I’m not sure about you, but I sometimes feel a little flat in the days immediately after Christmas.
 
On Christmas Day, we tend to focus on the good in people, the good in the presents we received, the good in the food and drink we enjoy, and the good times we have with our family and friends.
 
On Christmas Day we tend to be a little more patient with people, a little more careful with things that need cleaning and a little more thoughtful with what needs to be done during the festivities.
 
Christmas Day is a day of happiness, joy and celebration, and if there’s anything that threatens to upset this day, we often try to ignore it, or deal with it the days to come.
 
Well, for me, these last few days have sort of been like Christmas Day’s hangover.
I felt a little more tired, a little more worn out, and a little more drained.
The good I focussed on at Christmas time has become a little harder to see.
What I had left undone, now needs to be tackled.
 
Christmas Day is often a day where we try to escape from reality, all our problems, our work, and our petty arguments.
We focus on the good instead of the bad.
 
Of course, this isn’t the same for all people.
Some people’s Christmas Day is also tinged with sadness and grief, especially if loved ones are missing, either through distance, or death.
And if one’s health has deteriorated during the year, some may find that their Christmas celebrations are not the same as they used to be.
 
But following Christmas Day there are times when we all need to come back down to earth. Reality hits again.
Work beckons, gifts break, or don’t fit as planned, the bank balance has shrunk considerably, and the bills soon start rolling in.
 
 
I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one who feels a little flat after Christmas, but maybe others of you will also feel the same.
 
Last Thursday, in the Christmas Day service, we heard again about the good news of Jesus’ birth.
Angels and shepherds sang praise to God because he came to be with his people.
Truly cause for celebration, hope and joy. But what do we hear in the reading today? 
He’s already being chased by death!     As I said - reality bites!
 
From the very beginning, death chased Jesus.
He and his family needed to flee out of their own land, so that Jesus could survive infancy.
He had to escape to Egypt, the place from which God had already saved his people so many years earlier.
 
Isn’t it strange that here is God himself, the King of all creation, who is all-powerful, but now needs to run from Herod’s butcher’s knife.
 
Of course, with hindsight and the help of the bible, we know how the story then develops.
The whole life of Jesus is one of obedience to his Father in heaven as he endures suffering, criticism, beatings, and even death.
 
I know that death is a bit of a morbid subject to talk about so soon after Christmas Day, but this is reality, and we all have to die eventually!
 
Jesus, the one through whom all things came into being, came to us in human flesh, in order to establish our salvation through his suffering.
This means that as he entered our world, he also lived in our bittersweet reality, felt our excitement and fears, and would even experience the loneliness of death.
 
The King of creation, who has no peer on earth, now calls us his brothers and sisters because he’s like one of us – one of us in flesh, but also one of us who has experienced suffering and temptations - although with one exception – he remains without sin.
 
Therefore, because of this, we can rightly call ourselves children of God.
 
Despite the fact that Jesus actually has no beginning or end, he also experienced the isolation and finality of death in his earthly life, just as all of us eventually will.
 
Jesus knows that the concept of death surrounds us and sometimes stands at the very edges of our celebrations.
Death, the fear of death, or the death of others, can spoil our joys and can also bring us down into a helpless state of despair or depression. Jesus knows this, because he experienced it too.
 
In this way, just as a good lawyer needs to get to know his client and a good doctor needs to get to know his patient, so, too, Jesus identifies with us – with all our frustrations, temptations, sufferings and flat days, but he’s also familiar with our eventual victory – over the darkness of death itself.
 
Jesus came to suffer and die in order that he could identify with our suffering, but also so that we won’t despair, or lose hope, because of our suffering.
 
He frees us from our slavery to death and the fear of death itself.
Yes, they’re still there, staring and threatening us even on our days of celebration, our days of regret, and on our depressing days, but that’s all they can do – glare and threaten us.
They no longer have any teeth.
 
