Every year at this time when all the Christmas music is playing at the stores and we are busy with the shopping schedule of getting ready for Christmas we hardly seem to have time to prepare and really get ready to celebrate the reason for the season. Last Sunday we began the season of Advent to prepare us for Christmas. One of the most popular pieces of music over the years at Christmas time has been Handel’s Messiah. I know it was my father’s favorite at Christmas. Terry Parsons from the Episcopal Church Center has given us some background on Handel and his music. She writes:
"The first sentences of the Old Testament reading will be familiar to many as the opening words of Handel’s masterpiece, The Messiah. “‘Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye my people,’ says your God!” It would be difficult to estimate the millions of people who have heard orchestras, soloists, and choirs proclaiming these words of hope and the promise of delivery from the oppression, despair, and sin of the world. The Messiah has been called the most influential and widely performed oratorio of all time. Opera, as we know it, has strong roots in Italian culture, but the oratorio is a very English form of music. Oratorios are somewhat like opera in that they are dramatic works but they are performed in concert, without costumes or staging. Most are based on Old Testament stories. One of the important aspects that set The Messiah apart from other oratorios is that it focuses more on meditation than action. The story of Handel’s writing of this work is also inspiring. George Frederic Handel was born in Germany in 1685. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but as a youth he demonstrated extraordinary musical gifts, mastering several instruments and composing in a variety of styles while still in his teens. He composed music for some of the most important patrons in Europe before settling in England. There, he became London’s leading composer and director of Italian opera. He also became interested in the characteristics of English music and eventually abandoned his operatic writing to concentrate on the English oratorio. Handel shut himself in his room and completed the entire oratorio in the incredibly short time of 21 days. Part I, the prophecy and birth of the Messiah, took only seven days to complete. The first official performance of The Messiah took place on April 17, 1742, and was a tremendous success. Handel conducted the work many times in the remaining years of his life, including a performance eight days before his death on April 14, 1759. During his lifetime, The Messiah was most often heard in the Easter season. Handel himself conducted an annual performance to benefit the Foundling Hospital in London. Today, while the oratorio is often performed in its entirety, it is most often heard in Advent, and then frequently limited to the first section and the story of Jesus’ birth. This music leaves the concert hall ringing with Isaiah’s prophetic words of comfort, release, and God’s glorious return to the earth. Listen, just for a moment to a few of Isaiah’s words that have become familiar to so many of us as lyrics from that oratorio:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people Prepare ye the way Every valley shall be exalted Then the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed Behold your God! "
Did you hear the theme, in the readings this morning? Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God! Let me paraphrase those words of Isaiah that we also hear in the mouth of the John the Baptist.
Prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in our hearts a pathway for our God!!
That is what Advent is all about, preparation for the coming of the LORD, into our hearts as we await his coming in glory. GLORY!! Verse 8 of Psalm 85 says;
"I will listen to what the LORD God is saying; for he is speaking peace to his faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to him."
Isaiah puts it like he works for the State Highway Commission;
"Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low." The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the GLORY of the LORD shall be revealed, and all the people shall see it together..." [Isaiah 40:4-5]
Remember, last week we began this season of Advent, which is Latin for "Coming", and we are talking about the second Coming of Jesus Christ. We are talking about his Parousia. The second part of the message comes this week, Prepare the way of the LORD!! I heard this neat Advent song on the radio in the summer of 1995, the singer’s name was Steve Fry and the title of the song was “I will call on the Lord”. It fits so neatly here:
"I WILL, call on the LORD,
I WILL, make ready His house.
I WILL, call on the LORD,
I WILL, respond to His voice.
Prepare the way of the LORD,
Prepare the way of the LORD."
The years have been marked by our faithless neglect. Now we're within touching the climax of time, will he find faith in the earth?
"I WILL, summon my strength,
I WILL, offer my life.
Till the kingdoms of earth,
Become the kingdoms of Christ.
Prepare the way of the LORD,
Prepare the way of the LORD."
You notice that to prepare the way of the LORD, you must respond to his voice. Do you hear his call? Will you respond? How do you prepare a pathway into your heart for our God? The Mother of God Community has the four spiritual resolutions, which I tell Kairos participants when doing one on one counseling:
1. Read your Bible at least 10-15 minutes a day.
2. Get into some serious Prayer time for at least 10-15 minutes a day.
3. Allow the Holy Spirit to show you where you've fallen short that day and sinned,
then take the garbage out. Confession and repentance.
