Who do you think you are?

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence. In Nomine +

This short antiphon that Stephen just sang, O Sapientia - O Wisdom, is one of a number of traditional antiphons, or verses, said before and after Magnificat, the Song of Mary, at Evening Prayer. They are perhaps most commonly known these days rewritten slightly in the hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

There are seven of them - O Wisdom, O Adonai, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Morning Star, O King of the Nations and O Emmanuel, and we begin using them today and continue until the 23rd. If you write out the Latin titles in reverse order, they form the Latin phrase ERO CRAS or Tomorrow, I will be there, looking forward to Christ’s birth Christmas night.

Growing up, I was rather keen on the band Spice Girls, and one of their most popular songs was Who do you think you are? and that very song popped up in my head as I was writing today’s sermon...

“Who are you?” “Just who do you think you are?” “Who in the world???” All of these questions strike at the fundamental awareness of our personal existence. All of these questions merit an answer, because what they really are asking me, for instance, is who I believe I am in relation to everything and everyone around me. People need to ask me and you who we are so that they can make basic decisions about how to treat us. And as we move out of the weeks of Advent in which we have been preparing for the second coming of Jesus, I and you need to ask who Our Lord is in relationship to ourselves, and who we are in relationship to Him. That way, we can be ready for the special grace-filled ways in which Christ will come to us in the Christmas season. You are going to love the Christmas present Jesus has for you.

But first we are challenged to understand who St. John the Baptist is. John was a cousin to Our Lord on Mary’s side. We know little about his upbringing, except that it was as the son of a priest of the Jewish people. He was in the desert, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. That was somewhat revolutionary, because the Jews had and have a special day for asking for forgiveness, a fall festival of fasting and prayer called Yom Kippur. But John was preaching and baptising, it appears, all year long. So the Jewish authorities, especially the rigorist Pharisees, wondered if John was one of those pesky self-proclaimed Messiahs that cropped up every few years. Or, maybe, he thought he was Elijah come to preach the end of the world. Whatever he thought he was, he was preaching repentance, and getting very pointed in his denunciation of sin. So the Jews sent liturgy experts to find out John’s agenda. And this leads to the first of several testimonies recorded by St. John the evangelist. The first three are given by John the Baptist.

John is a mysterious presence who stands, both literally and metaphorically, on the threshold between the Old and New Testaments. His strange and troubling presence reminds us of some of the more unusual prophets of the Old Testament, who brought urgent messages from God, sometimes conveyed in dramatic but mysterious actions.

He reminds the people of Israel of the need for repentance, offering them the physical symbol of cleansing from their sins, but at the same time, he points ahead to the glory of salvation offered to the repentant.

This can all seem a far cry from a day associated with excitement and rejoicing at the imminent coming of Christmas (today is known as Gaudete Sunday, more Latin, but this time meaning just rejoice!), but as I was writing this sermon yesterday, I was thinking about the nature of rejoicing, and what Paul himself intended by his instruction “to rejoice always and pray without ceasing.”

Perhaps he was enjoining them to a persistent, urgent joy.

Some people understand joy as euphoria or excitement, others as a quiet, deep contentment.

Few of us, perhaps, would link constant rejoicing with the idea of unceasing prayer, though rather more may connect it with gratitude for life’s blessings.

It is often associated with a sense of anticipation, and perhaps we all remember that childhood shiver of happiness associated with the crib service, or the lumpy stocking at the bottom of the bed, which announced that at last, Christmas was really here.

But as Christians we are also encouraged to look forward and rejoice in a future with God so wonderful we cannot even begin to imagine it, that salvation which Christ’s coming announces.

This is, of course, the burden of John’s message, and while we may associate him more with his angry exchanges with the Pharisees and his harsh injunctions to repent and be baptised, his life is in fact devoted to proclaiming the good news that “The Kingdom of Heaven is near at hand.”

Here is the joy lying at the foundation of John’s life and work – his recognition that the coming of Christ was the first sign of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom on earth.

Right at the beginning of John’s story, when Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, John’s mother, when they have both discovered themselves to be miraculously pregnant, Elizabeth declares,

“Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy.”

Even before birth, we are given to understand, the infant John recognises in his cousin the longed-for Messiah, whose coming he is to make plain to all people.

A little later in John’s Gospel, when being quizzed once again about Jesus, John retorts

“You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.”  He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.” In the knowledge that in Christ salvation is near, John is announcing a real cause for rejoicing.

But this is not a deep, peaceful joy, nor is it happy excitement, it is an all-consuming joy which drives him out urgently to proclaim the message to others that they too may share in that Joy if they will only listen to him, consider and put aside their self-orientated lives and open their hearts in repentance to recognise and follow the Messiah when he comes.

Perhaps this sense of urgency also lies behind Paul’s encouragement to rejoice always.

As we remembered on Advent Sunday, the Advent season is the time when we too look ahead to Christ’s second coming, to our salvation and our rising in glory to be with God forever.

As Christmas approaches, we may experience the joy of the present moment in many forms, but perhaps today’s liturgy might remind us that we are called to rejoice also in God’s promise of salvation.

Amidst the many excitements and trappings of the season, perhaps we may also find opportunities to reflect on and to share with others, the coming of true Joy, the inbreaking of the kingdom, the arrival of the longed-for Messiah.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence. In Nomine +