We begin our sermon this week with a story about a crime! The story about a burglar who broke into a house one dark, stormy night. The family were all fast asleep in their beds, but as the burglar was looking around for valuables, she suddenly heard a voice say –

“Jesus is watching you!”

The burglar froze in her tracks, looked around and then, with great relief, realised it was a parrot inside a cage.

“Jesus is watching you!”, the parrot squawked again.

The burglar made her way across to the cage and saw a small nameplate that read John the Baptist.

“Huh! What kind of religious nut names their parrot John the Baptist?” she said out loud.

To which the parrot responded, “The same kind who names their Rottweiler Jesus!”

My apologies, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this little story with you today. You see things didn’t go quite as the burglar had planned, it wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. But then, breaking into someone’s house is not the way things are supposed to be either.

And that’s an interesting thought for us today.

This isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

I wonder if you have every had that thought?

This isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

Maybe it was about something a bit more serious than our burglar story, perhaps something you had planned for your career or retirement. Maybe it was the latest family gathering that ended in shouting or falling out. Maybe it was the silly thing you said or did to someone else and now regret.

Or perhaps it was your response to something you’ve seen or read about in the news recently

• The shooting of the CEO of an insurance company on a city street
• The bombing of cities in Israel and Palestine
• The attempt to impose martial law by the president of South Korea
• A shooting spree on the Isle of Skye

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

If you have ever found yourself having this thought or feeling this way, then you have a sense of the biblical concept of sin. The very thing of which John call’s us to repentance.

When you say or think, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be” there are actually two things going on.

First of all, you have a sense that something is not right. But there is also a second thing. In order to say that something isn’t right, you also need a vision of what things are supposed to be like. So sin, in the biblical tradition, is a derivative concept. First, you have to have some sense of what is right. Only then can you say something is wrong.

In the biblical tradition the vision for how things ought to be is sometimes called shalom. We translate this word as “peace,” but it means much more than an absence of warfare or a calm state of mind. Shalom or peace in the scriptures means universal flourishing, wholeness, harmony and delight. The prophets spoke of a time when crooked paths would be made straight, when rough places would be made smooth, when flowers would bloom in the desert, when weeping would cease, when the lion would lay down with the lamb, when the foolish would be made wise, when the wise would be made humble, when humans would beat their swords into ploughshares. A time when all nature would be fruitful and benign, when all nations would sit down together for a sumptuous feast, all creation would look to God, walk with God, and delight in God.

In the Bible, shalom, or peace, is the way things are supposed to be.

Sin, the way things aren’t supposed to be, is the violation of shalom.

Of course, sin is an affront to God, but it is an affront to God because it breaks God’s peace.

And what is it that breaks God’s peace? Twisting the good things of creation so that they serve unworthy ends. Splitting apart things that belong together. The corruption of personal and social and natural integrity. A moment’s reflection or a look at the evening news can easily supply specific examples.

Now, all this talk about sin may sound like a bit of a downer, especially on the 8^th December. Many of us are starting to get into the  Christmas spirit. Decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music, building up the ‘jolly’. We even came to church this morning!

But instead of the baby Jesus and heavenly choirs of angels, we get John the Baptist, a rough prophet prowling about in the Judean wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Not exactly “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”!

But here’s the strangest thing. We still refer to this message as good news. After the gospel lesson was read, Monica said to us, “This is the gospel of the Lord.” That is to say, “the Good News of the Lord.” How can this be? Some of us might say, “No way.” An Old Testament prophet wagging his finger at us and calling us sinners is definitely not good news. Others of us may be willing to admit the importance of John’s message, but only as a prelude to good news, something we must do to get ready for good news of the birth of a saviour. We need to go through the hard process of acknowledging and repenting of our sins so that we may make ourselves ready for the gift of Christ. It may be a necessary process, but we still wouldn’t call it good news. Think of when the doctor tells us we have to give up the foods we love and start exercising – they may be telling us a truth we need to hear, but we don’t really rejoice and burst into song when we hear it.

And yet there is a way that John’s message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins can actually be seen as good news, and not just as a necessary, grit-our-teeth-and-get-through-it prelude to good news.

After Monica read the gospel and said, “This is the gospel of the Lord,” we responded, “Praise to Christ our Lord” But how can really mean it?

How?

Well, I think we can see John the Baptist’s proclamation of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as good news in three ways.

Firstly, if we hear John’s message and it rings true, if we have ever said, “This is not the way things are supposed to be,” then we already know God’s peace. As I said earlier, in the biblical view, sin is a derivative concept. We must already have a vision of how things ought to be if we feel as though things aren’t that way. We must have some sense of God’s peace, to know when it is broken. And this is good news. We do have a vision of God’s shalom, God’s peace. It has been given to us in our scriptures, and in our religious traditions, and in our reflection on creation. We have been given a vision of the world as created and redeemed by our good and generous God, a world made to be fruitful, filled with deep and abiding joy. If we hear and respond to John’s message about sin, then we must already know about God’s peace. And that is good news.

A second way we can see John’s message as good news is that if we hear and respond to his call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, then we must believe that there is something we can do about it. John is not saying things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be and they never will be, so just get used to it. His is not a message of futility in the face of the brokenness of God’s creation. Rather, it is a liberating and joyful call to realign our individual and collective wills with the purposes of God. If we already know of God’s vision of shalom, we can be people who promote flourishing, seek wholeness and restore harmony. We can be repairers of the breach. To hear and respond to John’s message is good news, because in spite of the fact that things aren’t the way they should be, they can change and so can we. People can stop killing each other. Hungry people can be fed. Parents can love their families and help their children to thrive. Enemies can become friends. It is good and, indeed, joyful news to know that we are free to respond to God’s call to shalom.

And finally, we can hear John’s message about a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as good news because if we already know God’s peace, if we can respond to the call of God’s peace, then in some deep way we already trust in the eventual triumph of God’s peace.

In our gospel lesson, John is described by the words of the prophet Isaiah as:

“the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

It is an emphatic message: all flesh will see the salvation of God. And this is good news, the Good News.

Things aren’t the way they are supposed to be. We know this because we already know God’s peace. Through a process of repentance, we can align ourselves with God’s purposes, God’s peace, the way things are supposed to be. And we can do this in spirit of gratitude, joy and trust because we have been given a promise of the eventual triumph of God’s shalom in the birth of a baby who is the Lord strong and mighty, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace!

That, my beloved sisters and brothers, is Good News!