Isaiah 35.1-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11

John is in prison. He’s been put there by King Herod, ostensibly because he had criticised the king for his stealing of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. No one likes their actions, especially if they know deep down they are wrong, to be shown up by another. But I suspect too that Herod was feeling threatened by John’s outspokenness in other areas too, perhaps particularly John’s proclamations about the coming Messiah.

John is having to face up to doubts about the coming Messiah. He had been proclaiming, as we heard last week, that someone much more powerful than him was to come, someone who would bring judgment and fire, who would protect the righteous but condemn the sinner.

John, tucked away in prison, has time to think. We can understand the sort of questions he might be asking. Was I right? I was so sure about the message I was proclaiming, and, yet, he’s not like that. I expected Jesus to come in power. Why haven’t the religious leaders started recognising him if he really is the Messiah? How could I have been so wrong?

All sorts of questions spinning round his head. And they’re the sort of questions that we too are sometimes faced with. Was I so wrong? I remember a time in my life when all sorts of similar questions were racing round my head. I had been recommended for ordination training and had gone off to college to train full-time for two years. But, during my second term there, everything went wrong. I became ill and had to leave the college, stop my training, and wasn’t able to resume it at that point.

I had all sorts of questions – was I doing the right thing in the first place? Had I got my calling from God so wrong? Was God playing games with me? And so on.

Doubts about what we are doing often surface when the plan that we thought had been set out for our lives failed to come to be in the way we expected it to happen. I had expected to train and then be ordained in 1996. John had expected to herald the way for a great Redeemer, a king, a leader who would bring about such change that it couldn’t be ignored.

John’s questions didn’t remain only with him. He needed to have an answer so he sent some of his disciples to see Jesus to find out from the man himself if he was the one or if John had got it wrong.

Jesus didn’t give a straightforward answer – he didn’t say yes or no. Instead he pointed them towards what he had been doing – restoring the sight of the blind, the mobility of the lame, the cleansing of the leper, the hearing of the deaf, returning life to the dead and preaching good news to the poor.

These too were traditional pictures of the messiah. Change your image of what you are expecting is the underlying message. Forget the great and powerful images, forget the images of a rescuer who would bring down fire, and think back to the images of healing and restoration. There are enough signs of God’s mercy in what Jesus was doing to allay any doubts about who he was. Jesus has brought about the time of restoration and healing foretold in Isaiah.

Jesus answers John’s doubts by pointing to the freedom he has brought. The first part of today’s reading addresses John’s questions: who is Jesus? Is he the one who is to come?

The second part of today’s reading addresses the crowd’s unspoken questions: who is John? What had they traipsed into the wilderness to see? A reed? A person in smart clothing? There is perhaps an irony in Jesus’s use of the word reed – Herod used the reed as a symbol on some of his coins, but he could be seen himself as a reed, not stable in what he did, being blown about by every whim – he moved his capital from Sepphoris to Tiberias; he exchanged one wife for another; he would change his political loyalties to whatever would help his own cause most.

But back to John – the people hadn’t got it wrong when they perceived John to be God’s prophet. That’s what he is, Jesus says. He’s more than all the prophets of the past. But the tension between old and new covenants is also in evidence – though John is greater than all the people of the past, in God’s kingdom, even the least is greater than he is.

Christians can be scared of admitting, like John, that they have doubts. But it is often through acknowledging and addressing doubt that our faith grows. Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unanumo said “Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.”

We often see doubt as the opposite of faith, and yet in one way, it is certainty that is the opposite of faith. Without the possibility of doubt, there can be no faith. Faith is about trust, it’s about believing in things you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is about trusting a person, Jesus, and the promises of God.

We are called to be like children, to trust, to put our faith in God. Yet I don’t think we are called to have a faith about which we never think or reflect. It has been said that unthinking faith is a curious offering to be made to the creator of the human mind. If we take our faith seriously, we should reflect on it. It’s one of the ways in which we can grow closer to God.

