Pointing: A Sermon for Advent 3. Advent Calendar Day 15.
Zephaniah 3.14-20 ; Luke 3.7-18 . In the four weeks of Advent we have marked the lighting of the Advent wreath by remembering the preparation that God made for the birth of his Son. This began with Abraham and continued with the prophets. Today, the third Sunday of Advent, we reach John the Baptist. In Christian art, John the Baptist has often been portrayed pointing upwards to heaven. John points to Jesus. The image is taken from John’s Gospel, when John says of Jesus, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’. But it also takes up the Christian understanding of John as the one who prepares the way for the coming of Jesus. John is a figure of some importance himself – in the Gospel reading this morning we hear how people asked him if he was the Messiah. But John constantly directs attention away from himself to Jesus. ‘One who is more powerful than...