Virtual Worship - 5 December 2021

Advent 2 

Service Sheet (pdf)

Introduction

Welcome to worship at Baildon Methodist Church. If you have any sorrow or regret about anything you have done in the recent or far-distant past, or any anger or regrets about how other people have treated you. This service is for you. For us. You are especially welcome on this second Sunday of Advent which is all about John the Baptist and his promise of forgiveness which, as St Luke says in his Gospel, is life-changing.

Collect for today

Dear God who taught us about forgiveness, forgive us because we have forgotten the lessons that we learned from the life and example of Jesus Christ, who forgave both his tormentors, and his friends. Amen

Hymn

The theme for the second Sunday in Advent is John the Baptist, and our lesson from the Gospel will tell us something about his ministry. Our first hymn first appeared in Paris at about the time of the restoration in England as a Latin poem by a man called Coffin. This version is a translation made by John Chandler 150 years later:

Hymn 1: 182 On Jordan’s banks the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh.

Gospel Reading

Luke 3:1-6 The message

In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius—it was while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; Herod, ruler of Galilee; his brother Philip, ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias, ruler of Abilene; during the Chief-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—John, Zachariah’s son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:

Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare God’s arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in,
Every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out,
All the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see
The parade of God’s salvation.”

Reflection

Luke anchors the ministry of John in the minds of his contemporary readers. All the office holders mentioned were around between 28AD and 30AD, except Annas. The Jewish records of high priests was meticulous. Annas was deposed in AD15, but Caiaphas was his son-in-law, so the political reality that Luke was confirming was that, around AD30, Caiaphas was high priest, but Annas pulled his strings.

The combination of Roman records and Jewish records does emphasise that John was a real person at a real time in history. This is not a fictional account, it is a factual account of a man, it had to be a man in those days, who experienced the same range of feelings and emotions as we do.

Luke emphasises that John not only told people about the forgiveness of sins, but that this was “life-changing”, and was marked by a commitment within a ceremony, so that, in people’s lives there was a definite “before” and a definite “after”. We could compare this with a birth, a death, a marriage ceremony, a recognition of British Citizenship ceremony for a refugee, or a degree ceremony, in that everything changes in that one moment. One moment my sins weigh me down, they enervate me, they restrict my energy and enthusiasm; the next moment, they are forgiven, I am a new man, I will, of course, regret and try to make amends for my sins, but they no longer have power over me.

Hymn

Martin Leckebusch lives in Gloucester, he is a specialist in numerical analysis but is nevertheless a nice guy he is married to Jane, they have four daughters; but their son died in 1995. His interests include jazz, crosswords and a good curry. He has written about 400 hymns, a bit short of Charles Wesley’s 6500 but there is time! He wrote out next hymn:

Hymn 2: 703 In an age of twisted values, we have lost the truth we need.

Reflection

Forgiveness is not always easy to give nor to receive. It is not always comfortable, sometimes we would rather not. Let me explain. Remember all the TV interviews that you have seen with the relatives of victims. In some of those interviews we see a face contorted with a mixture of sorrow and anger as the owner of the face, let’s call her Jane, demands justice for her friend or relative who has died or suffered at the hands of a criminal, a terrorist, or an overworked doctor. There are lawyers, no win, no fee, who will have offered their services to secure compensation for Jane, and the carrot of compensation opens wounds and keeps them open. The anger that injustice has been done is a sustaining life story, a narrative, that supports the Jane and gives her a reason for getting up in the morning.

In other interviews you will see a face serene with sorrow and regret, but also with hope. Let’s call the owner Janet. You may hear that she has forgiven the perpetrator of the outrage. That loving forgiveness is also her life narrative, her reason for getting up in the morning. Jane cannot understand Janet, how can she forgive? How can she so betray the memory of her loved one?  Janet, on the other hand, cannot understand why Jane should cling to her anger.

