PAM Murphy led the service at Crediton Methodist Church on Sunday, December 10, when her theme was Preparing for the Messiah.

Last week we looked at past, present and future, which helped us see we are in the middle of a process in which God is bringing in His Kingdom and vanquishing evil.  

We are engaged in a time of active waiting, of carrying on, of being, of doing whilst we wait for our Lord to return. 

We heard from Mark’s Gospel how John the Baptist came – as all those centuries before the prophet Isaiah had foretold. 

In church we still use archaic words that just are not used today – words like sin and repentance.  

Pam hoped all of us will keep on working out how to explain to someone else what the message of John means for us ordinary people today. 

Maybe we could talk about our faith and trust and about us having the potential to have the qualities we attribute as coming from God – about being loving, with joy and peace in our hearts, by showing patience, kindness, generosity, having a desire for justice and being faithful to God and to each other and not least – practising self-control.

Being human though, we do make mistakes. Who of us can say we do not move away from the ways God desires us to live by?  

In our human weakness we do not always give God central place in our lives and instead we give way to self-centredness, bad temper, jealousy, and all those other not so pleasant ways we sometimes behave.

These are some of the ways that describe “sin” because all of them are not the ways that lead us to God and they all separate us from getting closer to Him.

However, every new day we are blessed with the opportunity to reflect and ask for God’s help to put these unworthy ways behind us. 

It is a desire and commitment to God to change and that is what we mean by “repentance”.

We can be assured that when we admit to our straying from His ways and we actively seek to change, we know that God forgives us. He helps us to put the mistakes and faults into the past and allows us a fresh start.

That is the message John the Baptist was commissioned by God to give to people in Jordan and to help them have their sins washed away in readiness for the coming of the “one more powerful than I … who will baptise you with the Holy Spirit”.

In Matthew we learn of people’s reactions to John’s preaching – “people went out from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan”.  They were prepared to travel to find him and listen to what God had given him to say. Why would they do that if they were not longing for something different? Are we looking for change in ourselves? 

Are we longing for that something different that will bring a greater sense of God’s peace and joy to our hearts?  Are we engaged in expectant waiting?  How far are we willing to go to commit to being part of the change that God is bringing in?

Bronwyn Nott