The first words spoken in this gospel are words from the Magi’s lips. In the first century of the Christian Era, a Magus could be an astronomer who studied and recorded the movement of stars and planets. It could refer to astrologers, who claimed to be able to understand the meaning of motion in the heavens for the lives of human beings. It could also mean “wonder-workers”—magicians.

A couple of years ago, I had my DNA tested on 23 and Me and found out that 94.8% of my ancestry is British and Irish. One of my first thoughts when I read that report, was, “Well, my ancestors were a pretty unadventurous lot. There they were, living on a couple of islands on the western edge of the European continent, and there they stayed, until some unexpected impulse, ambition, crime, or disaster sent them off to this New World.”

Angels and dreams appear early, in what for us Christians, is the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis. At the end of the second creation story, “[The Lord God] drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword . . . to guard the way to the tree of life.”[1] The patriarch Jacob’s son Joseph not only dreamed dreams about his future but he could interpret the dreams of others.

In Mark, the earliest of the gospels, the identity of Jesus is revealed at the Jordan, when he is baptized by John, whose voice cried in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”[1] When Luke and Matthew write, ten to fifteen years later, and independently of each other, Jesus is revealed differently. For Luke and Matthew, Jesus’ conception and birth showed whose child he was. In Matthew, the child to be born is already “Emmanuel, (which means God with us)”[2]. He is to be called in Hebrew, “Yeshua,” that is “Joshua,” and in Greek, “Jesus.”[3] I like the explanation of this name given in my annotated Revised Standard Version, “The Hebrew and Aramaic forms of “Jesus” and “he will save” are similar. The [meaning] could be suggested by translating [the verse], ‘You shall call his name “Savior” because he will save.’ ”[4]

In Mark, the earliest of the gospels, the identity of Jesus is revealed at the Jordan, when he is baptized by John, whose voice cried in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”[1] When Luke and Matthew write, ten to fifteen years later, and independently of each other, Jesus is revealed differently. For Luke and Matthew, Jesus’ conception and birth showed whose child he was. In Matthew, the child to be born is already “Emmanuel, (which means God with us)”[2]. He is to be called in Hebrew, “Yeshua,” that is “Joshua,” and in Greek, “Jesus.”[3] I like the explanation of this name given in my annotated Revised Standard Version, “The Hebrew and Aramaic forms of “Jesus” and “he will save” are similar. The [meaning] could be suggested by translating [the verse], ‘You shall call his name “Savior” because he will save.’ ”[4]

In the mid-1980s, the late New Testament professor Raymond Brown was asked to write a series of essays on the four passion narratives.[1] He followed this with essays on Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives, which he called, An Adult Christ for Christmas.[2] The next small volume contained essays on Matthew and Luke’s narratives that prepare us to hear of the birth of Jesus, A Coming Christ in Advent.[3] Today’s gospel lesson is the story of the birth of John the Baptist from Luke.

On December 21, 1983, I was ordained priest while serving at the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas. Three days before, the Arctic weather sent temperature below freezing until December 30. In many ways, the city was shut-down because there was ice and snow. Father Charles Jenkins, then a rector in Arlington, Texas—now-retired bishop of Louisiana, for whom we have been praying—made it to Dallas that night. A few years ago, a man I knew when he was a teenager growing up at Incarnation began the project of getting the tapes of the-then rector’s sermons on the web. The rector was Paul Waddell Pritchartt.

Since the adoption of the 1979 Prayer Book, the gospel lessons on the Second and Third Sundays of Advent are always about John the Baptist. In this Lectionary Year of Mark, by far the shortest of our gospels, the editors had the opportunity to appoint a lesson from John. Today’s gospel follows the introduction, the prologue, of John’s Gospel: This is Francis Moloney’s translation of this gospel’s first verse. He tries to capture something of the dynamic of the Greek verbs: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was turned toward God, and what God was, the Word was also.”[1]

Many years ago now, Father Pete Powell remarked in a sermon that the only successful prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures was Jonah. Pete did not neglect to mention that his success came not in Israel or Judah, but with the repentance of the king and people of Nineveh. From a Christian perspective, and with respect to the Hebrew prophets, I think we should include John’s name in the list of successful prophets. John’s life and preaching brought people to the Jordan River to be washed clean from their sins before Jesus began his public ministry.

