3 Advent B 2023
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
It’s Joy Sunday, always the third Sunday of Advent.
But this Joy Sunday, here at Philippi, is overshadowed by the suffering of some of our church family. Floyd Ward passed away in the early hours this morning after having lost his last two sons in just over one month earlier this fall.
The Crittenden family is also under strain in the loss of Turk Crittenden and the ongoing needs of Lucina. And of course, last Sunday, we heard of the death of Gary Reidel, husband to Sue, the manager of our local 7-11, who has served our community there for some thirty years. Ted has lost a brother. Others of our families are facing economic problems and health problems and family problems.
What’s there to be joyful about?
Strangely for Joy Sunday, we hear a second version of the story of John, elsewhere called the Baptist. But not by John’s Gospel. John the author is not the same as John the Baptist, but for John’s Gospel, John is not “the Baptist.” He is simply John, sent to testify to the light, a light that had already come into the world by the time we meet him. He tells his interrogators what he had seen and heard, the dove alighting on Jesus as he was baptized, and the voice from heaven that revealed what this meant.
There doesn’t seem to be much joy in the story at first glance. It’s the story of a powerful group of religious leaders who are threatened by a successful prophet among the rural poor and who descend on him to interrogate him. They ask him the same questions over and over, and he keeps denying their accusations. They try to nudge John into making a claim for himself, so they can then publicly discredit and shame him.
But he denies any claim to greatness in himself. This is the first spiritual lesson we gain from this great man about witnessing to the gospel: humility.
Both Turk Crittenden and Floyd Ward were exemplars of this Christian virtue, as was my own dad, and so many of the great people we all remember of what is sometimes called the greatest generation. I remember arguing with this young twerp about manhood. He was asserting that men are supposed to be aggressive and dominating and even violent. While I recognize that in the real world, military action is sometimes required, and Christian men have met their civil duty with honor. But the men you and I remember were neither aggressive or dominating.
They had instead a quiet and gentle strength, a strength only called upon for the benefit of others and never to bully or dominate. To me, this model of manhood has always inspired me. Humility is a virtue I strive for but mostly fail to accomplish, and it seems to be missing from the model of manhood that young twerp seemed to believe in.
I think it is likely that there are families in our community that might not have survived some lean winters without people like Turk Crittenden quietly dropping off crates of sweet potatoes or game meat he or someone else had shot to people he know needed it. No fanfare, no announcement. Just generosity to those in need, done in secret for the sake of that treasure in heaven Jesus promises us.
Floyd’s gentleness and kindness was an inspiration to his very large extended family, who all called him “Paw” in recognition of his example as a man of principle, kindness, and above all, humility.
The second quality in the witness of John in our story today is that it was public. Neither Floyd nor Turk called attention to themselves, but they joined with us and all the Christians who have been a part of our church in giving public witness every Sunday to their faith in Jesus Christ. Like John, they didn’t point to themselves or to any human being or human-made thing, except for Jesus, the light of the world, and they did it in public. Those who claim you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian have forgotten our obligation to make not only private commitment but also public witness.
The last virtue we see in John that we also have seen in Turk and Floyd and so many others we have known is honesty, and this is perhaps the virtue the church on earth most desperately needs right now. John’s Gospel gives us repeated examples of the role of simple honesty in our witness. We are not called to make up a god of our own liking to believe in, one that is indulgent and permissive toward our gossip and our greed and our self-dishonesty and our anger and hatred. John testifies, as many do in John, not to his conjecture but what he had seen and heard. Today, when so many make up their own truth, perhaps more than ever, we Christians need to rededicate ourselves to this simple virtue.
I’ve put this work of art by our own Earl Simpson up here to build on some of what I’ve been preaching this Advent. We who remember and who have been formed by the Christian practices of humility, public witness and rigorous honesty, by people like Turk and Floyd and Norton and Willis and Elaine and so many others, are called now to turn to the upcoming generation in our community, to model and to witness to this beautiful light for our younger neighbors, to raise them up to join with God and each other to continue to make our community and our world into the new one God is making, a world of peace, truth, and justice.
Let’s listen now as Mark offers a special song, just for this moment in our congregation’s life.
These saints we have lost are not gone forever. We will see them again. More importantly, while we live, we are called how they lived, that in their day-to-day lives, these poor ornery people, like you and like I, were transformed by the power of the resurrection as a sign of the great joy that is coming for us all, the one who is greater, the one who is worthy, the one who is the author of our lives and the lover of our souls, Jesus Christ, who can and will transform us into children of God, just as he did those beloved saints who have gone on to eternity before us.
Joy Sunday, indeed.
