12/06/2009
He Who Began a Good Work in You
December 6, 2009 Luke 3: 1-6 Philippians 1: 3-11
Rev. Catherine Purves
One of the reasons why Advent can easily become a season of frustration bordering on panic is because so many tasks and projects are only half done. Shopping lists are made, but gifts are not bought. Presents are bought, but not wrapped. Parcels are wrapped, but not mailed. Cards are selected, but not signed and addressed. A tree is chosen, but not decorated. The decorations are dragged out of the attic, but the lights don’t work. Food is bought, but not prepared. Guest rooms are tidied, but the beds are not made. How does anyone survive this season without lists? But as soon as you can gratefully cross one thing off of your list, two more things occur to you that must be added. It seems like everything is only half done.
I think that, actually, this is our normal state of being, but it seems that, at other times of the year, we are not so flustered by it. We do not spend a whole lot of time in that blessed state of “done” or “ready.” Our lives are always made up of a whole lot of loose ends and half-met goals. It’s just that, at this time of year, we have more of those to juggle, don’t we? And so, our general state of incomplete half-preparedness is that much more obvious. Plus, there is an immovable end date by which all of our tasks must be done. Christmas is coming on the 25th this year, and all of the things on your lists must somehow be accomplished by then, or else!
Advent, like Lent, is a season in which we are invited to reflect on the fact that spiritually we are also very much a work in progress. We are not “done.” Putting a check mark beside faith on our “to do” lists is not the end of the matter. That is the beginning of what is a life-long calling to grow in our relationship with Christ, and to continue to struggle with persistent sins through repentance and amendment of life. You are not done yet. And we should really feel a sense of unsettled urgency about that. The clock is ticking. Our lives are passing. Are we growing? Are we repenting? Are we
amending our lives?
John the Baptist is one of the central figures of the Advent season. His timely call to repentance was the embodiment of the words of the prophet Isaiah. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The fervor of John the Baptist was fueled by his knowledge that time was short, that God was about to act, and that the people were unprepared.
It’s interesting how Luke takes such pains to identify the precise time of John’s ministry. It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate and Herod and Philip ruled different parts of Israel and Lysanias ruled in Syria, and when Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. There is no ambiguity here. John was a historical figure speaking to people living at that precise point in history, and he challenged them to repent immediately. This was not to be noted on some never-ending “to do” list. It must happen now!
And we must hear John’s call with this same sense of urgent immediacy. Repentance is not something that we can put off. Spiritual growth is not something that we can get to, eventually, when we’re not so busy. Right now, today, when Barak Obama is in the first year of his presidency, when Sheldon Sorge has just been called as Executive Presbyter of Pittsburgh Presbytery, and when I am completing my tenth year as your minister, on this 2nd Sunday of Advent in the year of our Lord 2009, in this precise context, at this point in your personal history the call to repentance is to be heard. You are not done yet! And the clock is ticking.
It is at just this point that we must interject the reassuring words of Paul to the Philippian church. “I am confident of this,” Paul writes, “that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” This is crucially important. It means that your necessary spiritual growth, repentance, and amendment of life is not something that you must hurriedly put on your “to do” list and strive to attain in manic desperation. This is because God has put you on his “to do” list, and the good work that God has begun in your life will be brought to completion through the work of the Holy Spirit within you. Paul repeats this a little later in chapter 2, at verse 13: “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
All spiritual growth is God’s gift. John Calvin writes that “not a whit remains to man to glory in, for the whole of salvation comes from God.” Do you know what a “whit” is? I had to look it up in the dictionary. A whit is the smallest part or particle imaginable. We have not a whit of merit or spiritual achievement to glory in, says Calvin, because, “God is the author of spiritual life from beginning to end.” [The Institutes, 2.3.6]. Not a whit comes from human effort or aspirations. Spiritual growth to maturity in Christ is certainly not just a matter of adding “holiness” to your “to do” list this Advent.
So, where does that leave us? It leaves us wholly reliant upon God who has begun a good work in each of our lives. It means that we are completely dependent upon God who alone enables us to hear the call to repentance and who refashions our will so that we can respond in faithful living. This is all God’s doing, and it is the exciting and necessary work of the Spirit that we must both seek and celebrate now, today, and every day.
The real power in John the Baptist’s call to repentance was in the dynamic work of the Spirit who made it possible for those people to hear and respond and be made ready to receive their Savior. That same Spirit continues to enable us to hear God’s call to us in Jesus Christ and to respond with a faith that grows deeper every day, by God’s grace. And that produces what Paul calls “a harvest of righteousness.”
If this is all God’s work, as Paul and Calvin seem to insist, and if Paul is confident that God will complete that work, then why issue the call to repentance? Why the urgency if we are on God’s “to do” list? One of the mysteries of faith is that we seem to have the capacity to confound the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. God claims us in Christ, but we can then choose, either intentionally or unintentionally, not to grow in our faith. We can let that be one more thing that gets shoved to the back burner, postponed, neglected, forgotten. We can choose not to live into the truth of our baptism, the truth that we are in Christ and that the Holy Spirit is in us. That is a very scary choice, but it is one that many people seem to make.
So, here is the rather strange message that our two texts together communicate to us on this 2nd Sunday of Advent: Repent today! The clock is ticking. And this is the season when we must recognize that the good work begun in our lives is not yet done. We have been content in our sins. We have resisted the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. John the Baptist was not overstating the seriousness of the situation. But, here is the good news. Here is God’s promise: the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. God will enable you to repent, to deal with those persistent sins, and to amend your life. Don’t resist the work of the Spirit in your life. Don’t delay. You are not done yet. But in this season of Advent, God in Christ by the power of the Spirit is offering you the grace of a transformed life. And I am convinced that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ, when all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
