Sunday 9 December 2012, Advent 2, Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3:1-6, Bruce

God is at work in the most surprising places.  Luke carefully tells us all the important people who are in charge; he names the emperor Tiberius, the governor Pilate, the tetrarchs Herod and Philip and Lysanius, and the high-priests Annas and Caiaphas.  But where is God on the move?  Today he might have said that it was when Elizabeth was queen, and David Cameron was PM, and Boris Johnson was mayor of London, David Hodge was leader of Surrey County Council, and Bruce Mansell was mayor of Surrey Heath, that the word of the Lord came to someone you never heard of, who lives in a shelter in the woods behind Tomlinscote.  And he starts to quote Chaucer or Shakespeare with reference to today.

As we start a year with Luke, we notice his attention to historical detail, and his concern that all are included in the good news.  “And all people will see God’s salvation.”  He is not quoting merely a poet or playwright from the past, but the scriptures that would be read and studied every day, and he is applying them to everyday life, even in a backwater like the wilderness of Judea.  The coming of Jesus is significant for every single human being, and every effort must be made to share his love and make him known.  If you are expecting an important guest, you make every effort to get things nice and in order for them.  How much more should the coming of a king mean the complete transformation of the roadway to ease their passage?  Many of us have perhaps witnessed the preparations that are made when a VIP comes to town.  In the same way John quotes the words of Isaiah that valleys must be filled in and hills levelled off to make it easier for the monarch to pass.  There is a rumour that the hill outside St Michael’s was lowered because Queen Victoria did not like it.

John is of course talking about each of individual lives.  He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The path that must be smoothed is the way for Jesus to come into our hearts.  The obstacles to be removed are everything that prevents us from responding to and surrendering to his love.  Advent is a season for reflection, a mini Lent, when we prepare our hearts to meet the king.

It is meeting the king that is uppermost in Paul’s mind as he begins his letter to the Philippians.   He is writing from jail.  The letter is sometimes called the epistle of joy, because Paul so often mentions being joyful or giving thanks, but it is also a letter that reveals him to be aged, frail, and enduring hardship.  He seems to feel that his time on this earth is drawing to a close, and so he is frank and direct in all that he says.

Everything he writes is in the context that the day of the Lord is drawing near.  God has begun a good work in us, he says, and he will continue it until he completes it when the day of Christ arrives.  In other words, we have this Advent hope that there is a new world coming, a new heaven and a new earth.  At the moment we are living in the time between the first coming of Jesus and his second.  His life for us and his death for us on the cross has broken the power of sin and given us forgiveness and new life, but we do not yet see the fulfilment.  We are living as citizens of heaven (3:20) now, today, even when we can be suffering and in chains (1:14).  We are part of a church and a world where people can seem to be motivated by selfish ambition (1:17), vain conceit (2:3), whose god is their stomach (3:19), who can fall out like Eudodia and Syntyche (4:2).  Paul is in prison in Rome, possibly on trial for his life, but he is thinking of his friends in Philippi.  He talks of the deep affection that he feels for them – literally a feeling in his bowels.  He prays for them that they would be one in love for each other, living lives worthy of the gospel of Christ, standing firm in one spirit, striving together as one for the faith (1:27).

This Advent, as we hurry on our preparations for Christmas, motivated by a desire to make it a wonderful celebration for family and friends, so may we also deliberately make our preparations for the future.  We want to be ready, blameless, on the day that we meet Jesus.  The place and time of preparation is here and now.

Today, set aside some time for silence, reflection and prayer.

Today, invite Jesus afresh into your life, open all the doors to every part of your heart.

Today, be on the watch for people you can bring a blessing to, by a word or gesture or kindness shown.

May God give to each of us a heart where mountains are brought low, valleys are filled, where our love may abound in knowledge and depth of insight, and where the king can come in and continue his work to change us to be like him.