SPEAKER_00: And so may I speak in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like, would you like to turn to the final page in your orders of service?
SPEAKER_00: There's an image on the back there that I hope will aid us in our reflections this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is just a section cropped out and enlarged of a much bigger piece, which is called The Crucifixion of Jesus by Matthias Grunwald.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the altar piece that he painted and it's on display in Essenne in France.
SPEAKER_00: I'd highly recommend going to have a look at the whole image.
SPEAKER_00: It's really quite beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to focus on the way Matthias paints John the Baptist, and I think it will lead us into some interesting thoughts this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If I was to ask you what action defines John the Baptist's life, you may well be tempted to answer the question baptizing.
SPEAKER_00: That's the clue's in the name.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, come on.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist baptized people.
SPEAKER_00: That is the action that sums up all that John did.
SPEAKER_00: But of course, it's a trick question.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to suggest that he would be better off being known as John the Pointer.
SPEAKER_00: John the Pointer.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I like this painting by Matthias Grunwald, because he really demonstrates this part of John's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: You notice how long the finger is, kind of extraordinarily long, pointing to the crucified Christ and pointing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So, what are the things that John points at?
SPEAKER_00: Are they the same things that are grabbing our attention at the moment?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'd like us to spend some time thinking about.
SPEAKER_00: John the pointer.
SPEAKER_00: When the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to Jesus and come to John, so I'm going to do that all morning, by the way, John and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's like whenever someone preaches on Paul or Peter and they say Jesus when they mean Paul or Peter, I apologize in advance.
SPEAKER_00: Every time, when the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to John and say, Who are you?
SPEAKER_00: He quotes Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I am like the guy in Isaiah who walks ahead of the king, shouting, crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, prepare the path.
SPEAKER_00: John's gospel here is quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, verses 3 to 5.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to read them in a second.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if, as I read them, you will again find yourself with Handel's Messiah in your mind's eye or your mind's ear.
SPEAKER_00: Remember two weeks ago we heard the famous passage, comfort ye.
SPEAKER_00: And you can hear Handel's writing, Comfort ye, comfort my people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here we get the second ten aria from that same section, right to the start of Handel's Messiah, where he's quoting from John 40.
SPEAKER_00: A voice cries in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
SPEAKER_00: Every valley, it's this bit here, every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
SPEAKER_00: Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: There was a practice in the ancient world of when they knew a king or a royal dignitary was coming to the city, they would go out and find the main highway into that city and prepare it.
SPEAKER_00: They would make it straight.
SPEAKER_00: Bear in mind these are often dirt paths that are just packed down from hundreds of thousands of people walking on them.
SPEAKER_00: So they're not well maintained.
SPEAKER_00: And so they get rubble on them and they find holes in them.
SPEAKER_00: And so the practice in the ancient world was for someone to come ahead of the king and say to the city, prepare the road because the king is coming.
SPEAKER_00: The king likely to arrive on a chariot or some sort of carriage.
SPEAKER_00: And so every time his wheels go over the pothole or stumble on the stone, it's bumpy for him.
SPEAKER_00: And no one wants the king to arrive in a bad mood because he's had a bumpy journey the whole way.
SPEAKER_00: And so the city would prepare the road.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, you could imagine Blackburn Council would do exactly the same thing, wouldn't they?
SPEAKER_00: You know today that if a royal visitation was planned at Blackburn Cathedral, the week before the council would be out filling all the potholes nearby because no one wants King Charles's royal Bentley to have to use its suspension.
SPEAKER_00: And so they would still, to this day, prepare the way for the royal visitation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what Isaiah does in this passage is he takes that ancient practice and he blows it up to cosmic levels.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we're not just talking about a royal human being who's coming down the road to us, we're talking about the arrival of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the creator of all things.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're not just filling in potholes and clearing rubble.
SPEAKER_00: We are leveling mountains and raising up valleys.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: When you hear Handel's Messiah, every valley shall be exalted, every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be brought low, the way will be made straight, not just for a human king, but for the king of kings and the lord of lords, the king of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: And when he arrives, the glory of the laws will be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: And John says of himself, you know that guy who runs ahead of the king and proclaims to the city, prepare the road because the king's coming.
SPEAKER_00: John the Pointer says, I'm that guy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pointing you to the road.
