A Sunday school teacher in Kansas reports this conversation in her class:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?\u201d she asked the children in her Sunday school class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo!\u201d the children all answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, the answer was, \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my neighbor, would that get me into Heaven?\u201d she asked them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, they all answered, \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she continued, \u201cthen how can I get into Heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A five-year-old boy shouted out, \u201cYou gotta be dead!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These Advent lessons lead us to think about such things as salvation and mission. And we may as well admit it, we tend to think in terms of such questions as: From what are we being saved? God\u2019s punishment? The Devil? Our own Sins? Death? All of which tends to make us think of salvation in terms of \u201cgetting into heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such thinking inevitably leads us to see mission as the work of getting as many people into heaven as possible. Further, such thinking makes us ask questions like \u201cWho will be saved?\u201d Or \u201cWho will be in heaven?\u201d And underneath it all is the little boy\u2019s assumption that the single prerequisite for salvation and heaven is death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along come Isaiah and John. Isaiah is a poet. John, in today\u2019s rendering is \u201ca man sent from God\u201d who came \u201cas a witness.\u201d Both Isaiah and John have something to say about salvation. What they both seem to be saying is that salvation is not about another place or time. Both Isaiah and John announce that salvation is the reality of this world as it should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isaiah offers a vision of just what salvation looks like: we are to turn our attention to those named as recipients of God\u2019s Good News \u2013 the poor, the oppressed, the brokenhearted, captives, prisoners, the mournful, and the faint of spirit. Our mission to, with, and among them defines God\u2019s people as those people who exist for the sake of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further, Isaiah the poet says we will know we are involved in God\u2019s saving mission work when others, \u201cthe nations of the world,\u201d notice that God\u2019s people live differently \u2013 that is, we live for God and for others, all others. Earlier in Isaiah 49:6 the poet says, \u201cI will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enter \u201cThe Light\u201d from before time and forever. In the first chapter of the Gospel According to John (which would be John the Evangelist, not John the Baptist) one is immediately struck by the fact that he is not named \u201cJohn the baptizer\u201d as he is in Mark, or \u201cJohn the Baptist\u201d as he is in Matthew, or even \u201cJohn the son of Zechariah\u201d as we find in Luke. John is simply \u201ca man sent from God \u2026 as a witness to testify to the Light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Light, of course, is \u201cthe Word,\u201d or logos, which has been with God and is God since before creation, and as it says in the first chapter of John, through Him \u201call things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.\u201d This same Word or Light, we are told, \u201cbecame flesh and dwelt among us \u2013 pitched his tent to tent among us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As God\u2019s Word, God\u2019s Light grew up and lived in our midst, he would one day read Isaiah chapter 61 in his hometown synagogue and declare, \u201cToday this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.\u201d That is, the time is now to begin living out the vision of salvation and mission Isaiah proclaimed. It is time for salvation as the reality of this world as it should be! It is this vision of salvation and mission John was sent to witness. John is a witness, in Greek he is a martyria, from which we get the word \u201cmartyr.\u201d Witnesses say what they have seen or heard or attest to the truth of another\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John\u2019s role is to recognize the true Light that has come into the world \u2013 a light that the darkness has not overcome \u2013 and to call attention to this Light so that others might recognize it and believe. Belief in this sense means to recognize, trust, and commit ourselves to the Light \u2013 the Light which is a fulfillment of Isaiah\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This in turn means to commit ourselves to the kind of salvation and mission that Isaiah proclaims, that John recognizes, that Jesus lives, and that both John and Jesus call us to follow so that our lives might become \u201ca light to the nations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. John did not come to decorate everyone and everything for Christmas. John did not come to announce the beginning of the Christmas sale season. He did not come to stir us into a frenzy of shopping and spending. He came to remind us and to bear witness to all who will listen that the darkest forces of the world are not as powerful as they claim or appear to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We begin this Third Sunday of Advent by praying, \u201cStir up your power, O Lord, and with Great Might come among us.\u201d Will we take the time this Advent to allow God to stir things up within us and within our parishes and throughout the Church, so that we might become more like John, \u201ca man sent from God?\u201d For that is, in fact, who we really are \u2013 men and women sent from God as witnesses to testify to the Light, so that all might believe through him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And maybe, just maybe, as we testify, bear witness to, and proclaim the glory of the Light, we will embody the Light and become those who reveal the life of Christ anew in the world \u2013 a world that increasingly is desperate to see and know the Light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it says in John, in the Light is \u201clife, and the life was the light of all people.\u201d All people look to us to see the Light. When all that we say and all that we do bears witness to the Light, heaven and salvation will be understood not as a time and place after death, but rather the world as it should be, here and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by the Rev. Ken Kesselus<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Sunday school teacher in Kansas reports this conversation in her class: \u201cIf I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?\u201d she asked the children in her Sunday school class. \u201cNo!\u201d the children all answered. \u201cIf I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,43,52,3],"tags":[129],"class_list":["post-510928","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-advent-3b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":10,"label":"Advent"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":129,"label":"Advent 3B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/510928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/510928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478456,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/510928\/revisions\/3478456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}