Message for Advent 2 – Sunday, December 8, 2024

Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

In Malachi 3: 1, we read about two messengers: the first, John the Baptist, who was to prepare the people for the coming of Jesus, and the second messenger, Jesus himself, who was to be the purifier of our souls. In verse 2, Malachi is concerned about the people of the day, specifically, their preparedness to face this second messenger.

Fast forward 2,400 years later.  Jesus, the second messenger came, completed his ministry and returned to heaven. Many of us in the Anglican community have answered the call to give our hearts and lives to Jesus, the second messenger, and have accepted the Christian way of living. So now I ask the people of the day, are we living the way Jesus Christ wants us to live as we walk out our days on this earth?

Paul in today’s reading, prayed for the saints in Phillipi that they be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, his second coming. This could be the lead to our lesson for this season, self-reflection. Are we allowing the word of God to work in us, through prayers and faithful study of the scriptures, so that day by day we can work to becoming pure and blameless for the day of Christ?

Self-reflection is a process of communicating internally with ourselves as we take time to think honestly about our character or behavior. It is so easy to see the mote in someone’s eye and yet not see the plank that is in our own eye [Matthew 7:3].

Self-reflection allows us to question the motives behind the things we do and help to guide our future behavior.

We are reminded in James 1: 22 – 24, to be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

Jesus has provided himself as an example for us to live by. We must live a life of accountability to ourselves, our family and ultimately to God. In this modern-day world, it is so easy for us to be sidetracked by all the distractions, but the season of Advent helps to draw us back to deeply examine our lives, look at ourselves through the ‘mirror’ of God’s word to find out where we have fallen short. In so doing, we can seek God’s word and through our own actions make the necessary changes to our lives with God’s help.

There is no one perfect except Jesus Christ, but we can be a better person today, than we were yesterday.

Contributed