Amen.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
It’s Joy Sunday, always the third Sunday of Advent.
But this Joy Sunday, here at Philippi, is overshadowed by the suffering of some of our church family. Floyd Ward passed away in the early hours this morning after having lost his last two sons in just over one month earlier this fall.
The Crittenden family is also under strain in the loss of Turk Crittenden and the ongoing needs of Lucina. And of course, last Sunday, we heard of the death of Gary Reidel, husband to Sue, the manager of our local 7-11, who has served our community there for some thirty years. Ted has lost a brother. Others of our families are facing economic problems and health problems and family problems.
What’s there to be joyful about?
Strangely for Joy Sunday, we hear a second version of the story of John, elsewhere called the Baptist. But not by John’s Gospel. John the author is not the same as John the Baptist, but for John’s Gospel, John is not “the Baptist.” He is simply John, sent to testify to the light, a light that had already come into the world by the time we meet him. He tells his interrogators what he had seen and heard, the dove alighting on Jesus as he was baptized, and the voice from heaven that revealed what this meant.
There doesn’t seem to be much joy in the story at first glance. It’s the story of a powerful group of religious leaders who are threatened by a successful prophet among the rural poor and who descend on him to interrogate him. They ask him the same questions over and over, and he keeps denying their accusations. They try to nudge John into making a claim for himself, so they can then publicly discredit and shame him.
But he denies any claim to greatness in himself. This is the first spiritual lesson we gain from this great man about witnessing to the gospel: humility.
Both Turk Crittenden and Floyd Ward were exemplars of this Christian virtue, as was my own dad, and so many of the great people we all remember of what is sometimes called the greatest generation. I remember arguing with this young twerp about manhood. He was asserting that men are supposed to be aggressive and dominating and even violent. While I recognize that in the real world, military action is sometimes required, and Christian men have met their civil duty with honor. But the men you and I remember were neither aggressive or dominating.
They had instead a quiet and gentle strength, a strength only called upon for the benefit of others and never to bully or dominate. To me, this model of manhood has always inspired me. Humility is a virtue I strive for but mostly fail to accomplish, and it seems to be missing from the model of manhood that young twerp seemed to believe in.
I think it is likely that there are families in our community that might not have survived some lean winters without people like Turk Crittenden quietly dropping off crates of sweet potatoes or game meat he or someone else had shot to people he know needed it. No fanfare, no announcement. Just generosity to those in need, done in secret for the sake of that treasure in heaven Jesus promises us.
Floyd’s gentleness and kindness was an inspiration to his very large extended family, who all called him “Paw” in recognition of his example as a man of principle, kindness, and above all, humility.
The second quality in the witness of John in our story today is that it was public. Neither Floyd nor Turk called attention to themselves, but they joined with us and all the Christians who have been a part of our church in giving public witness every Sunday to their faith in Jesus Christ. Like John, they didn’t point to themselves or to any human being or human-made thing, except for Jesus, the light of the world, and they did it in public. Those who claim you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian have forgotten our obligation to make not only private commitment but also public witness.
The last virtue we see in John that we also have seen in Turk and Floyd and so many others we have known is honesty, and this is perhaps the virtue the church on earth most desperately needs right now. John’s Gospel gives us repeated examples of the role of simple honesty in our witness. We are not called to make up a god of our own liking to believe in, one that is indulgent and permissive toward our gossip and our greed and our self-dishonesty and our anger and hatred. John testifies, as many do in John, not to his conjecture but what he had seen and heard. Today, when so many make up their own truth, perhaps more than ever, we Christians need to rededicate ourselves to this simple virtue.
I’ve put this work of art by our own Earl Simpson up here to build on some of what I’ve been preaching this Advent. We who remember and who have been formed by the Christian practices of humility, public witness and rigorous honesty, by people like Turk and Floyd and Norton and Willis and Elaine and so many others, are called now to turn to the upcoming generation in our community, to model and to witness to this beautiful light for our younger neighbors, to raise them up to join with God and each other to continue to make our community and our world into the new one God is making, a world of peace, truth, and justice.
Let’s listen now as Mark offers a special song, just for this moment in our congregation’s life.
These saints we have lost are not gone forever. We will see them again. More importantly, while we live, we are called how they lived, that in their day-to-day lives, these poor ornery people, like you and like I, were transformed by the power of the resurrection as a sign of the great joy that is coming for us all, the one who is greater, the one who is worthy, the one who is the author of our lives and the lover of our souls, Jesus Christ, who can and will transform us into children of God, just as he did those beloved saints who have gone on to eternity before us.
Joy Sunday, indeed.
Amen.