Jesus brought light into the world and, through his death, has therefore destroyed the power of death.
The devil, the Prince of Darkness, is defeated.
 
Jesus, through his suffering and death, is now able to identify with us, in both our Christmas celebrations and our post-Christmas blues.
 
Herod wasn’t victorious over Jesus and Jesus and his family survived.
Suffering and temptations weren’t victorious over Jesus.
Jesus endured and remained faithful and obedient.
 
Death wasn’t victorious over Jesus, because Jesus still lives and still stands before God the Father, feeling our pains, our sorrows, our depression, our suffering and our fears.
He stands there, whispering in his Father’s ear, asking for mercy, claiming that we are his brother, his sister.
We are one with him through faith.
He won’t be unfaithful to us or ever abandon us.
 
So, even if we feel a little flat in the days after Christmas, we can take comfort in the fact that Jesus, the Light of the World, remains triumphant and will be faithful to all of us, no matter how we feel today, or tomorrow, or the next.
 
Because the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in and through Christ Jesus.
​
Pastor Rick

​I wonder how many times you’ve heard the story of the birth of Jesus, as told by Luke in his gospel?
It’s a story about simple shepherds, in a field, watching over their flocks at night, when suddenly, in a starlit sky, there comes a bright light – which turns out to be an angel and all the heavenly host – proclaiming good news to all of humanity.


The shepherds leave their flocks (which is something they wouldn’t normally do) to go and follow the directions given to them by the angel – towards another bright light – the star which is hovering over Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, who is lying in the straw, surrounded by the silent, innocent animals in the stable.
 
How many times have you heard this story, seen it portrayed on greeting cards around the Christmas season and in the pictures we see on the television - every Christmas - this wonderful, warm, loving image?
 
Christmas is like that for many of us.


It’s like streams of warm and wonderful family memories, of images that we treasure and hold dear, that we wrap around ourselves every Christmas.
It makes us feel comforted and hopeful and brings us back to our childhood - every Christmas, year after year.
 
You know, the truth is, it probably didn’t happen in that way, or even on that day.
Jesus almost certainly wasn’t born on December 25th (winter in the Middle East).
That idea came in about the 4th century.
Prior to that, Christians, in different places, celebrated the anniversary of the birth of our Lord on different days.
 
I wonder - is the actual date really that important, in our celebration of the arrival of God’s son to earth?
 
In our family, we don’t get too fussed if we can’t celebrate an important event, like a birthday, on the actual day.
To us, it’s the fact that the family is all celebrating together, not what day of the week it is.
 
And, I also wonder, is it all that important for Christians to know whether Mary & Joseph were housed in an inn, or in the spare room of a relative’s house, or in a cavern attached to the house?
We know that animals often slept inside on cold winter’s nights, but there is some thought that the animals only began to appear in nativity art in about the fourth century, possibly because the biblical commentators at the time used Isaiah 3 as part of their anti-Jewish argument, to claim that animals understood the significance of Jesus, in a way that the Jews did not.
 
When Christians today gather around a crib, or set up a nativity scene in their homes, they continue a tradition that began in the 12th century with Francis of Assisi.
He brought a crib and animals into his church, so that everyone who was worshipping could feel part of the story.
Thus, the popular nativity tradition was born.
 
Another perplexing question.
Have you ever wondered how many wise men/astrologers/magi came to see the infant Messiah?
Most people will say 3, because 3 gifts were given to Jesus, but there could have been any number of them.
As Sir David Attenborough famously says of many vexing questions:  “We just don’t know.”
 
And the date of their visit is also in doubt, because we read in Matthew’s Gospel that King Herod ordered all boys under 2 to be killed.
Therefore, the magi might have visited any time in the first couple of years after Jesus was born.
 
How relevant, or important, is it to our Christian faith, that we have all the facts in the right chronological order?
It certainly isn’t to me.
The most relevant fact is that we are celebrating the moment when God enters into history in human form - and nothing has ever been the same since that time.
 