In spite of encounter of John and Jesus at the Jordan, Matthew and Luke both share the story from the Sayings Source of John the Baptist sending disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”[1] Jesus answers by telling those disciples to tell John what he has been doing: “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me.”[2]

This morning, when I woke up at about 4:30, I didn’t get up. I turned on Channel 13, the Public Broadcasting Station, with the volume low, rolled over, and slept some more. When I woke again, a program called “The Ornament of the World” was on.[1] I hadn’t heard of it. It’s about the period in Medieval Spain when instead of strict boundaries among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, each of these communities was profoundly influenced by the other two. The military successes of the Christian kingdoms would conclude the expulsion of Jews, Muslims, and the persecution by the Inquisition of converted Jews and Muslims who had tried to stay. But early on, it was different.

Newbury Frost Read’s The Story of St. Mary’s includes a very brief account of the congregation’s beginnings by the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown, whose vision for the renewal of congregational worship continues to touch the lives of those, who for a hundred and fifty years today, have entered this congregation’s church home and discovered a special a place where God’s grace, forgiveness, love, and fellowship with others can be found.

The lectionary wants us to focus this morning on the work of John the Baptist.[1] I will give the lectionary the benefit of the doubt and assume that it is attempting to keep us focused on Advent and not get ahead of ourselves by jumping into the ministry of Jesus. Certainly we make no progress in rehearsing the ministry of Jesus in the next 2 weeks with Gospel readings from John’s prologue next week and Luke’s opening the 4th week of Advent.

What we meet today is John the Baptist who in most Advent pageants is usually a rough cut guy on a lonely quest to baptize Jews so that they might be saved from their sins. As we think of him he is pretty tame. Eccentric but harmless with a weird diet and dress. It is hard to see why he needed to be beheaded he is so harmless.

If Thanksgiving Day fell during a different week this year, yesterday we would have heard these words from the Revelation to John, “And [the angel] called out with a mighty voice, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!’ ”[1] In the Old Testament, these words are found in Isaiah. In 539 BC, Cyrus, founder of the first Persian Empire, conquers Babylon, then the world's largest city. Cyrus would permit Israel and Judea's exiles to return and rebuild Jerusalem with its walls and temple.[2]

Scholars know that around the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the tenth century, monastic workshops began to put the prayers and lessons for Advent Sundays at the front of the new liturgical books which they were making.[1] Scholars do not know why this was done, but because of the way books were laid out, Advent would come to be thought of by Christians in the West as the beginning of the church year, instead of its conclusion.

One of the things I don’t remember hearing while growing up Southern Baptist is the distinction between prophetic and apocalyptic writing. Israel’s prophets were concerned with the events of their own time and place. One example from Jeremiah: Jeremiah said to King Zedeki'ah, “Thus says the Lord . . . If you will surrender to the princes of . . . Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. But if you do not surrender . . . then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chalde'ans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.”[1] He did not surrender. He tried to escape but was caught. He watched his sons be executed. Then he was blinded, put in chains, and taken in fetters to Babylon. Jerusalem was emptied of its people; its temple, palace, great houses, and walls were torn down.[2]

In the Episcopal Church, those who are to be ordained must “solemnly declare that [they] . . . believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.” They go on “solemnly [to] engage to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.” The ordinand is required to sign this Declaration “in the sight of all present” before the ordination can proceed.[1]

In 2017, I did a DNA test for genealogy. I didn’t use a test that told you the names of the countries of origin or who your relatives might be. Instead, I used a test that tells one about the ethnic groups where one’s DNA is found in concentration. My largest group turned out to be at 22.3% Fennoscandia. Its origin: Iceland and Norway and declines in Finland, England, and France—in other words, broadly speaking, the Vikings. Others in the top five are Southern France, the Orkney Islands, Basque Country, and Western Siberia. More interesting are the other seven, in declining order: Southeastern India; Tuva (South Siberia); Sardinia; Northern India, the Sonora (Native Americans); the Southern Levant (Israel & Syria); and finally, Western South America.

Though the present Prayer Book was adopted in 1979, Church Publishing has never published lectionaries for public celebrations of the Daily Office—I mean, large print—or any lectionaries for weekday Eucharists. So Saint Mary’s Lectionary Project was born. All of the lessons are formatted to help all of us read the Word of God well. None of us miss marking a Bible for service lessons.

Margaret of Wessex, England, was born an English princess and became queen of Scotland with her marriage to Malcolm III. She bore eight children.[1] In the year 1040, her husband’s father, King Duncan, was killed in battle by Macbeth—yes, Shakespeare’s Macbeth. He would rule a part of Scotland until 1057 when he died battling troops loyal to Malcolm.[2] I can’t help but think of Shakespeare’s plays and the movie Braveheart.