Advent 3 Year A In the name of Jesus; amen.
What are you expecting?
John the Baptist was sitting in prison. He had put his life on the line; in fact he would be losing it soon, based on his expectations. He had preached repentance based on the expectation that he was preparing the way for the Messiah to come into the world. He expected the Messiah would bring with him a baptism of fire to that would burn away the weeds of the world so that the good wheat would grow. It was a baptism of fire that would save the righteous and destroy the unrighteous, but so far this fiery baptism was filled with forgiveness and beatitudes.
It was not what he was expecting.
He, like others, had expected the Messiah to be more like a warrior, someone who would overthrow the oppressive leaders who ruled over them. He believed the prophecies of Isaiah; that God would come with vengeance and save them.
John had expected the Messiah to change the world order, but the only things that had changed in his world were his surroundings and his life expectancy.
What are you expecting?
What do you expect of Jesus?
John looked around at the walls of his prison and began to doubt that his expectations of who Jesus was were correct. It makes sense, he was in jail waiting for the moment when the executioner would arrive and take his life. He wanted to know if he was right, if he was going to die for the cause he had signed up for or if he was going to lose his life with unfulfilled hopes and expectations.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Our Psalm for today is the Magnificat. In Luke’s Gospel when Mary discovers that she is pregnant with the son of God she goes to visit one of her relatives named Elizabeth. Elizabeth is also pregnant for the first time, but Luke tells us that she is beyond childbearing years and the fact that she is pregnant is a miracle. The moment that Elizabeth sees Mary the baby in her womb starts to dance and she exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." (Luke 1:42-45.)
In response Mary sings this song we call the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
The child who leapt in his mother’s womb is John who becomes the Baptizer. From before the time he was born he expected that Jesus was the one and now he wasn’t sure.
John’s expectations of the Messiah were exactly what everyone else’s were: he was supposed to be the one who would come and set things right politically and from that everything else would fall into place. He was supposed to be the king on the throne who would rule with justice and righteousness. He was a fulfillment of prophecy they trusted in and waited for anxiously.
What do you expect of Jesus?
This is the season of expectation. We can expect presents, long lines at the mall, houses lit up with multi-colored lights, family and friends to visit… but what do we expect of Jesus?
Our expectations grow out of our hopes. John hoped for the Messiah to come and expected it to be Jesus. When Jesus didn’t quite fit the picture that John had painted in his mind he worried that he had been wrong, but Jesus was right. Jesus was exactly right.
Our expectations and even our hopes of Jesus are only a shadow of who and what Jesus actually is. No one expected a king to be born in a manger, but he was. No one expected the Messiah would rule with forgiveness instead of vengeance and terrible recompense, but he did. No one expected that he would eat with sinners and treat women as equals, but that’s what he did. No one expected that he would eventually die on a cross or that he would rise from the dead, but that is exactly what Jesus did. And if you don’t expect that he will really come again… well, guess what? He will!
Jesus came to do more than fulfill our expectations; he came to give us new expectations of God and our neighbor and ourselves.
We can expect forgiveness. We can expect to be fed at the Lord’s table. We can expect to be loved more than we deserve. We can expect to be made holy. We can expect to be lifted up. We can expect to be called to serve. We can expect to work for peace. We can expect that we will be judged. We can expect that our judgment will be pardon. And we can expect that God is with us… now and forever.
Amen.
What are you expecting?
John the Baptist was sitting in prison. He had put his life on the line; in fact he would be losing it soon, based on his expectations. He had preached repentance based on the expectation that he was preparing the way for the Messiah to come into the world. He expected the Messiah would bring with him a baptism of fire to that would burn away the weeds of the world so that the good wheat would grow. It was a baptism of fire that would save the righteous and destroy the unrighteous, but so far this fiery baptism was filled with forgiveness and beatitudes.
It was not what he was expecting.
He, like others, had expected the Messiah to be more like a warrior, someone who would overthrow the oppressive leaders who ruled over them. He believed the prophecies of Isaiah; that God would come with vengeance and save them.
John had expected the Messiah to change the world order, but the only things that had changed in his world were his surroundings and his life expectancy.
What are you expecting?
What do you expect of Jesus?
John looked around at the walls of his prison and began to doubt that his expectations of who Jesus was were correct. It makes sense, he was in jail waiting for the moment when the executioner would arrive and take his life. He wanted to know if he was right, if he was going to die for the cause he had signed up for or if he was going to lose his life with unfulfilled hopes and expectations.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Our Psalm for today is the Magnificat. In Luke’s Gospel when Mary discovers that she is pregnant with the son of God she goes to visit one of her relatives named Elizabeth. Elizabeth is also pregnant for the first time, but Luke tells us that she is beyond childbearing years and the fact that she is pregnant is a miracle. The moment that Elizabeth sees Mary the baby in her womb starts to dance and she exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." (Luke 1:42-45.)
In response Mary sings this song we call the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
The child who leapt in his mother’s womb is John who becomes the Baptizer. From before the time he was born he expected that Jesus was the one and now he wasn’t sure.
John’s expectations of the Messiah were exactly what everyone else’s were: he was supposed to be the one who would come and set things right politically and from that everything else would fall into place. He was supposed to be the king on the throne who would rule with justice and righteousness. He was a fulfillment of prophecy they trusted in and waited for anxiously.
What do you expect of Jesus?
This is the season of expectation. We can expect presents, long lines at the mall, houses lit up with multi-colored lights, family and friends to visit… but what do we expect of Jesus?
Our expectations grow out of our hopes. John hoped for the Messiah to come and expected it to be Jesus. When Jesus didn’t quite fit the picture that John had painted in his mind he worried that he had been wrong, but Jesus was right. Jesus was exactly right.
Our expectations and even our hopes of Jesus are only a shadow of who and what Jesus actually is. No one expected a king to be born in a manger, but he was. No one expected the Messiah would rule with forgiveness instead of vengeance and terrible recompense, but he did. No one expected that he would eat with sinners and treat women as equals, but that’s what he did. No one expected that he would eventually die on a cross or that he would rise from the dead, but that is exactly what Jesus did. And if you don’t expect that he will really come again… well, guess what? He will!
Jesus came to do more than fulfill our expectations; he came to give us new expectations of God and our neighbor and ourselves.
We can expect forgiveness. We can expect to be fed at the Lord’s table. We can expect to be loved more than we deserve. We can expect to be made holy. We can expect to be lifted up. We can expect to be called to serve. We can expect to work for peace. We can expect that we will be judged. We can expect that our judgment will be pardon. And we can expect that God is with us… now and forever.
Amen.
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