SPEAKER_00: It must be prepared because the king is coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's natural, isn't it, in this season to spend December preparing for Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what your Christmas preparations have looked like.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've been cleaning the kitchen, getting ready for the in-laws turning up, or going to buy a piece of a good joint of beef, or putting up tinsel around the house, or getting a tree ready, preparing your house for the celebrations of next weekend.
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural, important, and good part of December in this culture.
SPEAKER_00: Here's John's first question for us this morning as he points to the road that's in each one of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Have you prepared for the coming of King Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Are you spiritually, emotionally, mentally prepared?
SPEAKER_00: Just as you're preparing your house, are you preparing your heart?
SPEAKER_00: AA Alcoholics Anonymous has a phrase for this that I find extremely helpful.
SPEAKER_00: The phrase is have you done a fearless moral inventory?
SPEAKER_00: Fearless.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to choose not to be afraid of the answer.
SPEAKER_00: Moral.
SPEAKER_00: I want to question the sin and the brokenness, the immorality of my own life inventory.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go down the list and as detailed as I can find out how I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: This is the work of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: John the Pointer points to the road inside each one of our hearts and says, Have you done the work of preparation?
SPEAKER_00: Have you taken a fearless moral inventory this season?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready for the coming of the king?
SPEAKER_00: I have had in my life the very painful and very fortunate experience of being mentored by people who have pointed out my sin to me.
SPEAKER_00: I have had many uncomfortable conversations with people who know me well, who have said, I see this pattern of behavior in your life and it stinks.
SPEAKER_00: Stop it and do better.
SPEAKER_00: Never fun, never fun conversations and utterly life-changing and life-giving.
SPEAKER_00: So I'd encourage you in the next seven days to do the work of preparing your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And if necessary, and I would say preferably, find someone who can say those words to you, who can be John the Baptist for you, and point at the way and say, Are you prepared?
SPEAKER_00: There's one other thing that John very importantly points to.
SPEAKER_00: John points to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He points to the coming king.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know if you managed to come to the Christmas spectacular yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: It truly was spectacular, but and the music was mind-blowing, but I was blown away by a little theological nugget that was dropped by John Robinson in one of his introductions to a piece.
SPEAKER_00: John said this just in passing.
SPEAKER_00: Christmas is the season where we celebrate the upending of the world order.
SPEAKER_00: The upending of the world order.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that's what he said because it immediately struck me, and I wrote it down before I could forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is precisely the case.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist points to King Jesus and upends the world order.
SPEAKER_00: See, Isaiah imagines an earth-shattering event, the coming of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords arriving in Jerusalem, valleys are being raised up, mountains are being brought low, and John the Baptist is there to point at the moment when the King of Kings arrives.
SPEAKER_00: And he arrives humble, born in a manger, in lowly circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords arrives, and before he's done anything, he upturns, upends the world order.
SPEAKER_00: One day, not too long away, the king will arrive in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But he won't actually arrive on a war horse or in a carriage or in a chariot.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the sort of king that needs to have a comfortable journey on his way to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He'll arrive on a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: And his arrival will be so unexpected that the crowd will have to scrabble to prepare for the arrival of the king.
SPEAKER_00: And so, all the best they can do, they throw their coats down in front of his donkey, and they grab palm leaves off nearby branches and put them on the ground because they want to prepare the way, but they were so unready for the arrival of this king, so unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: So John points to the arrival of the king, but it's not the king that we expect, it's not a king coming in majesty, it's a king arriving lowly and humble.
SPEAKER_00: This is what made John the Baptist the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets.
SPEAKER_00: I know he sneaks in to the start of the New Testament, but he is technically an Old Testament prophet.
SPEAKER_00: He gets to point to the to Jesus, the King, that all the previous prophets have just been imagining and hoping for.
SPEAKER_00: John gets the great honor of pointing to the person they were all aiming for.
SPEAKER_00: And so as John the Pointer informs our thoughts this morning and prepares us, helps us to prepare for the coming of the king.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask, how prepared are you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have time this week to take a fearless moral inventory?
SPEAKER_00: Not just prepare your kitchen and your turkey, but prepare your heart for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who is coming and who will entirely upend the world order.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.