In the Name of God, revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Announcement of Good News can be uncomfortable as well as bringing comfort. This is particularly true if the news involves change, and good personal news always has the habit of creating something new. The words ‘change’ and ‘new’ are full of life and vibrancy; and therefore as such can bring a measure of chaos.

I well remember going into Firth Park Comprehensive School in Sheffield to get my ‘A’ level grades. In those days, no sealed envelope but displayed in public on the science prefab window. I had passed. In the midst of the pleasure, it had been a long road, 12 months earlier the words ‘O’ and ‘F’ had been written alongside my name; there was a slight unease; what was I do now. This is not unnatural. Good News often involves choices.

The prophet Isaiah announces good news to the people of Israel. Judgement is finished. Salvation has come. Comfort, comfort my people, declares the Lord God. It is a pivotal moment in the Book of Isaiah, and a turning point in God’s dealings with his people and his world.

The prophet declares that it is now a time of hope for the people of Israel; rather than one of judgement. The people of Israel had been humiliated. They had been taken (some of them) to the city of Babylon, exiled away from their homes, cultures, and place of worship. By the rivers of Babylon: they had wept, and found it impossible, (at first) to sing songs of praise. In exile, the people had discovered afresh, what their ancestors had told them: God, their Yahweh, was king and God. Isaiah adds a new dimension to this narrative: God has conquered Babylon. Their humiliation was over.

Words of comfort and hope give the possibility for change; of life being different. This is not always an easy message to hear. ‘Good News’ can be too much! On that August day when I saw my ‘A’ level grades, it was too much. I remember freezing with fear rather than thinking of those around me of the opportunity for University. The people of Israel too had the possibility for allowing themselves to imagine themselves as God intended them to be. If there is one prayer that I have for us as a Christian community it would be that we would be willing to imagine together that God truly is on our side. Good News creates choices.

Births – and indeed the lack of them – have the capacity to cause frustration, joy, angst and indeed confusion. John the Baptist was born into a family who desperately wanted him. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth were considered past the age for children, and according to Luke’s story of Jesus, the archangel Gabriel had informed Zechariah that he and his wife were to have a child, and call him; John.

Zechariah did not greet this message with joy. This was not because he did not want a child. Indeed, he and his wife would have known much social shame in not having children. There would have been the sympathetic look as well as the furrowed brow, unhelpful advice and unwise platitudes. Zechariah had learnt to live with all of this; serving God without bitterness and anger.

The words of the archangel are met with disbelief. Zechariah could not imagine them to be true. He could not move into a place of hope. Too often, we are like Zechariah unable to move into a place of hope.

When I was on placement when training for ordination, I had opportunity to work with Stephen and Esther. Esther was extraordinarily nervous; and many things had contributed to this. I remember doing a session on being made in God’s image. Her response was personal and unusual, she skipped church the following Sunday to ride a bike in the local park. She had never been deemed ‘good enough’ to have a bike as a child and for her to ride was liberation. Imagining what it might be to be made in the image of God had a powerful effect on Esther. I trust imagining that we might be the people of God for Bartley Green will have a similarly galvanising effect.

Zechariah and Elizabeth though were to receive the gift of no ordinary son; but one who would herald the Messiah. It would he who would baptise Jesus and encourage people to follow him.

John by doing this imagined a different future for himself. As the firstborn son of a priest, he might have been expected to serve in the Temple. Instead, he opted to spend time in the wilderness. He learnt not to be constrained by expectations and follow his own. His parents allowed this by giving him his name. For Luke, John’s name was no accident.

I am called Kevin because my father when he went to register my birth simply had forgotten the name he and my mum had agreed. It could have been worse, I suppose; he could have called my Lynn which is what I would have been called if I had been a girl.

John was the name the archangel had said he was to be called, and in confirming this; Zechariah was freed to speak.

The Baptist is comforting yet uncomfortable figure. By this I do not refer to his healthy eating habits or his desire for the latest chic design in camel skins. Nor his oratory, which was both simple and effective calling politicians, religious leaders and a monarch to account. I refer to his relationship with Jesus.

‘He must increase; I must decrease’ was his maxim. This is a phrase that John seems to have embraced and meant.

My prayer for myself is that I mean it too. That I might be shaped by my desire to serve Christ, whatever the cost and wherever he wills. I pray that beginning in this parish of Bartley Green, we might be able to point to Jesus, and say to others: ‘Look, there is the one who meets all your needs’ or to put in the words of the Baptist, ‘Behold, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world’.