Fallen, Forgiven and a Recipient of Restoration

Homily for Sunday, December 17, 2023
The Third Sunday of Advent
John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today’s Gospel lesson contains the first spoken words of St. John’s Gospel – not the first words, but the first spoken words.  The first spoken words of St. John’s Gospel are a question:  “Who are you?” asked the priests and Levites sent from Jerusalem to John the Baptist in the wilderness.  The priests and Levites persist in asking John who he is.  

Again they asked him, “What then?  Are you Elijah?”  He said, “I am not.”  “Are you the prophet?’  He answered, “No.”  Then they said to him, “Who are you?...  What do you say about yourself?”  

John’s persistence in asking“Who are you?” suggests the question is intended really, not for John the Baptist, but for us, John’s readers. “Who are you?” John asks.

Taken as a whole, the readings for the Sundays of Advent tell us who we are.  We are fallen, suggest the readings from the First Sunday of Advent, two weeks ago: “We have all become like one who is unclean,” wrote Isaiah (chapter 64)in the readings for that day…

We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

We are forgiven, say the readings from the Second Sunday of Advent (last week).  “You have been gracious to your land, O Lord,” wrote the Psalmist last Sunday (Ps 85)…

you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.
You have forgiven the iniquity of your people
and blotted out all their sins.

And more than forgive, God also wants to “restore” us, say this morning’s readings, which offer images of seeds and growth:  “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses of the Negev,” writes the Psalmist.  And,writes Isaiah:

As the earth brings forth its shoots,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.

The trajectory of our lament for our sins (from Advent week 1), and of experiencing God’s forgiveness (week2), is to be brought to a place of “restoration.”  A restoration that looks like seeds and planting and new growth and abundance and that fills our mouth “with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy,” as the Psalmist writes (126:2).  

So, in answer to John’s question, “Who are you?”  we are:  fallen, forgiven, and the recipients of God’s intended restoration, whom God wants to have life and to have it abundantly(John 10:10).  

Perhaps one of the corollaries of Advent’s trajectory is to realize (as did John the Baptist) who we are not.  “Who are you?” asked the priests and Levites sent from Jerusalem.

[John] confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”  And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”  He said, “I am not.”  “Are you the prophet?”  He answered, “No.”

John the Baptist is clear about who he is not; he is neither the Messiah, Elijah nor “the prophet” (“the prophet like me” foretold by Moses in Deuteronomy (18:15)).   Similarly for us, if we would know who we are – fallen, forgiven, and the recipients of God’s intended restoration – it helps to know who we are not.

Martin Smith, the former Superior of The Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, used to say that one of the greatest things we can learn in life is that we are not God.  It may sound obvious, but learning that we are not God is actually difficult and often the work of a lifetime.

Maybe – looking ahead to the Fourth Sunday of Advent next week – [maybe] that’s why Mary is worth our consideration.  Mary is one of us:  fallen, forgiven and a recipient of God’s intended restoration.  But Mary  was clear that she was not God.  When the angel came to announce, Mary said,“Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  Mary knew that she was not God but God’s servant; she knew she was not in charge but would do “according to [God’s]word.”  Mary’s clarity about who she was and who she was not opened her to the ultimate in Christian freedom and fruitfulness, which is:  the capacity to bear forth Christ in our own lives.  

The trajectory of Advent invites us to be as Mary.  Knowing that we are fallen,knowing that we are forgiven, and being open to God’s restoration, we will be able to receive within ourselves the life that God wishes to give us, Jesus Christ, and able to bear him forth into the world around.

May we this Advent come to better know who we are: fallen, forgiven, and the recipients of God’s intended restoration.  And may we better come to know who we are not.  For coming to better know who we are and knowing that we are not God, we will make room within to receive Jesus and to bear him forth to those around.