corporate and consumerist, used to global communications and strategies that involve hemispheres, John Paul proclaimed that God’s love is individual and unique, that no single person, no matter how poor, no matter how limited, no matter how apparently insignificant, can be passed over. Until his last breath the late Pope spoke up for the light – he provided a voice for those to whom no one else would listen.

In the end, JB became too hot to handle. Respectable people, the establishment, the royal family, the priests, all were lashed by his tongue: sin was sin, wherever it chose to hide, or in whatever disguise it tried to pass itself off. He was imprisoned. He was murdered. True prophecy is never welcome. There is always a cost attached. The prophet is ridiculed, sidelined, persecuted. Undermine the messenger and you can afford to forget the message. But the poor and the dispossessed, and the old and the handicapped, and those without adequate education and healthcare, recognise that the Gospel message is always light in darkness. “The Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken, to proclaim liberty to captives, freedom to those in prison, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord”.

Each of the readings at Mass today is prophetic. Zephaniah speaks of what will be in the Day of the Lord. St Paul talks of the peace whih will be ofudn in Christ’s presence. St Luke defines prophecy in terms of JB. But prophecy is not just something for the great figures of human and Christian history. In a very real sense, each of us is called to share in this prophetic vocation. To be a prophet is “to speak up for the light”. You and I do that whenever we provide a sympathetic ear for someone who is having a bad time: whenever we speak gently to someone who is upset and angry: whenever we are prepared to share something of what we believe with another human being.

God will always raise up the John the Baptists and the Pope John Pauls to speak to the bigger picture. Where you and I come in is in those individual human encounters where the word of encouragement, the expression of personal faith, is needed. This week, as in every week, there will be many opportunities for each of us to prophesy in the simplest and subtlest of ways “to speak up for the light”, to illuminate the darkness around us. A quiet word, a smile, the fact that someone’s need has been noticed. That is all it takes. Pray God that we are sensitive to the opportunities he creates for us in these coming days. As the first letter to the Thessalonians has it: “God has called you, and he will not fail you”.

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