Celebrating the time when the light of Jesus came into the world.
 
The embodiment of the spiritual into flesh, called the “incarnation” in biblical circles, is, of necessity, a reason for us to change.
It means God coming into our time and into our space and into our lives and into our comfort zones, shaking things up and re-creating them in a new way.
It challenges us to confront change and to be active in doing something about it.


We’re called to be co-workers with God in the world around us – in the Kingdom of God.
 
Christmas is usually a constant, predictable celebration and year after year, we tend to follow the traditions.
But, in reality, no two years are ever the same and our lives will never the same.
Every year we are, in fact, older and, hopefully, wiser.
 
Lynne & I moved house a few years ago and, even though all our children and grandchildren will still be celebrating Christmas with us over lunch, after the Christmas Day service, it will feel different this year, in the new house.
 
At this time of the year, most of us are really busy, running around, seemingly chasing our tails, buying presents for our loved ones and even people that we don’t really see for the rest of the year.
But is all this “busyness” really helpful?
 
Have you ever thought how you’d feel if you gave a child a beautiful present, only to find that either: 
(a) they don’t open it, or
(b) they’ve opened it, but ignored it, or
(c) they’ve played with it for a short time, but then forgotten about it      or finally
(d) they’ve broken it. 
 
If you can identify with this feeling, you might start to understand how God feels.
 
God gave the world the best gift, ever, at Christmas about 2,000 years ago - in the shape of his son, Jesus, but the world wasn’t too appreciative.
 
Some people refused to believe that he really was God’s son, whilst others followed him for a while, before going back to their old ways.
And the worst part was when the religious leaders managed to convince the Romans to crucify him.
 
Maybe we should be giving more thought to how WE can be a “gift” to other people. 
Perhaps we could visit a lonely neighbour, volunteer at an aged care centre, or invite someone to join us for Christmas lunch, etc.
These are just some of the ideas that may make someone else’s Christmas a bit more memorable.
 
Fortunately, many people HAVE accepted God’s gift – wholeheartedly - and are still following him today.
 
I pray that we may all remember to thank God, every day, for his fantastic present.
Change is the name of the game in today’s world, and, on this Christmas Day, it comes through the birth of the Christ, Jesus.
 
I encourage you to rejoice, for the light has come into the world and YOU should take that light out into the darkness to be a beacon for God’s love of humanity. 
 
May light come in your world this day………….Pastor Rick

​Each of the Gospel writers begins the story of the birth of Jesus in a slightly different way, and Matthew does it with this remarkable story about the birth of the baby and the message that comes in a dream to Joseph, from the lips of an angel.
 
If you want to read the earlier verses of Matthew 1, you’ll find a long genealogy of 17 begats about father to son, son to son to son, all the way back to Father Abraham.
The genealogy goes up till Joseph, except that Matthew plays a trick on us, because he traces this royal pedigree to show that Jesus is descended from King David, but then, at the very last minute, he tells us that Joseph isn’t really the father of this new baby, the special one we celebrate at Christmas.
 
There are also some important things to notice about this narrative at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel.
The first thing to notice is that the whole message to Joseph happens at night - when he was relaxed, with his guard down.
We’re told that the angel comes and says to him, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
That’s a big message for a poor, simple, young carpenter to take in.
An angel, a messenger of God, given from outside, not in human terms, not in earthly terms and definitely not according to Joseph's normal assumptions.
 
The first thing to notice, as we move in these last days to Christmas is that the expectation of the coming of Jesus, according to Matthew, is outside all of our normal understanding.
Our business is not to try to explain this text, rather to be dazzled at Christmastime and realise that something is happening beyond all of our reckonings.
This is a baby, and a wonder, and a gift that is designed to move us beyond all our understanding.
 
The second thing to notice is that the baby has no earthly father; and in Joseph’s family, like in every family in those times, it was a scandal when a baby had no father.
So, Joseph was potentially going to be embroiled in a scandal, but that’s not the point.
He could have just walked away from the problem.
The most important thing is that he believed that the baby was being given to him and Mary as a gift from God.
 
