Christian Pathway

Beginnings and endings. They are unavoidable events and are often painful both for the passing of the old and the pain in adjusting to the new.  This is because As time passes, we get comfortable with the way things are , the well-worn slippers, the jumper that fits just right, the thing that’s worked for ages, perhaps even as in  this story today hundreds of years, we no longer question the relationship we trust etc and the comfort of treading the path we know in our sleep.  When we have to change its never nice. We all hate the first day at school or the new job, or a new group we have to assimilate into. Its unnerving and takes a while.
 Also, it explains why Jesus maybe has such a tough time from here on in?   The old ways if they have existed a while, can also be ladened with many vested interests. I like it this way, it suits me and my family and my pattern of life just fine iit gives me status.  No need to change thank you.   But Jesus is change he calls us into new horizons whenever we encounter him.  today’s reading this is just such a moment , the very axis upon which the bible turns from the Old Testament to the new.



In Todays reading

At this moment, John was in prison for challenging another set of vested interests because he had publicly rebuked Herod Antipas for marrying Herodias, his brother’s wife, who was also his niece in violation of Jewish law. This denunciation of the wedding angered the wife   Herodias, the new Mrs now wanted John silenced because it was in her best interests to marry well so she wanted to marry the more successful brother.  In an Era where women had so few rights.   she wanted john to shut up and had him banged up and later after her daughter Salome danced – beheaded.   BTW Christians should always be in johns place of honesty, speaking truth to power, even if it causes discomfort to those who can cause you discomfort.  But that’s a sermon for another day.

So, john was inside, banged up, while this was happening  John’s disciples come asking if even after Jesus was baptised if Jesus is really the One. And Jesus says, ‘Go back and tell John what you see. The sick are healed, the poor hear good news, the dead are raised.’ That’s His answer. He’s saying, ‘Yes — I’m the One John was sent to announce.’”   To make sure there really was no misunderstanding Jesus  quotes the prophet Malachi, and this was exactly the correct prophet to choose for this task of persuasion.

Why?

 Because Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament, hence his place as the last book of the Old Testament.      Malachi literally translates to messenger, and Malachi says that the messiah will be heralded by a messenger   when he said

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

So, John is the messenger predicted by Malachi 400 years before, who would herald the Messiah and Jesus is saying he is the Messiah for whom John was the messenger sent to prepare the way for.

If it’s true – then massive change has just happened

This is change is great news if you want the brave new world, and really awful if this change messes with the nice familiar ways of the old.



By quoting Malachi Jesus says the old kingdom and the Old Testament which centered on the law has ended and the New Testament the new kingdom has begun. The Old Testament is based on law and rite, The “New Kingdom” is about grace and renewal has begun

Incidentally My first proper job was as a messenger taking messages  to lower the old customs house on lower Thames street Thames street skating past the fish slime of billingsgate, trying not to fall over and I was aware of the fact I part of a thing that had gone on in that spot since 1377. Great first job met all the players in the wine shipping industry and got to talk to all the girls in the posh wine importers.  Earnt enough to keep my mum happy and go to west ham. Life was simple. But one thing I know about being a messenger see sometimes you deliver good news, and sometimes you deliver bad news.  Sometimes unexpected things

So, Malachi coming true, happening here in front of them was great news for humanity, but bad news for the established religious leaders their status in society and how the bills get paid

 This bad is news bad enough if your reliant on the old ways, worse if the fellah laying claim to this seems to be this bloke.

See Jesus was literally nobodies’ idea of what they expected for a messiah.  The zealots wanted a military ruler, The Sadducees wanted to take back control of Israel, the pharisees wanted someone who would ensure all the rites would be kept, John was likely an Essene he likely envisioned a Messiah who would confront corruption and injustice—both religious and political. His rebuke of Herod shows he believed God’s kingdom should and would challenge earthly rulers.

All that expectation, and they got the carpenters son from a one-horse town.  It’s akin to the chap that owns the bookies. His Son calling himself the messiah.  Which is why to save himself being rejected by John,  Jesus shows who he is by miracles and says to Johns disciples,  look I’m doing all  this stuff, and points to all his miracles and healing.

Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ⁶ Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

To be fair John was a little out there as well, dressed in camel skin and eating locuat and  wild honey, who lived the most austere, solitary  life in the desert.   

So this is the unlikely pair are , laying claim to be the messenger prophesied by Malachi, and someone who is even more unlikely laying claim to be who the messenger prepares the way for  , which is the messiah.

So you can forgive universal incredulity at this moment? None of this  fits?  There’s an old 80’s song that goes there’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis.  This is on a par with that.

