Advent 3 - God is at work.

Matthew 11: 2-11, James 5: 7-10

How great it is to stand on the brink of a great new chapter for our world. A new start, a new government, a time of peace and prosperity and goodness for all people.

Not a reference to Thursday’s General Election result – but a reflection of what our Bible readings have to say about the kingdom of God.

However we feel about the new government, we can all agree that through the human decisions that are made at Westminster we want to see a country – even a world – where God’s will is done, where the values of the kingdom are honoured, where God is in charge, for the good of all God’s children.

But how do we know what God’s kingdom looks like, and how do we become part of it?

The passage we heard from Matthew comes from a time right at the start of Jesus’ ministry, when John the Baptist, who has been put into prison, is wondering about God’s kingdom .

Specifically, John asks whether Jesus is here to bring in God’s kingdom. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

The answer Jesus gives -  to John, through his messengers, and to the crowd around is all about looking.

1.   What do you see?

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

The first thing to do if we want God in charge of our world is to look around for those places and those people in whom God’s good work is being done. Where lives are better, fuller, healed – God is there. And did you notice that the blind will see – one sign of the kingdom is that more & more people will see it as it grows and as people flourish.

I’m not suggesting we ignore the difficult things in our world – but I am suggesting that we should be the first to notice the good things, and be ready to point out to others that God is at work to bring healing, hope and joy.

I love Isaac Watts’ hymn with which we will end our worship today ‘Joy to the world’ – especially the verse ‘No more let thorns infest the ground or sin and sorrow grow’. The kingdom is like a garden: we need to look and root out the weeds, but we also need to look for the fresh growth of good plants and encourage them.

2.   What did you expect?

Back in Matthew’s gospel - Jesus then turns his attention to the crowds around him

 “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, and more than a prophet..”.

Recognising signs of God’s kingdom involves recognising our expectations of the kingdom. The people of Jesus’ day went out to listen to John the Baptist because they recognised that, like an Old Testament prophet, what he was saying was a message from God. That message wasn’t an easy message, nor did it come from a place of privilege or earthly power, but it came with the conviction that God was with his people, out there in the desert.

What do we expect to see when we look for signs of God’s kingdom? Surely something of God’s peace, justice, joy, healing. But where should we look? Not just in any royal palace, nor even in the palace of Westminster, but anywhere where God’s promises are fulfilled.

In my Christmas letter to ministers of the synod, I mentioned some unexpected Good News, delivered this December by a group of artists.

The four artists nominated for the 2019 Turner Prize will share this year's award after urging the judges not to choose any of them as a single winner.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Tai Shani and Oscar Murillo got together to write to the prestigious prize's panel. They said they wanted to make a "collective statement" at a time when there was "already so much that divides and isolates people and communities".

The BBC, reporting this, have suggested that ‘Maybe annual awards … are reaching their sell-by date: an anachronism from a bygone binary age of winners and losers.’

Maybe for us, as we look for the Good News of the kingdom, we will find that with the birth of Jesus Christ, God with us, God has also declared an end to the bygone binary age of losers and winners.

The figures collected around our Christmas crib show us the endless reach of God’s inclusive grace – the young and powerless are there, with the old and faithful; foreigners and outcasts; high-born and lowly; the desperate and the seeking ones; even the beasts of the fields and those who tend them. All are drawn together by angels, star and circumstance, and at the very centre, God made flesh. The kingdom of God is here.

Sometimes we see signs of God’s kingdom where we least expect them.

3.   See – I am sending my messenger

Jesus says of John the Baptist:

“This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Jesus tells the crowd around him to keep looking, keep watching, keep waiting for the ever-unfolding signs of God’s kingdom.

If the main message of Jesus is to look and see – then the letter from James mainly tells us to be patient (no less than 4 times in that short section).

However pleased some of us may be by the make up of our new government, we know this is not yet the kingdom of God fully come on earth.

But be patient, people of God, and know that God’s purposes will unfold -  that God will one day bring total peace, security, wholeness, and joy to his creation.

And in the meantime, prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus, once and for all, as the child of Bethlehem.

So sing with the angels ‘The Lord is come! Alleluia’.

Amen.