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In the sermon last week, we were reminded that in the early Christian centuries, Advent had four themes – Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. Nowadays other themes are emphasised, including Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. So today, the Second Sunday in Advent, can be thought of as about Judgement but also as about Peace. Our readings reflect those themes – Isaiah speaks of judgement and of the peaceable kingdom it will make possible. In our Gospel, John the Baptist comes across as a very judgemental person. He doesn’t mince his words. The Pharisees and Sadducees who have come to be baptized by him, presumably because they feel the need to repent, are addressed as: 

 “You brood of vipers!” 

So what’s the link between Justice and Peace? 

On Friday morning, the Psalm at Morning Prayer using the 2006 version was Psalm 94, which begins with a passionate plea for justice. 

O Lord God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, show yourself.
Rise up, O Judge of the world;
give the arrogant their just deserts.
How long shall the wicked, O Lord,
how long shall the wicked triumph?

Victims of crime have a natural longing to see justice done and the pain of those to whom justice has been denied or for whom justice has been delayed is very real – think, for instance, about the Hillsborough families whose yearning for justice was once again in the news last week. For them, peace of mind will only come if justice is done. 

That said, I think that there’s a danger that when we think about divine judgement, we project onto God our human inclination to think of judgement only or mainly in terms of punishment and revenge. Today’s Gospel challenges us to think about the nature of judgement, about the divine judgement we shall all face, and about what sorts of judgement are compatible with Christian discipleship. 

“You brood of vipers!” 

On the face of it, John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees sound like the kind of abuse that is all too common on social media. Dig a little deeper into what it would have meant to that group of religious leaders, and the shock value increases. John’s hearers would have been familiar with the way in which, when farmers burned back the stubble after harvesting their crops, snakes would emerge from hiding, escaping the flames. John invokes this in the final metaphor in today’s reading:

“…he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The point that John is making so forcefully and emphatically is that his hearers will be judged not on whether they have been baptized, but on whether that has changed their behaviour. 

“Bear fruit…” he tells them  “…in keeping with repentance.”

When John said. “…he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The “he” to whom he is referring is Jesus. Yet, as next Sunday’s Gospel will remind us, John the Baptist came to question whether Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus was hanging out with sinners, offering them love, acceptance and forgiveness. Remember Matthew the tax collector, the woman taken in adultery and the penitent thief hanging next to him on a cross. 

Any doctrine of divine judgement whose purpose is to frighten people into good behaviour by threatening them with punishment needs to be challenged because that was not what Jesus taught and not how he lived. He was sometimes every bit as trenchant in his criticism of powerful people as John the Baptist, but he didn’t confront individuals by saying sternly: “If you don’t mend your ways, you will end up in Hell”. Instead, he behaved to them in a way that, while challenging, was also loving, accepting and forgiving. It was that experience of the love and the grace of God which transformed the lives of some of the people whom he encountered.  That’s both a guide to us about the kind of judgement we should, as Christians, refrain from and the kind of divine judgement we will eventually face. 

I think the example of Jesus makes clear that Christians should refrain from the kind of judgement that has become known as cancel culture, the contemporary tendency to demonise people whose views on a given issue are seen as offensive. The Pharisees, those stern defenders of purity laws, had a very similar mentality and they sought to cancel Jesus. 

One problem with cancel culture is that it values ideological purity at the expense of grace and forgiveness. Another problem is that it assumes that the cancelled person is entirely vicious. This runs counter to the Christian insight that we are all flawed and in need of forgiveness, whatever our values or our social and political beliefs.

The divine judgement on which we reflect in Advent isn’t about condemnation. At the end of today’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah writes concerning the Messiah that

“all nations shall inquire of him” 

That’s very striking. Not “All nations will obey him”, nor “all nations will worship him” but “All nations will inquire of him” – the Messiah Jesus as the person in whom answers can be found. 

God’s answers to our questions about what divine judgement is like are to be found in those stories of forgiveness in the Gospels. God seeks lovingly to transform us. That won’t be a painless or an easy process but it offers the possibility of that true and lasting peace which can come, as Isaiah tell us, if we are full of the knowledge of the Lord because we have encountered God face to face, accepted God’s judgement, love and forgiveness and been reconciled with those whom we have wronged. Now that’s something to anticipate in this season of anticipation.    

Advent 1 - Year A – GS 2025    The Four Last Things

Advent is a time of loitering – well that’s what the Rector told me a few weeks ago when I asked his thoughts about Advent. A time of loitering. But loitering is hanging about with no real purpose or aim – unless that is, it’s loitering with intent. And loitering with intent used to be a criminal offence connected with vagrancy.

I’m sure Dean wasn’t encouraging either aimlessness or criminality during Advent. But he certainly got me thinking. 

