Stop. Look. Listen. Sermon Dec. 8, 2024 Aurora United Ministry
Advent is when we begin to look forward to the music, the family warmth, and the familiar pageants and presents of Christmas. We’re now at the second week of Advent. Advent of course means “coming.” Some of us remember trains and the railroad crossings intersecting our major roads. We remember those big black and white warning signs cautioning us to: Stop. Look. Listen. Something big - like a train - might be coming. Well, something big IS coming.
The big event coming for most of us is Christmas - the celebration of Jesus’s birth. But there’s another event celebrated first, and it’s today. Today we celebrate the coming of John, who is called John the Baptizer. John the Baptist is an important bridge between the Old Testament and the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. And John is here to urge us to Stop, Look and Listen for what is here now and what is coming.
As the Old Testament ends things are not going well with God’s people. The Priests have been doing a bad job of it. They’ve grown cold in their faith and are going through the motions of worship. The people are also behaving badly. The Old Testament ends with the prophet Malachi speaking God’s words to Israel, saying; “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me …” “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
And struck with destruction they are. After recovering from Babylonian exile, first Alexander the Great and his Greek army attack and subdue Israel. The Maccabees fight off the Greeks and then along come the Romans. The Roman army is not easily defeated. They set up a military and civil government over Israel and times are tough. Israel is an occupied country under the thumb of a foreign army. The Jewish people were essentially enslaved by Rome; slaves in their own country. They are taxed, abused and afraid. They Jews were waiting for a Messiah who would free them from the Romans, an earthly king who would save them.
This is the desperate situation as the New Testament opens. The priesthood is self-seeking and the people’s faith has cooled. They are surrounded by war, occupied by foreign armies and with little to no hope. God’s answer? The Gospels of Mark, Luke and John all open with the advent of John the Baptist. It's an incredible story.
One of the hereditary priests called Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth had been praying for a child for some time, but being somewhat advanced in age were becoming resigned to being childless. Zechariah is at work in the Temple in Jerusalem. As he’s tending incense in the Jerusalem temple, an angel appears to him standing at the right side of the altar. Zechariah is startled and scared stiff. The angel calms him down saying,
Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Did Zechariah fall on his knees thanking the angel and worshipping God? Nope. He argues with the angel, and he feels the need to explain things. First he challenges the angel’s credibility: How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years. Zechariah questions whether the angel can deliver! And he begins to give the angel his reasons. Humansplaining.
The angel is not pleased with this response . I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.
Zechariah stopped. He looked. But he didn’t listen. He questioned the Word of God. And he became mute. In time, as promised, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant. Her response to her pregnancy? The Lord has done this for me. __
The women know better than to question God and his messengers.
This was also true six months later when God sent Gabriel to Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin from Nazareth. When Mary received the good news, she didn’t question whether this could happen, she was practical: How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin? How is this gonna' work? What do I have to do? Gabriel explains and Mary answers, I am the handmaid of the Lord, May your word to me be fulfilled. The Angel left. No need to comment further. Mary stopped, looked and listened.
Later Mary got herself ready and hurried to stay with her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country. As Mary came in, Elizabeth’s baby leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear...Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promise to her.
Elizabeth gives birth to her son and on the eighth day, his circumcision, everyone assumed he would be named after his father Zechariah. But Elizabeth spoke up saying, No! He is to be called John. The relatives and neighbors said, “No one in your family has that name.” Then they made signs to his father to find out what he would like to name the child. Zechariah asked for a tablet and wrote, His name is John!__ After nine months of silence, his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. Zechariah burst out in the song of praise and yearning and hope known as the Benedictus. It’s such a powerful canticle that it is in the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours that is prayed by clergy, monks and many lay people every day.
**_Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel He has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a Savior, born of the House of his servant David, Through his holy prophets he promised of old To free us from the hand of our enemies and all who hate is, To show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham To set us free from the hand of our enemies Free to worship him without fear Holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
**_You my child shall be called the prophet of the most high For you will go before the Lord to prepare his way
Through the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, And to guide our feet into the path of peace._****
As a Jew now a Christian, this Song of Zechariah teaches me about praise, about faith, about salvation, about the divine peace we look forward to.
Zechariah sums up the entire history of the Old Testament and lays the foundation for the New. Humankind has lost hope and is beaten down, oppressed by enemies whether Roman or more quotidian enemies: oppression, unfairness at work, conflicts in families, loneliness. Or our enemies could be something we’ve done, harm we’ve done to another we’ve never resolved, never dealt with. We might have even been stricken dumb or blinded to what’s around us.
But God in his tender mercy is coming to us as he promised. The messenger is coming who will announce who and what will save us, as promised by the prophets. He will set us free from the hand of our enemies whoever and whatever they are, free to worship God without fear and in joyful confidence.
We now know God really has compassion for us as he promised. This is announced to us by John, a man with a new name not known to the families. John has announced this Salvation from stubborn spiritual deafness and blindness. Salvation through the most simple act of God. Forgiveness of our sins. It is coming.
The Messiah is coming with a new message of love. Not just God’s love for us, but our love for all of the beings and wonders of God’s Creation. The key -- Stop. Look. Listen.
Stop acting, stop talking, stop explaining. It’s Advent. Look at who is speaking to you and accept you are in the presence of God. Listen, really listen to what God is saying to you.
John told you the secret. Repent and be forgiven. Feel the love God has for you. And love others as God loves you.
Amen.