This is where we come in and join this story

This is the first time; the world had to really consciously reorient and then reconcile   itself to Jesus turning the world upside down.  The way that Jesus always tips power structures upside down

But before we get all smug?

We are used to Jesus’ tipping power structures on its head, used to the idea a man from a small town saying he is the very point at which the axis of the bible turns.   The old kingdom of law has gone, and the new kingdom of love and grace has arrived. But I think even we still wrestle with the implications of this, if we truly got it Donald trump and his followers would be giving all their  money and power away to the poor, and if he got a sniff of what Jesus was all about tommy Robinson would be transformed, and stand on the beaches with love and a recognition these people are children of god,  we live in hope?

But for these guys in our story today despite Isaiah saying he will come on a donkey etc. This was a terrible shock if they took it even slightly seriously.

The fact John did take him seriously is further proof that they both were who they say they were.

but see that’s the question this passage really asks?

That’s the question Advent asks us again and again. What we have to wrestle with today,

are they who they say they are? 

Have you recognised what the implications are of me coming this way are, being nobody’s idea of a messiah, arrived as a refugee, heralded by a messenger from the fuzzy edge of society, a life of giving, and then dying for others? For you, he had you in mind when he died on the cross, I could not be any more vulnerable and exposed and from here on in I am going to keep on giving, Have you recognised  what that does to the shouty, angry leaders ideas of power, those that claim to be Christians yet treat others harshly have you reconciled yourself to the fact Jesus,  shows that love and giving is the only way this works, treating each other as sacramental objects  as precious as the bread and wine of the eucharist, Christ’s body may be up there , but if Christ is in you, it’s here as well ? if you know me , how can you be harsh to each other When I have shown you another way, told you to follow it?

What does Jesus do to people putting flags up everywhere when Jesus  just stated his new  kingdom is now in charge, which is much bigger than any nation state.

that’s massive change that has still yet to happen in the world, but it starts in here?

The question this passage asks is how have you reconciled and accepted and adapted the way you look at the world and the change that following  Jesus brings about.  The old kingdom and the old ways are dead or are you like some of the listeners to Jesus, unwilling or unready to recognise what has happened. That all that stuff is passed away.

If you see Jesus as who he is and how he uses power, then the old ideas of power and leadership are gone.  We still reel from the shock of that idea today.  If you wonder whether to accept it, Jesus leaves you with an even more basic question.

The exact same question  that  john disciples had, , but be honest, the question that leaves us is,  has he convinced you?

See Jesus is either who he says he is or he isn’t?  He never left you a third way.   As CS Lewis said A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be just a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”. Are you of the old kingdom or the new?

However here’s the thing  when you make that leap of seeing Jesus as the messiah the next one of a simple carpenters son being God  makes perfect sense and why Christian  paradoxes  from at (least from a mortal perspective)   make perfect sense . See Jesus is the lens, and once you peer through that lens you see it is the only way that it can work? If we all give selflessly to one another, if we truly see ourselves as sacramental, all imbued with Christ within us,  That is the only way this works?

The implications of understanding Jesus as lord has massive implications on everything

 To some extent I am still working through the same idea that our audience today had , if that’s true what does that mean for me.
in September 2014 I had that exact moment when two old friends t caroline and hugh who were devoted Christians  quoted me john 14:6 they said to me
when he said I am the way the truth and the life. And no one come to the father except through me, Either its true or jesus is lying.

I realised Jesus would never lie to me and so after years of arguing with him, and avoiding the change that accepting Jesus as my lord brings  , the massive change that would make to my life , I sort of stopped arguing realising I Had come to a full stop, , So I sent a ridiculously long email to rev jane , and went to st Andrews.  I stand on the same ground that I did when I first came to Jesus, there are days when it doesn’t make sense, when the shouty world make more sense, but that’s not your way and I trust you, cos I know you wouldn’t lie to me.

So Ill follow your way your single truth your way of ,love and life.


why because  I believe this man is who he says he is and he is who john was sent to be the messenger for  as predicted by Malachi, and what it does to popwer structures him coming this way

One day ill truly come to terms with all the changes that fact makes in my life and makes to  all those that follow him.

see just after had finished my conversation with Hugh and Caroline and sent my email to jane I went in the kitchen and Paula was pottering about , and I said stop a minute vie got something to tell you?

Paula sort of looked at me funny and said yeees, what’s that?
I said I am giving my life to Jesus and I am going to follow him wherever he wants me  and become a Christian?

after a pause , Paula says ok, what’s that mean?

I said , that’s the best part, my life is his now, and I trust him, so I don’t have to worry about that.

I had accepted the change

Amen