Advent III

 By turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just…
(Collect, Advent III)
 
We have been saying that in Advent we are preparing to meet Christ, the newborn Savior of the world, on Christmas night. Advent teaches us that we are preparing to meet our God. The urgency of the matter at hand was articulated on Advent Sunday. Last Sunday, we were taught that we must conscientiously study Scripture to understand the necessity for action. Today we are reminded that we need teachers and instructors in the faith so as not to go astray.
        
Of course, the need for teachers and an institution to help us to salvation runs against the grain of postmodern man’s obsession with his own self-importance and intelligence. Individual will run riot characterizes postmodern man’s footloose and fancy-free attitude to life. Men place themselves first and are leery of submitting to any form of authority lest their intellectually flimsy opinions be exposed.
But, on the other hand, who can blame them? The institutions of higher learning and even the churches are now run by men are obsessed with themselves and the pursuit of money and mammon against truth through wisdom.
        
So, what is the earnest Christian to do at a time when the representatives of church and state, science and religion have sold their birthrights for a mess of porridge at the booth of Vanity Fair? Some years back, Russell Kirk, the Sage of Mecosta, founder of the modern conservative movement, and no stranger to worldly censure, exile, and adversity, shared his solution to the failures of both church and state with his friend William F. Buckley, Jr., who was visiting Kirk’s stump country home, Piety Hill, from cosmopolitan New York. Buckley and Kirk were in the library. Buckley, clearly at a far remove from the Big Apple, a long way from what he judged, barely, as civilization, and sensing the loneliness of the conscientious scholar, asked, What do you do for companionship? Kirk, in his own inimitably defiant way, raised his hand and pointed to the books lining the walls. There, Mr. Buckley, you will find my friends! Russell Kirk’s friends and companions were always sure to be found and ready for engagement in the great poets, historians, philosophers, statesmen, prophets, and saints of Western Civilization. Kirk never despaired. He could not, for most of his friends had known suffering and sacrifice of a higher order than his own. From them, he culled the truth and summoned courage. His friends were his teachers, and because they imbued him with the permanent things, the first principles that make for goodness on earth and hope for Heaven, he felt the urgency to pass it all on.
        
Kirk was an orthodox Christian, and his intellectual position derived from the great moral teachers of Western Civilization, both pagan and Christian. He knew that he was responsible to an enterprise far greater than himself and more profound than his words could express. He liked to quote Fulbert of Chartres, a 12th-century scholar, who said, while we moderns might be able to see a little farther than our ancestors in certain ways, regarding greater truth, still, we are dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. Kirk always insisted that without the great minds of Western Civilization as our teachers and guides, without our ancestors, we are in danger of forgetting the past and falling into errors far greater than they ever could have imagined. Kirk, quoting G. K. Chesterton, went on to say that in deciding any moral or political question, we have the obligation to consult the considered opinions of the wise men who have preceded us in time. (Kirk, The Enemies of the Permanent Things, p. 27)   
        
Of course, Kirk and Chesterton, along with the sane men of all ages, derived their positions from Christendom. Long before the varied sciences of philosophy, sociology, and ethics severed themselves from the sacred tutelage of the Christian Saints, the Church had established itself as the Schoolhouse for civilization. To justify her claims, the Church was responsible for interpreting the history of mankind and God’s response to it through Jesus Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit. The Church and her teachers were called to serve truth. When at her best, the Church knew that she was a dwarf, standing on the shoulders of giants, first the priests, prophets, and kings of Israel, and later upon Christ Himself, and then His Apostles. The summary of the Church’s history was first Israel, and then Israel’s spiritual journey as understood with the help of Greek wisdom. The history of the Church’s Bible, Creeds, and Councils reveals an indebtedness to truth concerning Man and God for goodness in the world and righteousness for Heaven.
        
