God’s Kingdom is Here!

We have just started a year of Matthew’s gospel and we look forward to his and Luke’s familiar nativity stories of angels and shepherds etc. It can seem incongruous in this Advent season that we flip to this gospel of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, “repent” (Matt 3:1-12). But it is not so odd. Actually the Advent season and the birth of Jesus which we eagerly anticipate, themselves signal the nearness of the Kingdom of Heaven. Looking like a “Survivor” contestant, the Baptist, with his camel-hair shirt, wild hair and leather belt, urges us to steady and focus; to get our lives prepared to be swept up in this Kingdom. He is the “gateway to Christmas”.

Advent is about more than the advertising hype, more than planning family gatherings (wonderful though they are), more even than excitement at the approaching nativity. Advent is an opportunity to go into the wilderness (for a few moments of reflection), to hear the Baptist’s call for repentance and to reflect honestly on our own lives.

How would we respond to him? Do we really need to listen to John carrying on about repentance? In today’s language he would call us out for our poor relationships, for hurting one another with our words and actions, for ignoring hunger, poverty and injustice in our world, for being too busy to engage fruitfully with our world. Yep, maybe we aren’t the worst of sinners. We mean well to the world but to tell the truth we’re overly comfortable. We need to honestly face up to John’s admonishing, to our deep selves and to Jesus who is coming.

John’s blunt messages urge us to bring our better selves to the fore. We are loved rather than dismissively condemned. God’s kingdom is upon us and we need to focus on preparing our little part of it.

Deacon Mark Kelly