Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. – Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
The Lectionary’s epistle reading for the first Sunday of Christmas is copied above. If I asked you where to find the Christmas passage in Galatians, you’d probably have to rack your brain to think of what that is, but once you’ve read this passage from Galatians 3 and 4 in light of Christmas, you’ve found the answer.
The Apostle Paul’s picture or idea of the law in Israel’s story here is of a babysitter or, in the Roman historic context, a slave who protects the household’s children and ensures their schooling. His point is that between the time of Moses and the coming of Messiah, Israel was a child needing special guidance. Children eventually grow up and don’t need a babysitter anymore, so Paul is claiming (and this goes for the whole of letter to the Galatians) that the coming of Messiah means Israel has at last grown up. With this maturity comes trustworthiness or faithfulness, translated above simply as faith, but it would be a perfectly good translation to say, “Now before faithfulness came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faithfulness would be revealed.” Put another way, the faithfulness of the Messiah is the sign that Israel’s maturity has been reached and God’s promises are coming to fulfillment.
From here, Paul inserts some very important things about baptism, but to keep the argument together we’ll not cover those verses now. He picks up with, “In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Then he goes on to use Exodus-type language. God called Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, which is freedom. They were enslaved for a long time until God sent Moses to redeem them. This is revealed when Moses said to Pharaoh, “Israel is my son, my firstborn.”
Freedom came through Passover with its sacrifices. Then 40 days after Passover, they came to Sinai and were given the law as their guide through the wilderness to their inheritance. For Paul, this was seen as better than being enslaved to the Egyptians, but still bondage to a guardian babysitter: the law. This prevented, for a time, the fulfilment of God’s full-blown intention of freedom and living life as it was meant to be before sin.
Nonetheless, “when the fullness of time had come” there is a new Passover, but it was not Moses who was sent, but God’s own son, Jesus the Messiah. He would purchase these slaves so that they would become true children. And if that weren’t enough, 40 days after Passover, on the feast of Pentecost, God gave something from above again. This time it wasn’t the law, but “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” That means that the evidence that the Spirit has been at work is the prayer which arises in our hearts. This prayer is the prayer of Jesus calling out using the term of intimacy and familiarity that even an adult would use of a beloved father: “Abba.” How come? Because the slaves under the law have become not just free, but “an heir through God.” And that’s the gospel!
Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy- the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. – Luke 1:26-38
There’s a small town in Israel about six miles south of Jerusalem surrounded today by a high wall with armed soldiers in turrets. Unlike the Palestinian residents of that city, tourists can sometimes go in and out after the bus has been thoroughly searched. Much biblical history happened there, especially because it is the City of David. It gets lots of attention.
Nazareth is much more obscure, but one really big thing that took place there (Luke 1:26) is that the same angel who appeared to Zecharias in the temple appeared to the young virgin named Mary. Certainly the old priest Zecharias and his wife heard an amazing announcement, but it can hardly compare with what Mary heard. Elizabeth and Zecharias, well past the age to hope for children, knew that the Lord opened the womb of Sarai and Hannah. Those miracles are related, but there is a big difference between these ancient sisters of ours and Mary: they were married; Mary wasn’t yet! She was a virgin and the only explainable way for her to have a child was dishonorable and sinful.
But she is going to have a baby, and it isn’t dishonorable or sinful. Just like the other miracle children given to barren women in the Bible, for Mary it is God’s sign that He is starting something new. It’s always been the case that an old couple having their first child means new life. How much more, then, if a virgin conceives! Surely this is the mark of the beginning of new creation.
The angel gives more information to Mary than we sometimes notice. She asks a direct question, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” She receives a direct answer, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Just like the Spirit overshadows the water at the beginning of the world (the Spirit fluttered over the face of the waters) and forms the new creation, the Spirit will overshadow Mary to form a new creation in her womb. This is the womb of the new world. And that makes a lot more sense as to why her song (the Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55) contains joy about the overthrow of the wicked rulers of the world as the righteous people of God are exalted.
We’re not talking about a pagan god intervening in the lives of mortals. This God is the one St. Augustine said made us for love, love which will care for us and take us up into His saving purposes. Mary is a great example of what happens when God works by grace through people. His power from the outside and the indwelling Spirit within together bring about things which would be unthinkable any other way. That’s the kind of love He has for His people. And that’s the gospel!
Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” –John 1:6-8, 19-23
This is the third Sunday of Advent of this church year, and the lectionary reading is the passage copied above. John the baptizer occupies a major, though mysterious, place in the gospels and the history of Christianity. We know he’s a major character because all four gospel writers tell of him (including a full birth narrative in Luke!), and he attracts the attention of everyone from the peasant to the most powerful in Israel. He’s mysterious because everyone seems to get him wrong.