Both Jane and Janet may great things as a result of the motivation that they choose in response to the loss, but who would you rather be? The forgiver or the unforgiver? Jane or Janet?
Jesus showed us how to forgive. He forgave His tormentors on the cross, he forgave Peter for abandoning Him, later, Stephen forgave those who stoned him to death. How often should we forgive someone? How much is 70 x 7 anyway? Quite a lot.

On March 20th, 1993, the day before Mothering Sunday, the IRA exploded two bombs without warning in a shopping street in the town of Warrington. Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene of the bombing as a result of his shrapnel inflicted injuries and, five days later, 12-year-old Tim Parry lost his life as a result of fatal head injuries. 54 others were injured, some seriously. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the deaths of Tim and Johnathan. Colin and Wendy, Tim’s parents wanted to understand why but they have never sought to know who did it, nor to seek revenge or justice. Instead, they created the Warrington Peace Foundation. They wrote a book: Tim-an ordinary boy: the profits established the Tim Parry Scholarship. They work ceaselessly to meet the needs of victims and relatives of victims of atrocities.

Hymn

Christopher Ellis is a Baptist minister and writer of many hymns including this one

Hymn 3: 419 to Finlandia: Almighty God, we come to make confession for we have sinned in thought and word and deed.

It is not only difficult to forgive, but also difficult to receive forgiveness. Let me first define sin. Sin is when you needlessly offend someone else, or restrict their freedom, or restrict their possibilities, or hold them back from developing as they might. That also applies to our own lives, when we ignore our potential, when we betray trust, when we abuse our bodies by sitting too long and exercising too little. We also sin when we treat any part of this Earth as a possession to be used for our convenience rather than to be held in trust to be handed on.
lkWhen we know that we have sinned, offended against someone else, or against ourselves, or against this Earth that gives us home and nourishes us, we experience mixed emotions. There is pride for a start. We feel that we must defend our actions. It is easier to watch this in other people, especially those who are in the public spotlight. No sooner has an accusation been levelled, announced on the seven o’clock news perhaps, but even before we can say something like: “And about time too, he had that coming” or “Bang to rights, I’d say”, we hear the person accused saying “I have done nothing wrong”. He may have abused aspirant starlets, or squirrelled away thousands of pounds of our money, or betrayed his calling in favour of personal gain, but in his eyes, he has done nothing wrong, and is falsely accused. As evidence mounts in succeeding weeks or days, he eventually resigns, or goes to prison.

We can’t pretend that we are fundamentally different. We are all fallible children of God, sharing the emotions, the feelings, the needs of John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Steve Biko, and anyone else you care to name. The first thing we may feel when we know we have done wrong is a prickly need to defend ourselves. The idea of receiving forgiveness is an anathema, indeed the possibility of being forgiven is not even on the cards until we acknowledge that we have offended.

Methodist Minister, Henry Burton, is best known for his poem "Pass It On," which has been set to music by no less than ten different composers.
Have you had a kindness shown?
Pass it on;
'Twas not given for thee alone,
Pass it on;
Let it travel down the years,
Let it wipe another's tears,
'Til in Heaven the deed appears –
Pass it on.

Hymn

He also wrote this hymn:
Hymn 4 188 There’s a light upon the mountains and the day is at the spring

Prayers

Pray for
Relatives of victims of violence, that they may choose forgiveness
Those who feel discriminated against, that they may find courage to rise above it
Those whom we criticise when they do their work to the best of their ability
Ourselves, when we feel anger about someone else
Ourselves, when we cannot accept that we have sinned, when we cannot accept forgiveness

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn

Last hymn, Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. By Robert and Robin Kochis
When reference is made to “Brothers”, please feel free to sing “Sisters” instead!

Let there be peace on earth. and let it begin with me
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be
With God as our Father, brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony
Let peace begin with me and let this the moment now
With every step I take. Let this be my solemn vow
To take each moment, and live each moment in peace eternally
Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin ...with me...