We should set aside all of the silly speculation that’s gone on about the biological inconsistencies of a virgin conceiving and, instead, concentrate on the truth that this event comes about because God's Spirit stirs.
The Bible is largely a reflection on how God's Spirit makes things new.
- It’s God's Spirit in Genesis 1 that creates a new world, a new heaven and a new earth.
- It’s God's Spirit, God's wind that blows the waters back in Egypt and lets our ancestors depart from slavery.
- It’s God's Spirit that calls prophets and apostles and martyrs to do dangerous acts of obedience.
- It’s God's Spirit that came upon the disciples in the Book of Acts and created a community of obedience and mission.
- And now, it’s God's Spirit that begins something new when the world is exhausted, when our imagination fails and when our lives are shut down in despair.
 
And that’s what Matthew is telling us, that God's Spirit has stirred and caused something utterly new in the world. God has caused this new baby who will change everything among us.
 
The third thing to notice is that the angel gives Joseph two names for the baby.
Names are very important in that ancient world.
 
First, the angel says, "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people."
The Hebrew name Yeshua, which we translate as Jesus, is the verb “to save, or deliver, or rescue”.
Imagine that, at Christmas, we have a baby named Save.
 
Many babies in the Old Testament are named Save.
It’s the same word that gives us the names Joshua, Isaiah, and Hosea.
Each of them saved Israel, and now Jesus will save us all.
- Jesus will save us from sin and guilt
- Jesus will save us from death and destruction
- Jesus will save us from despair and hopelessness    
- Jesus will save us from poverty, sickness and hunger. And in all the stories of Jesus that the church remembers, it is Jesus who saves.
 
The season of the church that we’re now celebrating, Advent, is a time of being ready for the saving one who will come when we can’t save ourselves.
 
The second name that the angel gives for the baby is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us”.
It’s the faith of the church that, in Jesus, God is decisively present in the world – and that fact made everything new.
 
And in the New Testament we have evidence that wherever Jesus came, he showed up where people were in need - and he saved them – the lepers, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the hungry, the unclean, even the dead.
His very presence makes new life possible, and the church consists of all the people who have been dazzled by the reality of a God who has come to be with us in this season of hope and of joy. All through this miraculous baby.
 
So Matthew prepares us right at the edge of Christmas.
He gives us an angel's message in a dream - one that is beyond human expectations.
He tells us that it’s God's Spirit who makes all things new through this baby, and the baby is named twice.
The baby is named “Save”, and “God with us”. Jesus saves from all that separates us from our God and we’re all assured that we are not alone.
 
Did you notice that this story doesn’t ask us to do anything.
But I actually believe that it invites us to be dazzled.
It invites us to ponder that, while our world feels un-saveable, here is the baby named Save.
 
Our world and our lives often feel abandoned, and here is the baby named God with Us.
So we’ve got to be ready to have our lives and our world turned upside down by this gift from God.
 
We can rest our lives upon the new promise from the angel and we can be safe and we can be whole because of Christmas, and all that it means to us, and it’s coming soon.
After all, that message is good news, isn’t it?
 
What Jesus did in the time that he was on earth was good, too.
We know that Jesus is with us forever - we sometimes say the phrase – “for good”
 
And that’s why I’ve entitled this message “He comes….for good”.
 
So let’s pray – for good.
 
Coming Son of God, blowing Spirit of God, hovering Father God, we’re very sure in these hope-filled days that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything at all in creation, can separate us from you and from your love for us.
For this we are grateful and we see that it is good. At this time of year, we give you thanks for your special gift to us.
In the saving name of Jesus, we pray.              Amen
 
Blessings of the season be upon you………….Pastor Rick

​It seems extravagant that for the third week in a row the lectionary has given us another glorious passage from Isaiah, with some of its exuberant poetry.
Isaiah 35 is one mighty, magnificent promise, ringing out far above all our bruises, fractures, fears and pessimism.
It declares: “Joy rules the universe!”
 