4. Finally, prepare a plan for spiritual growth. This is where we prepare a RULE OF LIFE,
this is a step in the Way of Love this Advent.
Like the sheep that know the shepherd's voice do you hear him calling? Prepare the way of the LORD! Keep Awake! Keep Alert! Keep Serving! Bear fruit that befits repentance and righteousness! It takes a willing spirit like the song says to prepare the way of the LORD, we must be WILLING to turn and bear fruit that befits Repentance: The action on our part that prepares us and our hearts to receive the coming king. John preached to the people, to repent and prepare themselves for the one who was coming after him. He looked into the hearts of the people from Judea and Jerusalem and proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He told them that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit. And in Matthew's gospel John adds that they would be baptized with fire. In the gospel of John, chapter 3 Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and Jesus told him that he would have to be born again. Nicodemus couldn't understand it and Jesus had to explain that he was talking about being born of the Spirit, from above. In other words, being baptized by the Spirit into a whole new relationship. But that could only come when the heart had been properly prepared and cleansed and made ready to receive that baptism. The fire that John referred to was the celestial, refining fire of God's Spirit. At each ordination service the Bishop intones the " Veni Creator Spiritus" .
It goes:
"Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire, And lighten with celestial fire."
The Holy Spirit's celestial fire is refiner's fire that bums off all the impurities, like the silversmith does when refining silver. He fires the silver ore until all that is left is the pure silver. The refiner knows his work is done when he can see his face reflected in the silver. When the Holy Spirit does his work in our hearts we are changed people, then He can see himself in us. We are made ready to receive the Forgiveness that Jesus brings as the Redeemer of the world. He came to bring the forgiveness of sins that we may be made right with God. But we will not receive the forgiveness unless we accept it.
During Andrew Jackson's Presidency a postal clerk, named George Wilson, robbed a federal payroll from a train and killed a guard. He was sentenced to hang, but because of the public sentiment against capital punishment at the time, a movement began to secure him a presidential pardon. President Jackson did intervene with a pardon, but Wilson refused to accept it. This never happened before so the Supreme Court had to decide, John Marshall handed down the decision.
"A pardon is a parchment whose only value must be determined by the receiver of the pardon. It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives to it. George Wilson has refused to accept the pardon. We cannot conceive why he would do so, but he has. Therefore, George Wilson must die."
Repentance and forgiveness go hand in hand but the hand receiving the forgiveness must be open. You cannot receive anything with a closed hand or a closed heart. Do you hear the voice of the shepherd? Prepare the way of the LORD!!
B. DOCTRINAL POINTS:
1. Mark begins the Good News about Jesus with John.
This is to say that Jesus can only be understood correctly in relation to the role of
John. When John emerges from the desert, he fulfills Old Testament prophecy.
Indeed, John himself is described as a prophet in the role of Elijah. For the Jews, the
one who is to come after Elijah would be God. John utters the prophetic call of
REPENTANCE to unfaithful Israel.
2. This REPENTANCE [Metanouia] at the heart of John's baptism consists of a
complete turnabout of one's life.
The prerequisite for the coming of the Lord into one's life is the redirecting of one's
allegiance from self to God in all things. Aligning oneself with God's way releases
one from the burden of the idolatrous past and opens one to the forgiveness
of sins.
3. John is not the Coming One but only the Announcer, the voice.
He is the forerunner of the Strong One, who overcomes the power of the evil one in
the desert, in his ministry and in his death. Already Mark hints that the pattern of
John, whose message was welcome and who suffered and died at the hands of
unbelievers, will be repeated in Jesus.
C. APPLICATION/DISCUSSION:
The application of the doctrine falls along these lines:
1. REPENTANCE (Gk. metanoia, a "change" of mind).
Repentance, it should be observed, has different stages of development. (1) In its
lowest and most imperfect form it may arise from fear of the consequences or
penalty of sin. If it goes no farther than this it is simply remorse and must end in
despair. (2) It deepens in character with the recognition of the baseness of sin itself.
But here again it is merely a burden of soul from which man may seek to free
himself in vain till he recognizes the great hope before him in the gospel.
(3) It becomes more complete and powerful in those who have experienced the
saving grace of God and thus realize more fully the enormity of sin and the depths
of the divine compassion that has been operative in their salvation.
2. FORGIVENESS.
One of the most widely misunderstood doctrines of Scripture. It is not to be
confused with human forgiveness that merely remits a penalty or charge. Divine:
forgiveness is one of the most complicated and costly undertakings, demanding
complete satisfaction to meet the demands of God's outraged holiness.
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