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Tag: John the Baptizer

  • An Advent Story

    Advent is a time of preparation.  The messages of the Hebrew prophets and of John the Bapitzer tell us that repentance is a necessary element when we are preparing for God’s entrance into our lives.  The call to repentance is a call to examine our lives and change directions in ways that open our lives for God to do something new.

    At this time of year, many people turn again to the wonderful Victorian era classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  As I read it, A Christmas Carol is really an Advent story.  The surly old curmudgeon, Ebenezer Scrooge, lives a miserly existence with his entire being.  Then he is visited in a dream by three Christmas ghosts.  He sees his past and then his present.  But what is most frightening to him, what shakes him to the core, is the vision of his future.  Scrooge awakens to find that nothing has changed.  Dickens says, “The bedpost was his own.  The bed was his own.  The room was his own.”  Then Dickens adds, in what might be an Advent text, “Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in.”

    Scrooge undergoes a radical transformation and becomes an entirely new person.  He leaves behind the cold and indifferent miser and becomes generous and compassionate.  He seizes the time and becomes what the Bible might call “a new creation.”  The world has not changed, but he has!

    It is a heart-warming story.  But more than that, it is a hopeful story.  It provides us with the hope that we too can have a change of heart and mind when we know we should.  John the Baptizer tells us that someone is coming, someone so spectacular that it is not enough simply to hang around waiting for him to arrive.  It is time to get ready, to prepare the way, so that when he comes he can walk a straight path right to us.

    That’s what makes the news good!  The call to wake up and change directions is filled with the promise that something new is about to happen right before our eyes and in our lives.  The time before us is our own “to make amends in” as we prepare room for God to make us new creatures.  May this Advent be such a time for you!

    Ron Short Sig Blue

  • What I Am Giving God This Year ~ My Trust

    I'm reflecting on the custom of gift-giving, which is grounded in God's greatest gift to us.  We spend a lot of time selecting just the right gifts for our loved ones.  And what shall I give to God?  Advent provides me with the opportunity to consider that question.

    Today, I'm thinking the gift of my trust is something God would value.

    John the Baptizer had the task of pointing others to a greatness into which he himself did not enter. That required a great deal of trust on his part.  In a Bible study course on the gospels, when we came to Matthew 11:2-11, the passage where John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the Messiah, the question arose, “Was John having second thoughts?  Did he have doubts that Jesus was the long-awaited anointed one?”

    I don’t think John was having second thoughts about Jesus.  I think John realized his particular task was just about complete.  His fate was sealed.  The last thing he needed to do was to send his own disciples to Jesus so that they could join in following him.  It was not John but John’s disciples, therefore, who needed convincing that day.  So they said to Jesus:  “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  And, Jesus reply was meant for them that they might believe – as eyewitnesses to his Messianic work:  “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.  And, blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”

    Someone tells of how from the windows of his house every evening he used to watch the lamplighter go along the streets lighting the lamps.  But the lamplighter was blind.  He was bringing others light that he would never see.  Like the lamplighter, John had to trust that his work had a purpose beyond what he could see with his own eyes.

    Trust!  That’s something I want to give God this year.  But it is a costly gift.

    It is so easy to fall into doubt and fear.  It is so tempting to back away and agree, “You’re right, it’ll never work, let’s take the safe way, the familiar way, the heavily traveled road.”

    When I turn my life over to God, I give God leadership. Doing that means I will advance even though I do not know where God will lead me.   It means I have to reshape my thinking to make my thoughts large enough for God to fit in!  I have to let the size of my trust set the size of my aims and objectives in life so that my expectations match God’s abilities.

    One of the things my Father and I always did together at this time of year was to string lights on the roof of our house.  At first, my help was confined to checking the bulbs.  Then, later, I could stand on a ladder and hang the ones under the eves.  Finally, I was allowed to get up on the roof.  But that required assistance.  I needed a boost getting up and help getting down.  The booster and the helper was my dad.  If I wanted to help put up the lights, I’d have to trust him not to drop me.  Because of that experience, I knew Dad could be trusted not to drop me.

    The everlasting arms of God are even more trustworthy. They undergird all of us.  They boost us up and they keep us from falling.  Blessed are we when we trust God above all others.

    I’m giving God my trust this year.

    Ron Short Signature

  • What I Am Giving God This Year – A Life That Bears Delicious Fruit

    I'm reflecting on the custom of gift-giving, which is grounded in God's greatest gift to us.  We spend a lot of time selecting just the right gifts for our loved ones.  And what shall I give to God?  Advent provides me with the opportunity to consider that question.

    John the Baptizer came preaching repentance, saying, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. . . every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt. 3:8, 10).  In other words, “Give God a life that tastes as good as it sounds!”  That’s one of the things I want to give God this year, a life that bears delicious fruit.  How do I do that?

    I have to recognize the need for change and growth.  A plant that stops changing and growing stops producing fruit. Things happen to people that cause them to stop changing and growing and their lives are not fruitful.  A life that tastes as good as it sounds knows the necessity of change and growth.

    I also have to learn to recognize good from evil.  Have you ever bitten into a beautiful piece of fruit that has no flavor or is bitter?  When dealing with fruit, it doesn’t take much more than a taste to tell the difference between good and bad.  Why is it more difficult in dealing with the fruit of our lives? A life that tastes as good as it sounds recognizes the difference between good and evil.  But then…

    I have to make a choice. We may not be able to choose our parents or color of our skin or land of our birth.  But we must choose how to respond to the people and the conditions around us.  To give God a life that tastes as good as it sounds, we’ll have to change and grow, discern between good and bad, and make some responsible choices.

    Our tradition includes both John the Baptizer and Jesus the Messiah!  With only John, I’d know I am a snake, an unproductive bush.  But with the Messiah, I know I have divine help.

    Christian Baptism is not so much the dedication of a person’s life to God as it is the dedication of God’s life to a person and to a community of persons.  John baptized with water for purification.  But Jesus brought a baptism that included fire and the Holy Spirit.  In Baptism, we are incorporated into God’s life, provided opportunities to turn to God, warned that being a faithful witness is costly, and given the Holy Spirit to help us live a fruitful life that tastes as good as it sounds.

    Ron Short Sig 150-1