But when, you say, when will all this joy happen?
Will it be next year - next century - in this millennium?
Will it ever happen here in history, or will it be beyond time - in another dimension of life?
 
As far as the prophet Isaiah could see, it was going to be fulfilled here, on earth, in our time.
 
Note that this chapter of Isaiah would normally be read against the background of the previous one.
Chapter 34 is all gloom and destruction - particularly of the hated land of Edom.
But Edom was set to become a wilderness. Instead of flowers there would be thistles and thorns; where princes flaunted their wealth and power, hyenas and jackals would make their lairs.
This contrasts with Israel in Chapter 35, where flowers are blooming, even in the deserts, and the jackals are gone.
 
In those days, hundreds of years before the time of Jesus, the Jews had little idea of a positive life beyond death. 
Some believed in a shadowy place, or state, called sheol, where existence was at the lowest possible ebb, without actual extinction.
For most of the Israelites, this life on earth was the only one that mattered.
Therefore, if God made a promise about the happiness of his people, the only way that the promise could be fulfilled was within the context of this time and place. In other words: in human history.
 
Given their limited view of life, if God’s people were to be vindicated, it was going to happen there in the holy land. The consummation would probably be on Mt Zion, in Jerusalem - the holy city.
 
Isaiah’s outlook, therefore, is very terrestrial. i.e. of this world.
But we’re still left wondering – when’s it going to happen?
At what date and time?
 
This brings us to the reading from the gospel of Matthew regarding John the Baptist.
Here we see John waiting in prison.
He was expecting the fulfilment to happen through the Messiah – his cousin Jesus - the man whom he had recently baptised in the River Jordan.
 
But the news, brought to John by his disciples, wasn’t all that encouraging.
Jesus hadn’t launched the kingdom in any way that John could recognise.
Jesus hadn’t recruited an army - either of men, or of fiery angels. 
Maybe he, John, was mistaken and Jesus wasn’t actually the Messiah.
He sent the disciples back to Jesus with the plaintive message:
“Are you the Messiah who is to come, or must we look for someone else?”
 
Jesus responded by asking John’s disciples to report what they see and hear:
“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them.”
 
If John’s disciples would only look and listen, they’d be able to see that Isaiah’s prophecy was being fulfilled in front of their very eyes.
It hadn’t come with a display of fearsome power, or with a host of fiery angels; but it had commenced in one humble man, who loved people without reserve.
 
One thing, included in Matthew, that Isaiah did not expect, or promise, are the words: “The dead are raised.”
 
This says that the vindication of God’s children is not confined to the brief passage of our life on earth. 
John himself is soon to be executed, but he’ll still see the fulfilment of Isaiah’s magnificent vision.
What isn’t completed within time will be completed outside of time;
what isn’t consummated on earth, will be consummated in heaven.
 
I like to think that the poor, incarcerated, but noble figure – John - got the message loud and clear. 
He certainly deserved it.
 
We’re not tied to that limited view of life which was held by the Jews in the time of Isaiah, or John.
It doesn’t all have to happen here and now - for God has unlimited patience.
With Jesus, we know that we belong to God for both time and eternity, and for us, the promises of Isaiah may happen within history, or they may happen beyond history; in time, or in eternity; in mortal life, or in life beyond death.
God’s people will be vindicated, one way or another.
 
That shouldn’t, in the least way, let us minimise the importance of striving - with all our heart, soul and strength - to achieve as much of the promise as we can, right now, here on earth. 
 
Note that we’re NOT supposed to sit around in pious resignation, waiting for the next life to put everything right.
We’re NOT to be religious bundles of misery - cynical about all that’s happening in the world around us today.
We ARE, however, to be the body of Christ, continuing his mission in this time and in this place.
We ARE to be co-workers in the era of fulfillment, the age of new hope and great joy!
 
