A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

The Rev. Fr. Duncan Preaching the Sermon Below for the Last Sunday of Advent

By Fr. Duncan Richards (Ancient Church of the West) 

“Let your moderation be known unto all men,” from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

​Good morning! Today we have made it to the 4th and final Sunday in Advent, in our journey walking towards Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. As we draw most near to our remembrance of the nativity, we don’t get a reading about the Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary or anything like that, rather we get a reading about John the Baptist being asked who he is. 

They ask him if he is the Messiah, Elijah, or the Prophet. John responds straightaway that he is none of these, but just a simple messenger declaring the coming Messianic King. But John is not just another of the prophets of old, telling of the Messiah to come from afar off, no, John is the forerunner of Christ, the one who comes when the world is on the cusp of its salvation. John’s crying in the wilderness for the people to repent and return to God. The Father uses John’s voice to cut through the desert and make a highway for the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah to be announced to the world. 

But this is no small task, the image from the prophet Isaiah is not just of some nice Roman road being build on flat ground, but of a highway that cuts through a place where the desert sands inevitably encroach upon any road that is built – making a highway like this, a rather miraculous endeavor. Thanks be to God though, that the true voice that cuts out the path, is not John’s own oratory skill, but the Logos of the universe, its creator become incarnate, Jesus the Son of God. 

Here we have that John is the one who temporally comes before his cousin Jesus in terms of his ministry, but at the same time, Jesus in his divinity, is at the same time working through John’s ministry and is the cause and end of it as well. We can take comfort in this in our own day and in our own lives. Christ has called us to serve him by obeying his commandments, do good works, and proclaim the gospel, all by loving our neighbors through our love of God. In all that, we don’t do what God has called us do in our own power, but we do with the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the goal of the glory of God in Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Being imaged well by the last verse of St. Patrick’s breastplate:

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

And in this we can join with the Apostle Paul as he says in his letter to the Philippians to “rejoice for the Lord is at hand…[and do] everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”

​While John the Baptist isn’t the reincarnation or return of the prophet Elijah, he is a fulfillment of the Old Testament type. In Elijah’s ministry, he declares boldly the commands of God, as well as being a one through whom God displays His mighty power, challenging the ruling king in Judah and his corruptpagan priesthood. This servant of God was also persecuted mightily by King Ahab and Jezebel. John the Baptist mirrors Elijah in all these ways: he defies the brood of vipers that is the rabbinical and priestly classes as well as King Herod in both his excesses of power and his adulterous and perverse marriages, leading ultimately to his beheading at the command of the Ahab and Jezebel of his time at the court of King Herod. 

Additionally, just as Elisha had a double portion of the prophetic spirit of power, so likewise, the greater prophet is not in John, but in Jesus. In his ministry, Elisha performed many more miracles and signs than Elijah, as does Jesus compared to John. And as Elijah was taken away by God into heaven, so was John taken away at his beheading, both allowing for a greater pouring out of the Spirit of God – in the case of Christ Jesus, the ultimate pouring out in one who is not only prophet, but priest and king and most importantly God our Savior. This is summed up nicely here by St. Cyril of Alexandria:

For I, he says, am bringing in an introductory Baptism, washing those defiled by sin with water for a beginning of penitence and teaching them to go up from the lower unto the more perfect. For this were to accomplish in act, what I was sent to preach, Prepare ye, I mean, the way of the Lord. For the Giver of the greater and most notable gifts and Supplier of all perfection of good things, standeth among you, unknown as yet by reason of the veil of flesh, but so much surpassing me the Baptist, that I must deem myself not to have the measure even of a servant's place in His Presence.

And so as we journey these last few days to Bethlehem to view with wonder and amazement at the virgin mother giving birth to the infant savior who is God Himself, let us meditate on how we can imitate John’s submission to God’s use of his life and let the great gifts that Jesus has given us in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and his renewing graces daily in our prayers, praises, and participation in the Sacraments enable us to grow closer to God in holiness and righteousness.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.