We begin Advent, and the first day of the Church’s New Year, with Isaiah’s great vision—all nations streaming to the mountain of the Lord, swords hammered into ploughshares, spears reshaped into pruning hooks. It’s a beautiful picture, a picture of peace, justice and hope. Beautiful and at the same time it hurts when we realise hundreds and hundreds of years later his vision is still not a reality, and we humans have yet to respond to the call to live in the light of the Lord. 

St Paul tells the Roman Christians that they know the time and it’s the moment for them to wake from sleep. Wake up. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Get up, change the way you live, the day is near.

What day? 

The day when the Son of Man returns – and it’s near. Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, tells us that the coming of the Son of Man will be like the days of Noah: people eating, drinking, marrying—life going on as usual—until suddenly everything changes. Be awake, be ready for the Son of Man is coming when you least expect him.

During the early Christian centuries this was the focus of Christians and the Church, and its particular focus during Advent. They believed firmly that the coming of Christ in glory was near and could happen at any time and they had to prepare for it. The time when all will be made new, a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem. When all shall gather at the mountain of the Lord.

The Advent of the early Christians had four themes: Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. Not cheerful, certainly not the stuff of mincemeat pies and mulled wine and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. They are known as the Four Last Things and contemplating them was central to their Christian tradition. 

I’ve rarely contemplated the Four Last Things and never preached about them, but I’m determined not to loiter. 

We could fall into the trap of thinking about these in terms that have been generally received wisdom for a very long time – in the sentimentality of the secular world and the complacency of those Christians who might describe themselves as ‘saved’, but these ideas really don’t have their origin in the Hebrew and New Testament Scriptures. 

Death – come on we don’t want to think of death as we decorate our trees and roast our turkeys. But wait. What does the New Testament say about death? St Paul is absolutely clear: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4) 

Walk in newness of life. Paul reminds us that we have died to sin - and St Peter that having died to sin we live to righteousness. New life has begun!

Judgement 

Jesus teaching on judgement was clear and specific. The sheep will be separated from the goats. The judgement will be made on how they treated the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned. This judgement is about justice. What have they done to bring justice to those trampled down by inequality, cruelty, intolerance? Jesus tells us that it is not for us to judge others, but to follow him in bringing justice and if we face persecution or ridicule for doing so, we, like the poor, will be blessed. Judgement is about righteousness, not the kind of self-righteousness Burns describes in Holy Willie’s Prayer – or the Pharisee who proudly follows law and ritual to the letter - but the simple righteousness that’s about putting wrongs right. 

The sheep, who were righteous in that sense went to eternal life. The goats who did not, were sent to eternal punishment. 

And yet… How often do we read in the New Testament that not one will be lost. God’s mercy, God’s unconditional love, God’s forgiveness seeks out the one lost sheep.

We equate eternal punishment with hell. There are different words and concepts in the Scriptures that are translated as ‘hell’ – and certainly one of them is the pit of fire outside Jerusalem. I reckon the life of medieval priests was made easy by the murals in even the smallest country churches of people suffering in the eternal punishments of hell. But is that really what hell is? Traditional theology has developed that understanding – but many theologians question it. Think about the way we talk of hell – we use it as an every-day description of people, places and events. Princes Street yesterday was hellish, my journey from Leamington Spa on Friday was pure hell. What of the hell so many face because of war? The hell created for minorities by the way they are treated by those who see them as the’ other’, the ‘enemy’?  The rise of populists who encourage us to think that way terrifies me – they are creating hell. I’ve been reading an Advent book by Paul Dominiak who writes that both C S Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre, in different ways, picture hell as a spiritual condition that misshapes human relationships and closes them off from one another and from God.

This alienation is disrupted by Jesus – he breaks through bringing hope and love. He descended into hell, and on the third day he rose again. Dominiak writes: At heart, the hell that should trouble Christians was the one that humanity created, in all its manifold and insidious cultural, social, political and economic forms. Christ came to empty those hells by the saving act of his life, death and resurrection.

We generally regard heaven as the opposite of hell and yet: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…

Heaven, in the Scriptures, is not a place of eternal reward for the faithful – it’s part of creation and was regarded as being above the earth – the place where God dwells without losing contact with the earth. Earth thy footstool and heaven thy throne. Earth was down here and heaven just above us. Of course we now know that is not the case, but that doesn’t give us permission to separate these two key parts of creation. Over and over again in the New Testament the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven mean the same thing and we pray that God’s will be done and kingdom come on earth as in heaven. They are inseparable. We who are one with Christ through the power of the Spirit and through the waters of baptism live in both. We long for the time when heaven and earth are completely indistinguishable. How then can we stand by and watch as the earth is being destroyed. How can Christian extremists declare that it’s ok because it will hasten the time of the second coming. The way we treat our planet is the greatest immorality and evil of our time. 

I love the words from the 17^th century priest and poet Richard Crawshaw: 

Heaven in earth and God in man. 