He’s not like most people who rise in popularity. He gains the public eye, attracts quite a large following, but then refuses to claim even one of the offices, identities, or honors they want to ascribe to him. The expectation that Messiah would come was high. With the atrocities and insults against the Jews through the Syrian era, the Maccabean era, and now the Roman era, in just the last 200 years, a king from the house of David that would overthrow all injustice and rule over Israel sounded just about right. However, “He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’”
“And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’” The prophet Elijah occupies a huge place in Jewish hope. He didn’t die in the ordinary way, but was taken up in a chariot of fire. It was hoped, then, that he would return and usher in God’s new day. While John the evangelist doesn’t tell us here, other gospel writers speak of John the baptizer as wearing a leather belt, which was just like Elijah. In Mark 9, Jesus tells the disciples that Elijah has, in fact, come, though he was referring figuratively to John the baptizer. In other words, there was truth to the suspicion that John the baptizer is Elijah, which Jesus Himself acknowledges in a figurative sense. Nonetheless, John answers plainly, “‘I am not.’”
Then they ask about the greatest of all prophets. This hallowed figure was shockingly suspected to be Jesus. At the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the people who saw the sign said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” What prophet is greater than Elijah? Moses. It doesn’t seem that they particularly expected Moses like Elijah, but since John said he wasn’t Elijah, they wondered if he was perhaps the biggest of them all: “‘Are you the Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No.’”
The Temple officials came out to see who this prophet was, without their approval, preaching a message from God. It was strange as he was having people kneel in the water and pouring water over their heads like a ceremonial cleansing. But when they tried to nail him down, trap him, or whatever it was they had in mind, he pointed completely away from himself, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” It must have been a little disappointing for them. He was saying it wasn’t even about him anyway. The drama of the whole thing just fizzled.
Or did it? John tells them exactly what the voice is crying out in the wilderness, “‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” They didn’t believe they were in the wilderness, and they thought they already were making straight the way of the Lord. Who could do better than them, and for whom would they need to prepare?
We know the answer. And that’s the gospel.
Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” – Mark 1:1-8
This is the second week of Advent this church year, and the lectionary reading is the passage copied above. Mark’s first line of his Gospel book is, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Here he is telling us exactly what to expect: the joyful proclamation of the victory of King Jesus. God has delivered His Messiah, promised from so long ago, and now He is making all things new.
Mark moves immediately into the news about John the Baptizer. There’s not room here to expose it, but Mark quotes John, which is an amalgam of quotes from Isaiah and Malachi, all with an eye toward Exodus. This guy knows the scriptures! John is definitely known for being a baptizer. The Greek word for “baptism” (contrary to popular lore that it means “to immerse”) was used to refer to ceremonial cleansing and washings. Mark himself uses the word in 7:4 for washing dishes, just as the writer of Hebrews uses it for the ceremonial sprinklings of the Mosaic law (Heb. 9:10). We know that the meaning of John’s baptism has ceremonial significance because he was not in a very advantageous place to do it. It was out in the wilderness region of the Jordan at the far eastern boundary of the Land of Israel. Surely Jerusalem was a far more target-rich environment!
The reason “all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him” (an inconvenient trip) at the Jordan River is fascinating. For some background, we must keep in mind that the Apostle Paul refers to the crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism (1 Cor. 10:1-2). Remember when the Israelites entered the Land from the wilderness, they crossed the Jordan River on dry land just like at the Red Sea. It is here that they were circumcised (Josh. 5), which Paul associates with baptism (Col. 2:11-13). And then in Deut. 2 they crossed over the brook Zered, the water crossing between two points. This was a symbolic transition between the condemned generation of the Israelites and the new generation who entered the Promised Land.
When these three water “crossings” are put together, they show that there is a water boundary between the old and the new, the cursed-for-sin and the blessed-with-forgiveness. Moreover, we even see this in the layout of the Tabernacle/Temple with the laver of cleaning or “bronze ocean” (1 Kings 7:23ff) in order to enter God’s presence. This was, of course, a shadow of the Heavenly Throne Room where the throne itself is separated by the glassy sea (Rev. 4:6). In other words, passing through water means moving toward God in His holiness and requires repentance and cleansing to move from the old to the new.
With this in mind, we know that those who left their homes in Judea and Jerusalem and traveled the long road to John the Baptizer at the Jordan River (the boundary to the Promised Land) were actually entering the Promised Land. It was a powerful confession that they were still in the wilderness, not the real Promised Land, and needed salvation. They were essentially confessing that they were still under bondage in Egypt along with their entangled sins.
Before the baptism of John they were living in the world of sin and rebellion against God. It was time to turn around and go the right way. When they emerged, it was to look for the one who would deliver all the covenant promises of God, and John wastes no time in telling them: “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” And that’s the gospel!
Come hear it preached and enacted in the supper with Jesus this Sunday.