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Organ music from Holy Trinity Cathedral,
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The People were Expectant
Third Sunday of Advent, 17th December 2006
The Rt Rev’d Richard Randerson, Dean and Assistant Bishop of Auckland.
Reading: Luke 3.15 : “A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people”.
When did you last feel expectant? – for a mother (and father) a very specific meaning! A sense that something new and exciting, life-changing, is about to happen. But also at other times:
- graduating from high school, university
- time of ordination
- embarking on three years’ overseas study
- starting a new job
- moving to a new house, city, country
- a new relationship, marriage
- Lambeth 98 – Tony Blair new PM
- recent election change in USA
- Climate Change awareness
We are often open to a time of change because we sense life has become dull and routine; perhaps a feeling that aspirations and hopes we once had have faded. “Our dreams have turned to dust”.
Here in the wilderness John preaches the coming of Jesus, and the people are expectant. Maybe for the same reasons as we might be (life had become jaded), but also seeking economic liberation from an oppressive taxation regime, and political freedom from Rome.
Did Jesus have the answer? well, Yes, he did. But maybe not in the way they expected, and anything new was going to be a rough ride. First the axe will be laid to the roots of the trees, and unfruitful trees will be thrown into the fire (v9). The wheat will be sorted from the chaff, and the chaff thrown into unquenchable fire (v17).
The people take the message seriously:
- v.12 – tax collectors are not to collect more than is due
- v.14 : soldiers are to give up intimidation and extortion, and be content with their pay
- v. 11 : someone with two tunics is to give one to someone who has none.
The Christmas appeal today bids us remember, and respond to, a women’s human development project on Lauru in the Solomons Island. Here island mothers receive education and skills training, both traditional and modern, to enable them to generate income for their families.
Oxford biology professor Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) says we care for others simply as a programmed knee-jerk hangover from primeval times when we had to care for members of our own tribe in order to survive. Dawkins, while critical of selected narrow religious views, seems just as narrow in his own attempts to fit everything into the framework of natural evolution.
We care for people in the Solomons out of compassion, and out of a desire for justice for our sisters and brothers that stems directly from our faith in Christ.
So we ask: what life-changing difference will Jesus’ coming make in our lives? How are our lives different from others because we believe in Jesus as the Son of God? Could we list those differences? And if there weren’t many, would be willing to make life-changing decisions like the soldiers, tax-collectors and ordinary people who had a sense of expectancy?
Theologians today would probably assure us that modern concepts of judgement will not see us cut down by an axe laid to the roots of the trees, and the chaff thrown into unquenchable fire. What is more likely to be the case is that if Jesus were to come looking for a bunch of disciples again, he might not choose us. The pain of exclusion, of not being chosen, can be a bitter pill in human life, as well as in the Kingdom of God. And maybe deep down we might know that we weren’t worthy to be chosen anyhow.
“The people had a sense of expectancy”. The Advent question is: do we? And would it make a difference?
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