The 3rd Sunday of Advent; December 16, 2007 Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10; Romans 15:4-11; Matthew 11:2-11; Canticle 15 (The Song of Mary Magnificat, Luke 1:46-55).   The Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith The Path My sister, Miranda, has been living in a Buddhist abbey in Canada since September. Last Monday she took temporary vows to be a Buddhist nun for two months. One of the monks there learned that I am an Episcopal priest and asked Miranda to ask me what the Christian "path" is like. How much time do we have? My sister acknowledged that it is a "board" question. I am considering my answer to the question, and perhaps this sermon will be the start of an explanation. How would you answer this question? As we prepare for Christmas, what does this time of year tell us about our faith? This is a time when we prepare to celebrate the miracle of Christmas - that Jesus is our Emmanuel, God with us. In some ways, you cannot explain what being a Christian is like; the path must be experienced. We say, and we believe, that Jesus Christ is himself the way, the truth and the life. As we come to know what Jesus' life, death, and resurrection mean in our own lives, we come to know the path of Christianity. Knowing God through Christ is our path; the details change from time to time, from year to year, from person to person. How we know Christ is also part of the path: we study the Bible and the history of the church, our traditions; through prayer, we experience God intimately and personally in the particulars of our life; in this church, we receive the sacrament of Christ's body and blood regularly, knowing that the sacraments of the church transform us, being outward signs of inward and spiritual grace given. Through our community and knowing the love of God here, we grow in our understanding of the Christian faith and in our ability to follow Christ, our "path." Once we know something of Christ in our lives, the next step on the path is how we then make Christ known to others. We follow the One who was known by the compassion and love - "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them (Matthew 11:5)." Jesus continues to be known through the love and compassion of those who reach out to others in his name. This evidence of new life was Jesus' response to John the Baptist when John asked how he could know if Jesus was in fact the Messiah. In our world today, when we seek to know if we are on the path of a faithful life, we look for evidence of compassion, service, love, joy in lives, both the joy we experience and the joy we share with others. This is the joy and fullness of life that started with Jesus' birth and will be completed at the second Advent. John the Baptist is for us part of our experience of the faith. He was also a person who asked what the path would be. John came to find that what he had expected the Messiah to be - how he expected salvation to come - was not how the experience turnout to be. We heard last week of John's prediction of the "unquenchable fire" to which the unrighteous would be subjected. When the fire had not appeared, John wondered if Jesus was in fact the one to bring salvation. Humility is part of the path. John the Baptist was both on the path and becoming part of our history to help lead us. You and I are both on the path and also becoming the part of the way God brings people to faith. Through us the story continues, we come a chapter in the history of salvation. Advent calls us to be alert to God in our lives. In our gospel reading today, Jesus called the crowds to attention, by asking them what they had come out to the wilderness to see. Did they come to this wild place of new possibilities to look for the same old things - a reed growing or the rich who lived in palaces near by? No, the people came to find a new answer to their questions about life. The path of the Christian faith is sometimes surprising and often new. We are preparing for the birth of Christ - our celebration of something totally new and surprising. Today is the Sunday in Advent when we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath in honor of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary is for us a model of the faith. She was open to the new possibilities; much to her surprise, God had a most special purpose for her. She prayed and she listened and she answered God's call to her. Such is the dynamic of the faith journey (our path). The season of Advent calls us to be aware of the times. Look around and see! See what God is doing here and now. Be alert; be awake. We speak about the salvation we know in Christ, and we live the life of faith thereby becoming part of the story. Others look to us to see what being a Christian means. We have much good new to share. The birth of Jesus is just the beginning, but it is a great beginning, a wonderful place to start speaking about the path of faith. For Christianity is not a path that we choose; God chose us first by becoming one of us, Jesus our Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.