Our place is alongside all of those who are trying to achieve the joyful things Isaiah dreamed and spoke about.
 
Joy to the people who make the cochlear ear, to those who create the new generation of artificial limbs.
Joy to those peacemakers who give their lives in the cause of reconciliation, to those, who by their deeds, are good news to the poor of the world.
Joy to people who, like those in the Fred Hollows Foundation, give sight to the blind in many third-world countries, to those who cure lepers, nurse people with COVID, or immunise others against diseases.
Joy to those who dedicate their lives to medical research, to those who toil in the cause of justice and peace.
Joy to those who help increase food production in poorer countries, to those who welcome refugees and give them a new homeland.
Joy to all who bring hope to any sphere of human misery and to those who spread the Gospel – news that the new age has been launched by Jesus.
 
So we see that Isaiah got it right when he said: 
“Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to the faint-hearted: “Be strong, fear not!”
Christ comes to fulfil all things.
And those whom God has redeemed shall return to Zion with singing;
On their heads shall be unending joy, gladness and laughter shall stay with them, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
 
Let us pray as we consider this message.
 
Loving Lord God, help us to understand your timings and not get caught up in the short-sightedness of our humanness.
You have given us everything we need, so help us to get on with the job of working for your Kingdom, by our actions and prayers, helping others to also share and join in praising you.
In the name of Jesus, the Messiah, we pray.      Amen
 
Pastor Rick

Have you noticed how often the writers of the New Testament make reference to the Old Testament scriptures?

It’s not surprising, as they were all good Jews, who would have regularly studied those readings at the synagogue.
​
Their heritage didn’t disappear just because they had decided to follow Jesus.
Jesus himself quoted the old scriptures, often to show the people that what had been written, was now becoming reality, both in and through his birth, his ministry and later, his death and resurrection.
 
Today, we encounter a strange image for the coming Messiah in our reading from Isaiah 11, where it says that: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
I want you to picture what this looks like - and I’m sure you’ve seen it before - a tree gets chopped down to a stump and a short time later, a small shoot starts growing out of it.
Most people view this as an unwanted eyesore.
These little shoots that grow out of stumps, are actually known by the unflattering name of “suckers,” and there are all kinds of remedies for how to seal off a stump and prevent it from giving out new shoots of life.
 
Israel’s enemies had tried every way they knew to seal off the stump of Jesse - the root of the throne of David.
War, slavery, imprisonment, starvation – the ancestors of Jesus suffered all this - and more.
There had not been a viable king on the throne of Israel for generations.
Yet, somehow, there was still life stirring in this burnt-out old stump.
 
Now, in this season of Advent, is when we see the tiny little shoot begin to sprout.
It’s so fragile and one wrong move could see it die – maybe too much, or too little water, the wrong amount of sunlight or wind, even a tiny bug could come along and destroy it - and it’s totally defenceless.
 
When you think about it, it’s an odd image for the writer of Isaiah to use to describe the coming King of Israel - a fragile shoot growing out of an unsightly old stump.
Not a very triumphant or powerful image - but that’s what Advent is all about.
It’s about coming to terms with the profound knowledge that God chose to come to Earth in such a vulnerable state: as a defenceless human baby, called Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary.
 
Neither a baby, nor a tiny branch growing out of stump, is likely to last long against its enemies.
The angel says to the shepherds, “Don’t be afraid” and that’s what lies behind God’s courage to let Jesus be born as a helpless baby, the little shoot out of the stump that could be cut down at any moment.
But that’s also part of how we should reorient our mindset during Advent.
The truth is that we’ve entered into a new era of peace and God’s kingdom has arrived.
 
Isaiah paints a picture of what that kingdom is like: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
Peace and wholeness, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew prefers to call it, have arrived.
We’re in a safe place and it’s ok to be vulnerable, to reach out, to stretch out and grow.
The interesting thing about branches on trees, is that they grow right on the edge.
None of the growth of a tree branch happens internally, down in the trunk.
New cells are produced right at the very edge and build outward – fragile, but brave.
 
