Art thou that prophet? (John 1:21)

There was, in the ancient world, a general sense that something about the world was "broken". Even the best of the pagan philosophers understood the downward spiral of the Greco-Roman culture and civilization. The Romans had conquered the Greeks and the Roman Republic had yielded to the Roman Empire. Cruelty was the order of the day. Pagan religion offered no solution to the problem of evil. Emperor worship was not an answer –– it only increased the power of evil.

As St. Augustine was later to point out in his great work, the City of God, even though it had brought order and commerce and a theory of law and justice, Rome always carried within it the seeds of its own destruction. Devoid of any standard of right and wrong beyond raw power, Rome was doomed to implode over its own excesses. Unbridled greed, violence, gross immorality, homosexuality, and the worship of the state doomed it.

The Jews, being a people whose culture was based upon a strict moral code and a sacred text were unique in the ancient world. They were admired for their ethics and hated for their rigidity and stiff-necked rebellious nature. The Jews as a conquered people looked towards the coming day of the Lord, the appearance of a Messiah who would restore Israel and defeat her enemies and establish the Kingdom of God. It was in this environment that John the Baptist appeared.

John the Baptist was not an ordinary man; he was not even an "ordinary" prophet. John was "the last of the prophets", a somewhat "larger than life" figure right out of the Old Testament. He wore animal skins and ate wild locusts and honey. He preached a fire and brimstone message of repentance and coming judgment reminiscent of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. According to John's message, even Jews, who never required baptism for admission into Judaism, needed to repent and be baptized. (Previously only proselytites into Judaism required baptism, or ritual cleansing.) People responded in vast numbers and were excited at his message and huge crowds flocked to him. Some, perhaps, were just thrill seekers. But most likely the majority went because they sincerely hoped he would be The Messiah.

In one respect, 1^st century Judea was not much different from 21^st century America, or any other country: crowds make leaders nervous. In 30 AD that was especially true for crowds gathered around someone who claimed to be sent by God, and who might incite people and cause an insurrection against the Romans or the Jewish religious leadership. There had been self-proclaimed 'messiahs' before, so the Jewish leaders sent a delegation to ask this strange man: Who are you? by which they meant "Are you the Messiah." John the Baptist firmly confessed, "I am not the Messiah."

Twice more they questioned him, and twice more he denied being who they thought he might be –– he was not Elijah, he was not "the prophet," he was not anyone expected by various groups of Jews. In effect, John said, Whoever it is you are looking for, it's not me.

This no doubt saddened the Jewish leaders because John was right out of what we would today call "central casting". He fit the bill as one who might be the kind of Messiah they wanted. They wanted John to be that man. They were in a hurry for a Messiah because the Jews had waited so long and the world was in such bad shape.

But John was not the Messiah. Instead John then declared to them that his role was solely to bear witness to the one who was to come, who indeed had already come, but who stood unknown in their midst.

John stood as a herald to the coming Messiah, as a signpost to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

If you have ever taken a long highway trip, you know about mile markers. When we are on a trip by auto, the sign post markers tell us how far we have to go to get to our destination.

One of my favorites is the mile marker one sees as one enters Texas at Texarkana. A big green sign on the interstate says simply "Welcome to Texas –– El Paso 815 miles. " If one is from say, the northeast where a person can transverse a half dozen states in three or four hours that is an eye-opener. Anyway, back to signposts:

Everyone who has children, or has raised children or who has grandchildren, and has taken them on a long trip by car knows the "big question" that comes from the back seat. ""Are we there yet?". There is a desire on such a trip to arrive at the destination. And the longer the trip and the greater the destination, the more urgent the need to arrive.

A good answer to the question "are we there yet" is to tell children to watch for the next sign. When it says we have thirty or sixty (or whatever) number of miles to go, we can say "it's only about thirty minutes, or sixty minutes." The sign has told us what is coming, and some idea of when we will arrive. It also has given us the assurance that we are on the right road headed to the right destination. That's comforting knowledge.

In the same sense John the Baptist, was not the Messiah, but he was, and is the signpost that tells us that Christ is near. He is not only coming, He is in fact already among us and drawing near.

John was like that signpost. He brought a message of hope to the people of Judea, a people who longed for the coming of God's Kingdom, and for the long-awaited Messiah who would bring that Kingdom into being, who would, in fact so transform the world that forever after we would calculate time itself based upon the year of His birth. All time is measured as being "Before Christ" (BC) or after Christ (Anno Domini , in the year of our Lord).

John pointed ahead to this great event, telling them that they were on the right road, and that the journey ahead was shorter than they thought. People responded to John by repenting and accepting baptism as a sign of repentance, preparing themselves for the Lord's coming. Final preparations are in order when the signposts to the Kingdom are in view. As the airline pilot says "Now on final approach. Please fasten your seatbelts, and return seats and trays to the upright position."

My friends, the signs are in view. There are signposts to the Kingdom all around us, if we just take the time to look. That is what Advent has been all about. It is about getting ready for Christ.

At some level we want to have Christmas without Advent. We want to say "are we there yet?" We find it easier to celebrate the birth of the infant Christ than also be required to acknowledge His coming again in glory. But in truth His birth is only celebrated as God's greatest gift because of what that birth points to. What he accomplished afterwards is what separates His birth from other births.

The kingdom was ushered in through the birth, death, resurrection and return of Christ, all of which are part of Advent. In that sense, the church, in observing Advent stands like John the Baptist as the herald of that kingdom, calling people to repentance, to baptism, and onward to life in the kingdom so that we might have the true joy that Christmas represents.

Our calling as church is to proclaim the kingdom, to celebrate the kingdom, and to model the kingdom –– living the life of that kingdom to the best of our ability, and by the grace of God being signposts to the full message and the full implications of coming Kingdom of Christ. It is a call for rejoicing because the old way of living is being replaced by a new way of life. The coming of Christ breaks the ultimate cycle of dysfunctional that resulted from the Fall of Man in the Garden. The message is that this broken way of life is about to be placed with a life of restored fellowship with the Father. So John's call for repentance (changing direction in life) actually also a call for joy by turning away from fallen things to higher, more joyful things in our lives.

It is in that spirit that St. Paul begins the 4^th chapter of Philippians by writing Rejoice in the Lord away[s] and again I say rejoice. And just a bit past our epistle verses this morning, the same chapter he adds:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Now Paul wrote this letter from Rome, where he was awaiting a trial before Caesar for the crime of being a Christian and for which he was by tradition martyred. Yet Paul speaks of rejoicing in Christ. This is the same Paul who also declared in Roman's 13: That it was time to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed...

The message is that Christ is near. Just as God's promises are fulfilled in the birth of Christ, so his will be completed in the return of Christ. And in the here and now Christ is with us always.

Let us seek to be people who give joy and hope to others, as we joyfully and joyously live into the hope that God has declared to us in the birth of his Son. And let us lift our voices in praise of the one who came at Bethlehem, the one who comes to us daily, the one who will come again at the last day. When we ask "are we there yet": the signpost says, "God's Kingdom is coming –– any time now."

Art thou that prophet?