The posture is one of humility. When the Church was faithful, she humbled herself before history and its giants. In the course of time, she produced her own giants, the great wise men who explained truth. And the Church’s greatest exponent of the method to be pursued was the Apostle Paul. He gives us a view into his method in this morning’s Epistle. Paul considers himself to be no giant. He is rather the servant of both history and revelation, indebted to the past. Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. (1 Cor. iv. 1) Paul is no ruler or governor. He is a servant and minister for the truth. Paul takes it further. He reminds his listeners that he will not be judged by them, nor will he even judge himself! (ibid, 3) Paul will not be scrutinized by others or by himself. Paul must be judged by a higher standard, by history and history’s God. Paul the evangelist, apostle, and teacher must be a servant of Christ, with Christ within judging him and guiding Him into all truth. The Permanent Things, which Christ came down from heaven to put into man’s grasp once again, ruled and governed Paul. The ministers of the Church were called to be about God’s business. They were called to minister the Gospel truth to the flock of Christ. Christ the way, the truth, and the light would bring to light what is hidden in darkness, reveal the secrets of all men’s hearts, and reward them accordingly. (ibid, 5)
        
Paul knew that the servant is not above his Master. (St. Matthew x. 24) But Paul had learned his lesson the hard way. He thought that he knew more than history’s giants. Dare we say that he thought he knew more than God Himself? Christ had to throw Paul down off the high horse of his pride to recall his mind to God’s wisdom for the kingdom. Paul had to learn humility before history and history’s God. Paul had to become like John Baptist, whom we read about in today’s Gospel. John the Baptist is imprisoned, awaiting death for telling the truth to King Herod about his adulterous marriage. John was a true minister of Jesus Christ. He was preparing the way for Christ’s coming. He was so faithful to Christ that he suffered for it. His knowledge of the ancient Law of Israel and his service of the permanent things put him at odds with the rulers of his own age. With caution, with prudence, he wanted to ensure that Christ was the Son of God. Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another? (St. Matthew xi. 3) John, like so many ministers of the Church, like so many in history who have sought the truth in loneliness with the rejection of men, would know the truth.
        
John is reminded that history will record what Christ has done.
 
Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. (ibid, 4,5)
 
Christ has come to open eyes to the wisdom of God, to make lame limbs move to the Kingdom, to cure men of spiritual disease, that they might hear the truth and come into new life. Christ will begin with physical healing that leads to spiritual health. Christ the possessor of the permanent things will apply truth to man’s fallen condition. John’s faith must not stumble at the pride of the Pharisees or the corruption of men. Future generations must not falter at the wickedness of the clergy or statesman in any contemporary society. Christ is greater than all. And if John and his disciples would follow Christ to the end, Christ would live in them and carry them home to the Kingdom. Blessed are they who shall not be offended in me. (Ibid, 6)
        
John the Baptist is a symbol of what future ministers of Christ in church and state were called to become. When John’s followers departed, Jesus asked his listeners what they thought of John Baptist.
 
What went ye out in the wilderness to see? A reed shaken in the wind? A man clothed in soft raiment? They that wear soft clothing are in king’s houses. What went ye out to see? A prophet? Yea more than a prophet. (ibid, 7,8,9) yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.  For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.  Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (ibid, 7-11)
 
What did they expect? A prophet shaken into disbelief? A princely bishop or worldly elite? Surely, a prophet. Here is one who has suffered for the truth. Here is one who sets the standard for ministry and learning in the future Church and beyond by believing that Christ redeems all history for Heaven. And while he may falter briefly, He merely needs Christ’s help to stay the course and remember the permanent things. Christ is least in the kingdom of Heaven, and He alone is greater than John Baptist for he enables John and us to make sense of history for posterity.
        
On this Third Sunday of Advent, the individual members of Church and State are recalled to the permanent things. The temptation for clerics and scholars today is to despair. But with the giants of history, we must heed the wisdom and warning of our friends from the past. Christ is always coming to us, and as Russell Kirk said, we must be concerned with our spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. For this reason, we may count the Sage of Mecosta among the giants whom we dwarves should heed.
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin
 
 
 

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