There is a tension about living in the now and not yet time in which we live, the time when God’s kingdom has been inaugurated but not yet fully come.

It is natural in this case to ask questions about the fulfilment of God’s kingdom. John was facing in prison the fact that is dreams of a new age seemed to be broken dreams. It is understandable if we look at our world where there is so much suffering and pain to question that, to ask why, to ask how a loving God can allow pain like that to continue. But we have to learn to live without clear answers to those questions. God’s kingdom is not fully realised and until that happens there will be pain and suffering.

Peter Abelard said “The beginning of wisdom is found in doubt; by doubting we come to the question and by seeking we may come upon the truth.” Doubt is not to be feared but to be offered to God.

Look at what John did with his doubts – he went to Jesus. What do we do when we doubt? Do we push our doubts away, trying to ignore them? Or do we turn to God with them?

To ignore doubt is not an honest way forward. It’s not a way of integrity because it’s a way that seeks to cover up the truth of our feelings. To try and ignore doubt rather than to address it is to pretend, to live falsely.

The best way to counteract doubt is to give attention to one’s faith.

When John was doubting, Jesus pointed him towards the work of God. God never turns away an honest doubter.  Part of the Christian life is accepting that we don’t know and understand everything.

John turned to Jesus with his doubts and Jesus in response to the crowd showed how much faith and trust he placed in John. He didn’t turn round and say – that John, he’s useless, because he’s expressing doubt. He told them that John was the greatest of all who had come.

The danger is that when we meet doubt, we give up on God, rather than come before him with our doubts. If we are too sure about God, there is no room for God’s mercy to surprise, no room for new glimpses of God’s glory, no room for greater understanding of God’s ways.

For, if we are too sure, we become in danger of drawing a big black line around God, of attempting to confine God to what we already know, of trying to limit God’s power. We make God too small when we are 100 per cent sure of what God is like.

In talking about doubt, I am not trying to knock faith. I certainly wouldn’t want to do that, since it is faith that has a central part in my life. But I do want us not to be scared of acknowledging doubts.

In acknowledging doubt before God, we are, in a paradoxical way, making a statement of faith. The biggest danger comes when we are not willing to face our doubt; that’s when doubt can grow, unseen and like a cancer. That’s when doubt becomes a destructive force, not an opportunity for God to reveal more of his love and himself.

So, as we watch and wait in what is left of the Advent season, let us be honest about our doubt, that our faith may grow.

Malachi 4.1-2a; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace,
hail the sun of righteousness,
light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give them second birth.
Hark the herald angels sing,
glory to the new-born king.

Words I’m sure that you all recognise, and which in a few weeks’ time, we shall probably all be singing with gusto. It’s a carol written by Charles Wesley, although his own first line – Hark, how all the welkin rings – was altered by George Whitefield to the one with which we are familiar. In Wesley’s time, it was sung to an entirely different tune.
In fact, Wesley himself would probably not have been very pleased with the tune to which we now sing this carol, since he required his words to be sung to something slow and dignified.

And nor would Mendelssohn, composer of the tune that we know, have been very happy either, since his instructions were that the tune to which we sing this carol was to be kept for secular purposes. He wrote it to celebrate the achievements of the printer Gutenberg, 400 years earlier.

I wonder whether anyone knows what the word welkin means. It’s a word used for the heavens of the sky. And I wonder how often you have thought about the meaning of what you are singing when you sing this or any other hymn or carol. Especially with things we know as well as this carol, there is a temptation to sing our hearts out without engaging our brains – we are so familiar with the words. 

Have you ever wondered about the phrase “sun of righteousness”?  Did you know it went back to the prophet Malachi? How much do you know about Malachi? I hope by the end of today, you’ll know more than did before.

No one knows exactly when the prophet Malachi lived, though most commentators believe that the book originated some time during the Second Temple Period. The first Temple was destroyed in 587 BC, and a smaller version finished and rededicated in 516 BC.

