Sermon for Sunday, December 5th 2021 - The Church of St. John the Evangelist

Second Sunday of Advent, rcl yr c, 2021
Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 19 (Luke 1:68-79); Luke 3:1-6a

he has come to his people and set them free

On the one hand: “the word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” … “[i]n the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias [was] ruler of Abilene … ” And on the other hand: “the Lord, the God of Israel … has come to his people and set them free.”

“[T]he word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” in a time that Luke is keen to describe as hardly the best of times. Jewish political fortune had seen a Babylonian captivity that left Jerusalem without its leadership; it had seen the “abomination of desolation,” when a statue of Zeus had been erected on the altar of burnt offerings by a Hellenistic king; it had seen the failed rebellion of the Maccabees.

And now, as Luke recounts it, “the word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” when “Philip, brother of Herod, [was] ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias [was] ruler of Abilene.” These two men, Philip and Lysanias, do have better reputations than the others on Luke’s list.

But this doesn’t mean much. “[T]he word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” also “when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea.” A man who at various times and for various reasons would be a man of violence; but these were only injuries, far worse was the insult that Pilate, a Roman, was given authority over Judea and therefore Jerusalem—the most sacred of sacred cities to Israel.

At the birth of John, though, John’s father Zechariah sang a song about who this son would be: John the Baptizer. Zechariah’s song was about how the words of the prophets were being fulfilled. John would be the one spoken of by Malachi: singing to his newborn son, Zechariah says, “you, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.”

But it’s the first part of Zechariah’s song that I’d like to draw our attention to; it’s not about John, but a song to God; a song about how the promise of a messiah was already fulfilled. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,” sings Zechariah; “he has come to his people and set them free.”

Now that might sound familiar, but let’s listen a bit closer. This is at the birth of Jesus’s elder cousin; Jesus had only been conceived, he had yet to be born even. But Zechariah sings of a God who has already accomplished great things; God “has come to his people and set them free.” It is already done; it is already accomplished; it is not about a prophetic future, but a prophetic present. Contemporary commenters Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington put it this way: “[Luke] sees the victor and the redemption as a fact in history, not a promise yet to be fulfilled.”

God “has raised up … a mighty Saviour born of the house of his servant David.” … “The Lord, the God of Israel … has come to his people and set them free.”

This confidence of Zechariah’s, the confidence of a salvation made present, comes into harshest contrast with the first man on Luke’s list “[T]he word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” … “during the reign of Emperor Tiberius.”

Tiberius was the sort of Emperor that had expelled Jews from Rome, assigning Jews of military age to the army and banishing the rest “on pain of slavery for life.” Even if the historians of our day have rewritten the life of Emperor Tiberius, in Luke’s time he was known to be a cruel and paranoid ruler. Tiberius was known as “the saddest of men,” not well-suited for the throne. He was so poorly suited to be Emperor that he fled Rome for the island of Capri; and from there, he developed a reputation for executing all challengers to the throne. The stories that were told were ones of brutal violence more suited to a show like The Walking Dead than to a show like The Crown. He had also “acquired a reputation for still grosser depravities that one can hardly bare to tell or be told, let alone believe,” according to one ancient biographer.

But it is “Herod … ruler of Galilee,” the final figure in this rogue’s gallery, that is perhaps the name soaked most in tragedy. “[T]he word of God came to John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah, in the wilderness” when “Herod was ruler of Galilee.” Herod would be the man who would execute John [the baptiser], son of Zechariah.

And on the other hand: “the Lord, the God of Israel … has come to his people and set them free.” God “has raised up … a mighty Saviour born of the house of his servant David.”

On the one hand, there appears to be very clear evidence that redemption is far from near, and that this world still operates according to the logic of sin death; and on the other, there’s the disorienting confidence that “redemption [is] a fact in history.” Luke reminding us, through his own literary sophistication, that we believe both these things: that this world still operates according to the logic of sin and death; and that “redemption [is] a fact in history”; Luke reminding us, through his literary sophistication, that we believe both these things to be fully and completely true.

There are any number of reasons to despair in the state of the world: from the climate emergency, to children in Chinese factories, to the loneliness many of us feel, to the fact that COVID is still finding ways to get the better of us; it’s not hard to find the ways that death and sin continue to have their sway.

But then there’s Zechariah, singing to his new-born son, an image that ought to already bring us hope. (You know that Zechariah probably couldn’t even keep a tune, right? First, only moments ago he couldn’t hear or speak, let alone sing; second, Zechariah was a priest, and what priest isn’t a bit wobbly with the pitch?)

But there is more hope here, than the hope we would find in a father singing out-of-tune to his child. When Jesus was little more than a baby bump, Zechariah could proclaim: “the Lord, the God of Israel … has come to his people and set them free.” God “has raised up … a mighty Saviour born of the house of his servant David.” And in him, death and sin are whispering away like a dream half-remembered.

The saviour is nearly born; and this saviour is about to return. And so “[T]he dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The Revd Preston DS Parsons, PhD