discipleship | mission | practical theology

This coming Sunday is the last Sunday after Trinity and we are hurtling towards Christmas.  Before we get there we will glory in All Saints Day, remember those fallen in the wars, we will celebrate Christ the King and prepare ourselves during Advent.  As we come to the end of our long Trinity season the Gospel reading for Sunday has a little similarity to those signs on the motorway that count-down to a junction.  The 3 / 2 / 1 signs.

When I was younger, and in fact still occasionally today, I got fixated on working out whether these signs are correctly spaced out, whether there really do represent a correct count-down to the actual slip-road.  And I wonder to where they are measuring? Is it the beginning of the slip-road, where the white line begins to peal off?  Or is it to the centre of the slip-road?  I was concerned about all kinds of things about the signs, but of course, this is to completely miss the purpose of the sign, which is to tell you about something coming up, something ahead of you that you need warning about.  It does, in the end, matter too much whether they are correctly spaced out.

Our Gospel reading on Sunday is one of these signs.  There is still a way to go, but get ready.

Blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside doing what he normally does, begging.  He hears that it is Jesus who is coming and begins to shout out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Some people told him not to be so silly, but this did not deter him and he shouted all the more.
Jesus hears him and calls him over.  Some people help him over and Jesus asks what he wants of him.  Bartimaeus asks for his sight back and Jesus, stating that it is his faith that has made him well, gives his sight back to him.  Bartimaeus, as you might imagine, begins to follow Jesus.
It is like God the Father is saying to us today, get ready, just as it was with Bartimaeus, Jesus is about to pass by.  Just as it was with Bartimaeus, we are begging for life to the full.  Just as it was with Bartimaeus, if we are prepared to shout it out, and call upon Jesus for who he is, the King, then we will be heard.

You know that feeling when you miss the junction?  When just too late you pass it by and then you become painfully aware of the distance to the next junction and what a right pain this will be?  Don’t miss this junction in your life of calling out to Jesus as he passes by in the coming season.  Here is the first count down sign in Sunday’s reading, get ready.

If this is what it is like for you, you who know the sign, know what it means, and can get ready for the junction, for Jesus coming down the road.  What is it like for those who don’t know about the sign?  What is it like for those who are also begging for life to the full, but don’t know Jesus is coming and won’t call out because they will be distracted by other things and will miss the junction where their life crosses the path of Jesus?  What is it like for those people?

As we begin to think about getting ready for the coming season, begin to get ready for Jesus as he passes through town, let us be prepared to warn other people.  It is so easy to join in with conversations that paint Advent as time to shop and Christmas as a time for gifts, lots of food and wine and good programs on the tv.  Joining in those conversations is easy.  But we are called to say, get ready, Jesus is coming.
This Sunday, in our reading is the first sign on the path we are on.  You today, have noticed it and will be getting ready.  Please, as the opportunity arises, talk about the coming of Jesus in this season to others who don’t know, who don’t even know that we have passed the first get ready sign.  Don’t get sucked into Christmas talk, without mentioning it’s Jesus who is coming!  What are you going to ask for this year?