The temple is functioning when Malachi is prophesying, so it must have a date later than 516. Most theologians hesitate to be any more precise than to say it was written during the period when the Persians ruled, so some time between 516BC and 333BC.

As for who Malachi was, again there is some debate. A few scholars see him as a real person; most of them think the book originates with an anonymous prophet – the word Malachi in Hebrew is translated as “my messenger”.

And certainly, it would make sense to see Malachi as God’s messenger since his prophecies are clear and direct. The prophet, whoever he was, carries a message from God. Indeed, that is what a prophet is – not necessarily someone who tells the future as is commonly thought, but someone who has a message from God.

The book of Malachi is laid out as a series of dialogues or debates between God, Yahweh, and his people. There are six of these exchanges; our reading today comes from the last of these.  The people have been complaining that worshipping God has brought them no benefits, and that those who prosper are the wicked rather than the righteous.
But there is a hopeful message from God for those who are righteous. The time will come when the wicked and the righteous will be judged; and the sun of righteousness will rise upon them, bringing healing.

The second half of verse 2 has a wonderful picture – I’m not sure quite why the lectionary compliers have omitted it. I’ll read the whole of that verse to you: “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” It’s a picture of people liberated from what binds them, leaping with joy at the freedom they have.

As I was preparing this sermon, I found a wonderful quotation talking about this verse. David Pawson, who writes on biblical themes, says this in one of his books: “I used to get up at four in the morning to milk 90 cows on a farm in Northumberland. During the winter we kept the cattle indoors and fed them on cake and hay for months.
“Then came the day when we let them out for the first time in the spring. If you know anything about country life, you know what happened next. Even the oldest cow would jump around the field for joy. Malachi says this is how it will be for the people of God. They too will leap for joy on the day when God comes to bring final salvation to his people.”

Malachi in his prophecy concentrates hard on the theme of God’s covenant with his people. His book ends with two images – that of Moses representing the Law, the Torah; and that of Elijah, representing the Prophets. These two pillars were at the heart of Judaism.

Malachi was the last Old Testament prophet; it is he that introduces the Jewish idea that Elijah must return before God’s day of judgement. Even today at Passover, Jewish families leave a spare seat at the table for Elijah, and the children often re-enact going out to look for him coming.
But for us Christians this idea has importance too, and provides a bridge between Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament ends with the image of Elijah coming again; at the beginning of the New Testament, we see in all four Gospels, John the Baptist as the new Elijah.

Elijah’s role is to forewarn people about the judgement which is to come, when, as the beginning of today’s reading puts it, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. But, in spite of this warning, the book of Malachi’s prophecies end with a message of hope.

The final verse, which comes very shortly after the bit we heard this morning, says this: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day when the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.”

Wesley’s carol highlights the fact that it is through Jesus that this hope is brought to fruition. He clearly equates the sun of righteousness with the one who brings light and life, healing and resurrection. These are promises that hold for us through our faith in Jesus.

But throughout the Bible and in Jesus’s own teachings, there is the urgent cry for us to be on guard, to be aware and ready for the time of judgement. The idlers about which we heard in our epistle reading are those who are not ready for the coming again of Christ – they seem to be sitting back and doing nothing.

Getting a balance is not always an easy thing. The Protestant work-ethic can sometimes be taken to extremes – I’m sure we all know workaholics. We all need rest and refreshment and sabbath breaks, but that’s a very different thing to giving up completely.
I have to say I don’t know very many people, certainly not round here, whom I would call lazy. I can however think of many, many people who don’t take seriously the warnings of the prophets and of Jesus himself to be on guard, to be ready for when the sun of righteousness comes.

The great hope is that for those who are prepared an eternity of light and life and healing and joy awaits. That is the Christian hope. That is the hope expressed in those words of Charles Wesley

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace,
hail the sun of righteousness,
light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give them second birth.
Hark the herald angels sing,
glory to the new-born king.