CEC News!
… Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer December 22. Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist on Christmas Eve at 5pm. On Christmas Eve, carols will be sung starting about 4:30pm. Invite others to join us for this beautiful service.
… It is time for our annual giving campaign. Pledge letters and cards have been mailed. If you did not receive a letter and pledge form and wish to donate for 2020, please contact Mrs. Brenda Funderburg at bfun@me.com . All donations help us continue our mission in Tensas Parish and are greatly appreciated. Thank You.
…Our annual congregational meeting will be held January 19, 2020, following the 10am service. At the meeting we will be electing our 2020 vestry. All members in good standing are encouraged to run for a vestry position and serve our congregation. If you wish to run for a vestry position, please let Faye Corson, Vestry Secretary, know by January 15, 2020, so she may place your name on the ballot.
… Please join us for refreshments in the Parish House following the service.
ADVENT III - A-19 MATTHEW 11. 2-11
In last week’s gospel reading John Baptist began his ministry down at the
John quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah as a way of introducing himself and his mission to the people: “A voice crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
Not only did he quote a former prophet but also John himself prophesied, “…one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John’s preaching and baptizing drew a mixed audience as well as a mixed reaction. There were the curious who came just to see and hear what John was all about. There were the others who came out of genuine interest hoping that what John was saying was true that the long expected messiah was about to descend upon God’s people and rescue them from the hand of their oppressors.
Then there were the Jewish leaders, namely the Pharisees and scribes, who came out to see and hear him in order to reject his message and ignore his warning. They sought to discredit him in the eyes of the people. Instead were chastised by him in front of the people. Because of it John quickly became and enemy of the state and was eventually arrested for his speaking out against the immorality of King Herod.
That is where our gospel for this third Sunday of Advent picks up, John is in prison and word comes to him of the things Jesus is doing and saying concerning God and his kingdom. Could he be the one, John was thinking. The one John had predicted would come after him.
John sends messengers to inquire of Jesus if he is indeed the promised one of God, whom they have patiently waited for. If not, God’s people will continue to wait and endure their present conditions. Jesus says “yes” that he is the one by implying that the ancient prophecy of Isaiah had been fulfilled in him.
“Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
When the messengers had gone away Jesus turns to the crowd and confirms that John is indeed a prophet of God, and more. What John had said and done was in accordance with God’s plan of salvation. Yet, as great as John is, Jesus said, one does not have to be great to inherit the kingdom. The
God’s people had been waiting patiently for God to act, to rescue them from the hand of their oppressors and to reunite them as a nation. Generations had come and gone yet God’s promise had not been fulfilled. Again and again, they hear with expectation the ancient prophecies proclaimed in their worship and anticipate God sending a messenger.
Thus, many of God’s people accepted John as a prophet and were eager to hear what the Baptist had to say. They received his message with joy and gladness, while others did not. This mixed bag of joy and gladness, rejection and ridicule of John was but a foreshadowing of the very way in which Jesus himself would soon be viewed.
Sometimes, however, what appears to be too good to be true - really is. Sadly, as human beings, we have become accustomed to doubting good news. Why would God care enough to send his only son to be born of a virgin, to live and die as one of us as a means of reconciling us to God?
Sin and doubt blinds us from opening our hearts and minds to believe such good news. Sin convinces us that we have no need of a savior. We are not in the same place, as we like to say, as God’s people were in the time of Jesus and John Baptist. Thus, we do not see ourselves as needing to be rescued. We convince ourselves that we are fine just the way we are.
John came to make straight a highway for God’s anointed one to walk through the desert of our lives. It is to be called a
However, as long as we remain convinced that we do not need to be rescued, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That leaves us walking a path that takes us away from God, a path of our own choosing. However, God’s love for us in Christ Jesus will forever seek to “stir us up” through the workings of the Holy Spirit.
In His love for us, God has sent His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth if we will but learn to cooperate with Him. The Spirit will convict us, then, of our sin and turn our hearts back to God so that we might repent and be reconciled to God, and learn to walk the highway of God’s
More importantly, the Holy Spirit will continue to open our hearts and our minds to the Good News that is in Christ Jesus, news that is indeed too good to be true. That God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to live and die as one of us, in order to redeem us from sin and death and open to us - from the very least to the greatest - the way to everlasting life. AMEN+
(Isaiah 35:1-10; Canticle 15; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11)
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