Great little one, whose all-embracing birth

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth

Heaven is a present reality in which we share and which we will experience in all its fullness at the second coming of Christ. As we loiter, preparing for that, is what Advent is all about. 

So to loiter or not to loiter? I come down on the side of loiter – and loiter with intent. Please, not criminal, but with the intent of contemplating the Four Last Things – death, judgement, hell and heaven – and think what it means to live now in the Kingdom of God. Isaiah’s image is beautiful, but also practical. Hammering a sword into a ploughshare is not an abstract idea. It’s metalwork. It’s muscle. It’s craft. It takes time, sweat, skill.

Sunday 1, Candle 1. What does it mean for us to have died to sin and live to righteousness?

Sunday 2, Candle 2. Recognising that God’s judgement brings justice and restoration, is there anything we can do living as the Spirit filled people of God, to bring that justice and restoration to our broken world?

Sunday 3, Candle 3. Hell, not a place, but of disrupted and distorted relationships; separation from other people and from God. How can we who live in unity with the Risen Christ give hope and bring reconciliation to those in despair?

Sunday 4, Candle 4. Heaven, not separate from earth but created alongside and groaning together in the birth pangs of becoming the New Creation. What part can we play in stopping the terrible destruction of earth and work to reverse the damage, so that God’s kingdom, to which we belong, can indeed be seen and enjoyed on earth as in heaven.

And at Christmas as we light the white candle, the candle that signifies the light of Christ, the light that is not overcome by darkness, may we be ready to walk in that light, the light of the Lord. Christ is coming. Let us be found ready—not frightened or frantic, but awake, hopeful, and beautifully alive.

Matthew 24:36-44

‘The necessity for watchfulness’

In this reading from Matthew’s Gospel account, Jesus tells us that not even he knows the hour of his return or when the Kingdom of God will be fully established on the Earth. He suggests that it will take us all by surprise as we go about our ordinary business and live our daily lives. He also, however, suggests that we should be prepared at all times for this coming and not be caught out. We need to be ready to welcome the Kingdom and his return at anytime and he encourages us, just as he encouraged his first listeners and followers to live for today with one eye on the future as well.

It is I think good advice. Too many of us live lives weighed down by the past and can miss out on things of the present and thus the future as well. If one is constantly looking over one’s shoulder to the past one will never see what is coming towards one or what is here already. We need to be alert to today and to anticipate the future as well. Live your lives in this present time, try not to dwell on the things that have gone and that you now have no control over but seek to use your experience of life to prepare for the future. Let the coming light of Christ always be your guide and the illumination along your path.

The King we worship, love and serve is no mere powerful deity. He is no supreme being wielding power at a whim over our lives and destiny, nor is he a remote and uncaring being who does not worry how we feel or how we thrive. No, the King we serve is a spiritual King and a servant. One who was prepared to take human form and to serve the basic needs of us, his creation. Our King is no dictator or uncaring governor our King is a loving and caring parent who is always seeking and hoping the best for us, always willing to love us despite what we may or may not do and ready to challenge us to do better than we thought we could.

The Gospel accounts of Jesus do not read like the life of a King. His was not a life of privilege or comfort. His life was one of service to others, healing and caring for those society rejected. He was a leader but no bully.  His followers were a motley crew with their own baggage to carry let alone their imperfections. Yet, this rag-tag King inspired those who listened to him with not only their ears but their hearts as well and this King still does that to those like us this very day. How many other Kings or monarchs still influence anyone two thousand years later? Listening to the words of Jesus and the promptings of God can lead us into pastures new and fresh. We must, however, continue to pray and listen to Jesus and like the disciples to be ready to respond to his call to be a friend to the needy, seeking to do good at all times and to be thankful to God and to each other for all we have and all we share in the name of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ the servant King.

Our AGM coming as it does towards the end of the Church’s year is a good time for us to stop, reflect and to give thanks to God for all that we have achieved and done as a congregation over the past year. The AGM report which I hope you have all read gives a thorough review of our activities, mission and out reach. The most important thing is, however, that we have continued Sunday by Sunday and Wednesday by Wednesday to gather to give thanks and worship to God. This is part of the ‘presence’ in the community that I spoke about in my report. 

We have a presence in this bit of God’s kingdom that encourages us in our welcome and inspires our hospitality. A welcome that is genuine and inclusive of all God’s people and a hospitality that seeks to nurture and enable all to find a place in this congregation. 

Presence, welcome and hospitality have become for me and I hope you the words that encompass all that we believe we are called to do by God in this place. The past year has shown how we have begun to live out these three words and concepts, in practical and spiritual ways. The challenge now before us is to continue that discernment of God’s will in how we live out our presence, welcome and hospitality in the coming days and months and I ask you to pray regularly for each other as we journey forward into a new Church year and as we live out our call to be Christ lights in this place.