Today, 17th of December, is the day in the Church’s year when, regardless of what day of the week the 17th of December falls on, we start to use the Advent Antiphons at Evening Prayer. Antiphons, as I’m sure many of you will know, are the sentences, usually from scripture or based on scripture, that we say before and after a psalm or canticle during daily prayers. The Advent Antiphons are those we say before and after the Magnificat at Evening Prayer, and we say them on the 7 days before Christmas Eve.
The Advent Antiphons are often known as the Great O Antiphons because they all start with ‘O’, they call on God by a scriptural title, and they say something about God’s saving work in Christ. Today, for example, the Antiphon begins, ‘O Sapentia’, (‘O Wisdom’ in English):
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
This year, obviously, the 17th of December falls on the Third Sunday of Advent, and I think that’s an especially fitting day for the first Advent Antiphon, ‘O Wisdom’, because it coincides with the day when the Gospel of the day draws our attention to John the Baptist.
Scripture has a lot to say about Wisdom, and one of the things it tells us is that God’s Wisdom is not the same as human wisdom; it’s something very different and far greater. As St Paul puts it in his First Letter to the Corinthians,
‘Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?… For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’
What these words tell us is that what appears to be wise to us, to human beings, is often foolish in God’s eyes and vice-versa, and during Advent we read about many people who, by following the call of God, by doing what was wise in God’s eyes, did what appeared to be very foolish in human terms. The prophets who left what they were doing to call the people of Israel to obedience to their covenant with God and were persecuted and often killed as a result. Isaiah, for example, who’s often known as the prophet of the Advent, was probably a member of the royal family of Judah, a nephew of king Amaziah, and yet tradition says that he was executed by his own family. Mary, who risked being stoned to death as an adulteress by accepting God’s call to be the mother of his Son, and yet answered that call by saying,
“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And Joseph, who in response to God’s message, decided to marry Mary anyway, in spite of the fact that she was carrying a child that wasn’t his. We know from Gospel stories about Jesus’ ministry that uncertainty about who his father was, brought him criticism so I think we can with certainty assume that it brought Mary and Joseph criticism and the kind of whispers, disparaging looks and blackened reputations that human wisdom assigns to people involved in real or even imaginary scandal. But of all the people in the Advent story, I think it is perhaps it’s in John the Baptist where we see God’s wisdom shown to be different, more and greater than human wisdom most of all.
John was the son of a priest, so he was from a fairly high-status family. And he would have been expected to have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a priest himself. He wouldn’t have been particularly rich, but he would have been better off than most people in his society with better food, clothes and housing than most. But, in obedience to God’s call, he gave all that up to live in the wilderness, dress in animal skins and eat honey and locusts. People must have thought he was mad, and by the standards of human wisdom, perhaps he was. But John wasn’t acting according to the standards of human wisdom, he was acting according to the standards of God’s Wisdom. And we have Jesus’ own words to assure us of this:
“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.”
Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.
For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears listen!
‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
I don’t think there’s a clearer expression anywhere in scripture of the difference between human wisdom and God’s Wisdom, nor the foolishness of human wisdom compared to God’s Wisdom. No clearer expression of just how foolish those who put human wisdom before God’s Wisdom really are when compared to those who put God first and follow God’s call no matter how foolish or even mad the world thinks that makes them.
In the Advent Antiphon for today, we ask God to teach us prudence. Prudence has many meanings, but perhaps above all it means to be watchful and alert to danger. And what is the Advent call other than to be watchful and alert to danger, the danger of being unprepared to meet the Lord when he comes? And how better can we make sure that we are always watchful and alert to that danger than by turning away from what passes for wisdom in the world and learning and practicing what is wise in God’s eyes?
To be wise in God’s eyes, to have what the Scriptures refer to as Wisdom, is to know what the righteous thing to do is in any situation. To practice Wisdom is to know what the righteous thing to do is in any situation and do it, regardless of what the world says or thinks about it. This is what the prophets did, what Mary and Joseph did, what John the Baptist did, and what so many people we read about in scripture did. It’s what Jesus himself did and, in faith and obedience to him, it’s what we’re called to do and what many Christians have done through the years. Sometimes it’s not easy. It’s often easier to put ourselves first and do what we want to do rather than what Jesus taught us to do. It’s not easy because it’s often easier, not to mention more comfortable and convenient, to be and do the things Jesus taught us not to be and do rather than to be and do what he taught us we should be and do. It’s not easy because we often have more concern for what the world thinks about us, for what other people think about us, than what God might think about us. We don’t want to be the subject of disparaging gossip, rumours and looks, nor to have our names and characters blackened because people think we’re doing, or have done, something wrong or stupid. It’s not easy because we don’t want the world, we don’t want other people, to think we’re stupid.
It’s not easy to practice Wisdom for all these reasons, and probably many more besides, but it’s what we’re called to do. So let’s learn from the example of the prophets, of Mary and Joseph, and of John the Baptist. Let’s learn from the example of Jesus himself and let’s take to heart the words of the Advent Antiphon, ‘O Sapentia’, ‘O Wisdom’ and ask God to teach us prudence and give us the Wisdom and courage to use it.
Amen.
Propers for Advent 17th December 2023
Entrance Antiphon
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!
The Lord is near.
The Collect
O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way,
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world,
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11
Psalm (Magnificat) Luke 1:46-50, 53-54
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm (Magnificat) Luke 1:46-55
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 