Isaiah 40.1-11; Galatians 3.23-29; Luke 1.57-66, 80

Since Trinity Sunday, our epistle readings have come from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, and will do so for a week or two more, so I thought this morning, we’d start by looking at some background to that letter.

This letter was written not just to one specific church but to a number of churches in Galatia, though we don’t know how many. The people to whom it was written will have heard it read out to them rather than reading it for themselves. It would have been read in its entirety. Our services don’t allow us time to read a whole letter at one time, but it’s a good thing to do sometime to sit down with your Bible and read some of the epistles from start to finish, using a commentary to help you understand the background to each letter.

We have to remember that when the letters were written they were written for specific people in specific situations. I’m sure Paul when he was writing to first-century churches never had in mind that 2000-plus years later, we would still be reading them.

We can never know exactly what was going on in these early Churches but we can glean some idea of the debates, discussions, arguments behind the letters through what they say and don’t say.

In Galatians, we see Paul at his most passionate. He really cares about the people who will read his letter and about them getting the right message about Christianity. The very identity of Christianity is at stake here, so perhaps it’s not surprising that we see Paul’s passion in this letter.

It is likely that Paul had some hand in founding the Galatian churches, so he probably feels very protective towards them. They were a little like his children. So, when he sees them putting their new Christianity at risk, he becomes very passionate and desperate to help them get back on the right track.

The problem is that the churches that Paul founded have been visited more recently by other people with a different message. Paul needs to put his message strongly, if he is to gain them back.

Paul’s opponents were saying that, in order for Christians to be real Christians, they must accept the Jewish Law, lock, stock and barrel. To be a part of God’s people, they were saying, the men would need to be circumcised, they would need to follow rules on clean and unclean food, they must keep Jewish festivals as laid down in Scripture.

And the Galatians seem to have been caught up in this new message. Having rules to keep showed that they belonged to God’s people. Keeping festivals was part of that - of course at this point there were no Christian festivals as we know them. No Christmas or Easter. No saints’ days.

So, although extra rules might at first seem not very inviting, the Galatians were tempted by this new teaching.

But at the heart of Paul’s teaching - and we see this in a number of his letters - is the theme of grace. It is by faith we are saved and not through works of the Law. Paul taught that the law stood only until the coming of Christ. The law was ineffective as a means of salvation because no one could keep it fully. It had been what had held the Jewish people together in the past and given them their identity, but Christianity was a new thing, he argued.

 No longer was it the Law that held God’s people together and gave them their identity, it was Jesus. Let’s have a look again at today’s epistle reading: “Before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.”

Faith replaces the law as the definer of God’s people. Christians are God’s people through their faith in Christ. That’s what makes children of God. None of the old divisions - Jew, Greek, slave, free, male, female - hold up any more because Christians are made one body through the work of Christ.

If Paul had not won out, Christianity would, if it still existed, be a sect of Judaism. Jesus’s death would have been in vain, if keeping the Law had been able to lead to salvation.

But the story of Israel as seen in Scripture made it clear that keeping the Law fully was not possible and so would never bring about salvation.

Today is the day when the Church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist. So what does any of this have to do with him?

More than might seem at first glance. Paul’s tension is between the old and new covenants. Christians are people of the new covenant; his opponents were trying to impose the rules of the old covenant on the people of the new. John is important because he is on the cusp of the two. He is born in the time of the old covenant - his task is to point the way towards the new.

His task, such an important, is to prepare people for this great change that is to come about, to prepare people for the coming of Jesus who brings with him the start of the new way.

John is the herald of good tidings to the people of Israel and through them to the world beyond.

No longer is their salvation dependent on a Law which none on can keep; with Jesus salvation comes through God’s grace. John has been marked out from the beginning for this special task. It’s a bit like Prince William. From the moment of his birth he has been marked out as a future king.

We only have part of the story of John today as our Gospel reading. Let me remind you what went on before. John’s father Zechariah was on duty in the temple offering incense to God when an angel appeared and told him that his wife would bear a son. That boy was to be called John. Zechariah cannot believe the angel’s words, since he knows how old his wife is. As a result, the angel strikes him dumb until all that it has foretold comes true.

We see that happening in today’s reading.

In Bible times, the firstborn son of a family was traditionally named after his father. John, therefore, should have been Zechariah - that explains why the people were astounded when his mother announced that be was to be John.

But there is a tradition too in Scripture of God naming people, giving them names which said something about who they were. And this is what we find here. John means God is gracious - not only has his task been marked out for him, his name sums up that his work is about God’s grace.

It’s all been foretold since the time of Isaiah - “A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.” That is the voice of John, the forerunner of Jesus, the man who straddles the old and new covenants.

And John’s message is important, for no longer do the people of God have to be part of a particular race: The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people will see it together.

John is the one who points the way towards the new future; God’s new future when all can partake of God’s glory.

John is a sign pointing forward, but a sign’s instructions only bear fruit, if they are followed. He points towards Jesus - he is saying that the way to life is coming in Jesus. So, John is saying that we can be part of this new life, if we go to Jesus. Elsewhere we see his message in explicit terms - repent, for the kingdom of heaven is come near. 

That’s where we start - with repentance. Repentance means being honest about the state of our lives. It’s about turning away from sin and towards God.

We shouldn’t become inward-looking navel gazers, but we can only repent, if we are aware of where we’re not living in the way that God hopes for.

Repentance means taking time to assess and review the state of our lives and coming to God for forgiveness. It’s about recognising our need for God.

That need for God finds fulfilment in Christ. That is John’s message to the people of the New Testament, but it’s a message that loses none of its power today. The call through the ages remains now as it was then.