"John's Job"
Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6
As most of you know, Jean and I have three children, Amy, Kristy and Adam. When we learned that Jean was with child we began the process of picking out names. I always thought that was one of the most fun parts of having children. Years after I was born I learned that my father named me Daniel Steven and that if my mother had named me my name would be Robert Wesley. I don't think I look like a Robert Wesley, a Robert Redford maybe. But it is interesting that my sister named her second son Robert Wesley.
When we had children we had to pick out names for both a boy and a girl because we never knew the sex of the baby ahead of time. So we studied the lists of both masculine and feminine names which usually included a description of what that name meant. Since my father was not a student of the Bible I am certain it is purely accidental that both of my names are Biblical. Daniel means God is my judge. Stephen means crown.
When Mary was with child, she and Joseph were told what to name him. They were given two names: Jesus, which means he will save his people from their sins and Emmanuel, which means God with us.
We are called to prepare for the second coming of Jesus. That brings us to the job of John the Baptist. He was the one called to prepare the way for the first coming of Emmanuel. He was called to let people know what needed to be done so that Jesus could enter into our lives. And the word he used was "Repent." Repent means to change.
Now here is where some may want to tune me out. If you feel like you are perfect just the way you are, then there is no need to repent. Paul thought of himself that way for a while. He was the perfect Jew. Just look at his geneology, his family tree, his connections. If anyone could boast, it was Paul. He was the ultimate Pharisee. That was until he was met by the spirit of God on the
But John seemed to think there was some room for improvement in everyone. And the way to improve is repent. It is easy to see the speck in our sister's and brother's eye. Advent is a time to be honest about that log that is in our own eye.
And how do we repent? We look at our lives and name the things within is that need to change. I think one of the values of confession in the Catholic Church is going before the priest and naming those things that we have done wrong. Not that I want to hear your confessions. We have a general prayer of confession every Sunday but that is not the same as naming out loud the specific things in my life that need to change. I think it is easy to keep those things that we are not happy about in our lives in the back of our minds. We won't do anything about them until we are honest about them and name them. John the Baptist is reminding us that it would do us all good to spend some time in prayer and be honest about who we are and what we have done.
For example, if I am someone who is too self absorbed, one way to change would be to love God and neighbor more and worry about self less. Another way to change is to name those things that have a hold of us and keep us from following were we believe God wants us to go. Maybe I am someone who worries too much and I need to change by trusting God more. Or maybe my problem is fear and I need to work more on strengthening my faith. Maybe over the last year the events of my life have caused me to lose hope and I need to find ways to regain my hope in God's future.
One of the things we can do during this Advent season to be ready when salvation comes is examine our lives and be honest about those things that need to be changed. As I mentioned in the newssheet this week, one of the things I want to change about me is that I want to be more open to what God is doing in the world. Too often I see the negative, the evil. We are bombarded with it on the news. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the forces of evil are winning. I want to be more open to the good news, the places where I can see God's good work in the world. I want to be surprised by the good and not overcome by the evil. I want to be more open to the light and less inclined to fall prey to the darkness.
I was thinking this morning as I could see the sun shining through the windows, that there are days when the sun is shining brightly that I miss it because of the things going on in my life. I don't want to miss the light of Jesus because I am distracted by other things. I want to experience the fullness of Jesus when he comes.
Before Paul's conversion, he was trying to silence the followers of Jesus. But he was transformed. Rather than adding to the bad news of the world he began to take Jesus seriously and began to share the good news.
We may not be persecuting people for their religious beliefs, we may not be stoning people to death, but there are probably things in our lives that we can name that need to be changed. The time had come to take Jesus seriously to name those things in our lives that keep us from being faithful and prepare for the coming of our Lord so that we will be ready to welcome him into our lives.