Hebrews 11:29--12:2

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (vv. 15-16)

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Harry looked out the window and sighed as he watched the snow falling outside. He looked over his shoulder and noticed Agnes wasn’t paying attention to him, so he sighed louder.

“Something the matter?” Agnes asked looking up from the computer screen.

“Nothing in particular.” He turned his attention back to the snowfall. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Oh, okay.” she went back to reading the screen in front of her.

He watched outside for a few more minutes. “I listened to the news.”

“Oh?” she looked up again. “And?”

The three children were racing through the woods, and Roly was keeping up as best he could with his short legs. He was a reluctant participant in this escapade, for even though he loved nothing better than the woods, he had an inkling of what the children were about.

There was a battered old caravan standing in a glade deep in the woods. The children had come across it one day, and had amused themselves peering in the gloomy windows and scrawling rude words on the dirty paintwork.

After a long and grueling foot race, a runner reached for a glass of water puffing out the words, "This water is my salvation!" A worker who had a family crisis gushed to a friend who agreed to cover his shift, "You are my salvation!" The drunk at the end of the bar lifts the shot glass to his lips and sighs into the drink, "You are my salvation."

This week's text presents us with the preaching of John the Baptist. John is a preacher in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, so the narrative connections with respect to the content of his preaching are primarily Old Testament connections. This sermon begins with a call to repentance (3:8) which is part of John's fundamental message as we explored in Chapter 4. John's call for repentance would brook no simple answers. The people of Israel would be tempted to say to John, "We are the children of Abraham." This would not do! A new age is dawning.

We are always touched by newspaper or media stories of people who have come through some terrible experience and yet seem unhinged by it all. Some people find their health slipping away, yet exhibit courage and trust in both the provisional and ultimate goodness of life. Others witness the death of a child, or spouse, or partner, and do not give in to the despair that invites them into its darkness.

Stan Freberg has written a musical farce parodying the commercialization of the Advent season, appropriately naming it Green Chri$tma$. That is green as in money, with dollar signs in place of the letter "S" in Christmas. In starring roles are two of our old seasonal favorites, Bob Cratchet and Ebenezer Scrooge. You may as well spell Scrooge with a dollar sign, too, because he is typecast as a greedy, unscrupulous Madison Avenue advertising executive who is out to exploit Christmas in every way imaginable.1