Second Sunday of Advent, The Prophets

The Prophets

9^th Dec 2018

Are you confused, I’m not surprised, on this the 2^nd Sunday of Advent we lit the candle of peace for the prophets and next week a candle for John the Baptist and yet, we just read the gospel about John.

Yet we have to remember that the whole of Advent, the season of preparation is both a looking back and a looking forward, we stand if you like in the middle of future and past, the past as we remember the prophecies of the Old Testament and the future  & the coming of Christ (both as the babe of Bethlehem and as the bringer of everlasting hope and peace when he come again).

John too is intimately bound up with past and future as he also

stands in centre of future and past, of the old and the new between the Old Testament stories of Patriarchs, Prophets and priests, remember John parents are themselves descendants of Aaron, thus linking John to Moses and the future in the fact that John as a prophet himself is preparing the way for Jesus and his ministry.

Now if you go online and look at the second Sunday of Advent in the SEC Liturgy and Lectionary, you’ll find on this page the Benedictus.

Said everyday throughout the church at morning prayer, one of the 3 great canticles in Luke’s Gospel but perhaps not as well used by people as the Mag or Nunc, here it is, uttered remember by Zechariah when he regains his speech after the birth of John. It comes in too parts, again past and future

Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,*

for he has come to his people and set them free.

2       He has raised up for us a mighty saviour,*

born of the house of his servant David.

3       Through his holy prophets he promised of old*

that he would save us from our enemies,

from the hands of all that hate us.

4       He promised to show mercy to our fathers,*

and to remember his holy covenant.

5       This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:*

to set us free from the hands of our enemies,

6       free to worship him without fear,*

holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.

7       You my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High,*

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

8       to give his people knowledge of salvation*

by the forgiveness of all their sins.

9       In the tender compassion of our God*

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

10     to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,*

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

In this Zechariah both confirms the linkage with John to the prophets of old, to Abraham and King David and also confirms the status of John as a prophet of ‘the most high’ who will prepare the way for the Messiah, confirming that John is indeed the coming messenger that Malachi  who we heard in our old testament reading speaks about.

And so John is a key figure in both the 2^nd and 3^rd week of Advent so it seems appropriate to tell you that this week we spent a few days in Vienna, and visited Melk Abbey, a  Benedictine Monastery  set high above the city of Melk just outside Vienna. In one of rooms  we visited, filled with the Abbey’s treasurers there was a beautiful chalice from 17^th C with fragments of bone supposedly of John the Baptist. The prophet who we see today as the voice crying out in the wilderness whose message will prepare the way for the salvation to come with the birth of Christ who will guide our feet into the way of peace.

Today we still dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,  as the problems across our world show only too clearly, so the message of deliverance is as real today as it was in Old Testament times and two thousand years ago, and yet another story from Melk Abbey, that of St Coloman ( carved statue below) shows how real that shadow is and has been down the centuries as we still struggle to find the ways of peace.

Coloman, the son of an Irish King, so the story goes was on Pilgrimage to Jerusalem when in Austria he was taken as a spy, tortured and executed by hanging on an elder tree. The tree soon began to blossom and miracles occurred, so his body was taken to Melk Abbey and buried there, he became the first Patron Saint of Austria until 1663. The text by his statute today states ‘As he fell victim to prejudices, the saints legend should stand as a warning against Xenophobia’

And this is only one a the shadows that faces us all today, so  we must ask ourselves as we contemplate our lives and how we live our faith how  can we in all our small ways, in our own places bring the Advent hopes of peace and joy  for future generations into our world today. Something to contemplate as we prepare to meet God Incarnate on this coming Christmas Day. Amen.