Sermon by Fr Neil Traynor on 17th December 2017 - Advent 3
Art thou the prophet?
And they asked him – who art thou then? Art thou the prophet?
Today, unusually, we have a collision of themes and,
particularly, music. For, we have
firstly there is the introit proper for today – Gaudete, Gaudete, Christus est natus, ex Maria Virgine (Rejoice, Rejoice, Christ is born of Mary)
(cf Steeleye Span); then the great ‘O Antiphons’, best known through the Advent
carol: O Come O Come Emmanuel; and
thirdly we have the great verse anthem by Orlando Gibbons; This is the Record of John.
The seven Advent ‘O’ antiphons – verses sung before
and after the Magnificat at evening prayer - draw together old testament titles and
prophecies, and are a kind of a Christmas wish list. Not a wish-list of i-phones, computers or
earthly things, but of:
O
Sapientia - The way of prudence
O
Adonai: Deliverance
O
Clavis David:
The release of prisoners
O
Oriens: Light to
those who sit in darkness
O
Rex Gentium:
salvation of mankind
O
Emmanuel: salvation
of Israel
O
Virgo Virginum:
The coming of God
These are desires not just of one person, but of
whole communities, watching and waiting for the promised saviour.
Our first reading of Moses and the burning bush
links us directly with the O Antiphon for today: “O Adonai, leader of the house of Israel, who appeared in a bush to
Moses in a flame of fire and gave him the law in Sinai; Come and deliver us
with an outstretched arm.” It is
well to remember that we only know as much about God, as God has revealed to
us. And those revelations, these
continuing glimpses of God, are refracted through the lens of the successive
prophets. Just as light passing through
a prism makes each of the colours of light visible but separate, so are we only
able to see glimpses of God, but as though through a glass darkly.
And each of the Old Testament prophets reflects just
a portion of God. It was, and for some
still is, the hope of Israel that the prophet will come to redeem the nations
of the world. As the days to Christmas
come nearer, the O Antiphons make this increasingly clear that though the law
was given to Moses, this salvation is for the whole of the world.
And so, in our Gospel we have the plaintive cry –
‘Art thou the prophet?’, together with its definitive answer of ‘No!’.
John the Baptist is a key person in our salvation
history. He is both the first and the
last - one might say, the omega and the alpha – the last of the Old Testament
Prophets, and also the one who first recognised Christ as the Messiah.
At John’s birth, his father, Zechariah, sang the
Benedictus, the canticle used at morning prayer, beginning “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.” It ends with one of those magnificent lines
with which the Advent Season is peppered:
“Through the
tender mercy of our God,
whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us
to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us
to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Both John and Christ together are prophesied in
Malachi, in one of those texts that Handel set to music, in such a way that I
at least find it difficult to read without hearing the music:
“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”
“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”
John is variously the dayspring, the messenger, the
preparer of the way. We should also not
forget his filial ties. This is, at one
and the same time, both an event which is for the whole of the world, past,
present and future; but also an intimate family event too.
This is God working at both the micro and the macro
scale simultaneously. No detail in the
big picture is too small to be noticed, and each is connected to the other.
And so, one might well ponder on who John is. As he himself says,
“I am the
voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord”.
For, out the wilderness of the world, John comes to
light the way of Christ, preparing the way and lighting our path to salvation. Then, shall the one – the great I AM - who appeared to the shepherd Moses in the
burning bush, be announced to other shepherds on another hillside, not as a
conqueror, but as a baby.