What are the parts of your life that you feel are unfinished and vulnerable, stopping you from growing new shoots?
To find out, we must read again the message of the angels of peace, hearing and responding to the command “Don’t be afraid”, in order to let that new growth within ourselves have a fighting chance.
 
The new life and new growth that Jesus brings, don’t always arrive in the obvious places.
We need to look for birth and growth within ourselves and our neighbours in all places, even in the cold, forgotten, frosty and inhospitable places, as well as in the bright, springlike times.
And the storms that we experience are important to our new growth.
 
In America in the 1990s, there was a project called Biodome - an effort to create a totally self-contained biological environment - a mini-Earth - sealed away from the outside world.
Some of it was successful, but one of the most baffling disappointments, was the trees.
They had the sunlight and water and all the nutrients they needed, but as they grew, they couldn’t stand up straight. They flopped over on the ground, weak and limp.
The scientists finally realized that there was one vital ingredient of the outside world they had forgotten - wind.
In nature, the wind blows and causes tiny micro-cracks in the trunk and branches of trees.
Trees rely on this trauma for their growth.
Standing straight to the wind, breaking a little, but rebuilding at the same time, is what helps them grow stronger.
 
Did you ever think that you might actually “need” the storms that are in your life?
That they might be as pivotal to your growth as the good days of sunshine?
 
John the Baptist descends like a furious storm in our gospel today, arriving with locusts and vipers and axes and fire.
How does his warlike message of wrath harmonise with the promised peace of the wolf lying down with the lamb?
 
Remember the image of the shoot growing up out of the stump?
Take a step back and consider how that environment was created.
A tree had to be chopped down to a stump in order for the new shoot to grow up out of it.
John the Baptist says, “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees.”
He is the very personification of that message and he’s arrived to shock us out of our complacency, to call us to chop down and root out all the old habits of greed and shame and selfishness, that have grown up within our souls.
 
Advent is the start of a new church year, and it’s time to begin with a fresh slate.
We’re told by John the Baptist to “bear fruit worthy of repentance”, but what does that mean?
I believe it to mean that all the old condemnations of ourselves and others need to be chopped down and thrown away, making room for the new shoot of Jesus to grow up within us – that’s how we prepare the way of the Lord.
 
John the Baptist isn’t preaching a message of condemnation, but rather one of liberation, of freedom, from the thick, choking overgrowth of sin that’s trapped us in misery and hopelessness.
And for all the ferocious strength of his message, which we must take seriously to heart, what action does he preach?             
Repentance.
And from what act does he take his name, John the Baptist?              
Baptising people, of course.

Even as he pours down the fire of his words, he also pours out the gentle stream of water on the heads of the repent-ers at the River Jordan, blessing them with the cleansing stream that foretells the “Living Water “ (Jesus).
He waters the potential of the believers - that a new shoot of life might have the chance to blossom and grow.
 
So, too, is the season of Advent our own opportunity to test the edge of the waters of Jordan, gathering our courage to let the Holy Spirit of baptism – with the fierce fire that burns away the brambles of sin and the gentle water that nurtures the fragile growth of new life – once again cleanse our souls as we prepare for the coming of Christ.
 
In the season of Advent, the season of expectation and possibility, the spirit of the coming Christ is looking for fertile ground in which to grow up, a new shoot out of the old stump.
Isaiah proclaims that “on that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”
 
You might feel that you’re a bit like that old stump - cut down and useless, but we can make ourselves into that dwelling place, made glorious and new, by Christ’s presence in our life.
 
Let’s dedicate ourselves to hosting the coming Christ within us, and we’ll find ourselves displaying grace in completely new ways that we never expected, newborn shoots of life growing up to bear good fruit.
Let’s be like Jesus - and branch out into the world - preparing for his second coming.
 
May many Advent blessings be upon you and your loved ones.

Pastor Rick