Holy Patience, Holy Impatience
A sermon for Advent 3 Isaiah 35.1-10 ; Matthew 11.2-11 Today’s Gospel reading is the second appearance of John the Baptist in two weeks. Last week , John appeared in the wilderness of Judea. He preached and baptised, and got angry with the Pharisees and Sadducees. But above all, he spoke of one who was to come, more powerful that John himself, who would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It is clear that John expects that Jesus will be a figure of power and action, who will take John’s criticism of the establishment further into action. The last verse of last week’s Gospel reading was this: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. We meet John again this week. By now he is in prison, and keeping track of Jesus through the reports he gets. It’s fair to say that John is at th...