Isaiah 61: 1–4, 8–11 / Psalm 126 / I Thessalonians 5: 16–24 / John 1: 6–8, 19–28
This
is the homily prepared for St. John’s Church, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr.
Gene Tucker for December 13, 2020.
“A CAUSE FOR REJOICING: SEEING BEYOND THE
IMMEDIATE”
(Homily text: John 1: 6–8,
19-28)
In the
midst of the wonderful introduction (often called the Prologue) to his Gospel
account (the first eighteen verses), John squeezes in a mention about John the
Baptist’s ministry. (Actually, though, there are two such interpolations, the
other is found at verse fifteen of the introduction.)
Building on
his first two brief mentions about the Baptist’s purpose and work, John then
goes on to tell us more detail about John’s activity in the wilderness in
verses eighteen through twenty-eight. He says that John’s purpose was to point
the way to the coming of the Promised One, the Christ. “I am not worthy to
untie the thong of his sandals,’ John says.
Notice the
expectation in the voices of those who had been sent from Jerusalem to check
John out: They say, “Why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor
Elijah, not the Prophet?” Obviously, there was some degree of expectation that
God might be about to do something wonderful.
But you
wouldn’t get the impression that God is about to move into action if the
appearance of John in the wilderness is any clue. After all, John was somewhat
of a renegade, an outsider, an outsider who’d previously been an insider, as we
noted last week. John’s appearance wasn’t particularly impressive either, for
he wasn’t wearing the garb of a priest. No, instead, he wore a garment of
camel’s hair, bound with a leather belt. Moreover, he was operating outside of
the accepted and authorized means of approaching God. Those means were to be
found in the Temple in Jerusalem, where the requirements of the Law of Moses were
observed. Baptizing people in the Jordan river fell outside of those bounds.
John’s
voice calls us to look beyond the immediate and the observable. Oftentimes,
that’s where we find God at work, unseen, yet moving to bring hope and renewal
to the human condition. The primary locus of God’s concern and God’s work is in
the human heart.
For if God
can affect a change in the human heart, in the unseen inner reaches of human
identity and desire, then what we can see, those things that happen between God
and humankind, and between one human being and another, can change. In fact,
that’s the only way things will truly change, for if we use our own limited
resources to try to bring about change absent God’s help, what we will be able
to create won’t endure. Whatever success we might think we’ve created will, in
time, decay and return to its former state.
Advent is a
season in which we look inward. We look into the inner recesses of our own
hearts. There, we may well find that God desires to be at work within us,
remaking and reforming us into His image, so that they things we do that others
can see will, in truth, change.
Come then,
Lord Jesus Christ, take up residence within, causing us to be formed into your
image, that we may rejoice in your power and your presence.
AMEN.
