The Well of Salvation

Advent 3 – December 15, 2024

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2=6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 37-18

Television advertisements can tell a lot about our society and culture, which is something I learned in my college advertising class. You have heard me talking about this before. Sometimes it’s the prevalence of ads for certain products like all those about financial services. I’m not sure what that means. My cynicism would suggest that we are becoming more and more materialistic as a nation. Although some ads show positive signs about our society. If you pay attention to the make up of the families shown in ads you will notice that many of them are multi racial. The ads that I have been most intrigued by lately are those that have people in a counseling setting. There are many ads of this nature for at least three different products. I am not quite sure what all this means. It may be an indication of how popular counseling has become, or that the ad writer has had counseling, though the stereotypical nature of the ads seems to rule this out. They do not look at all like any of the counseling sessions that I have had. If you include those ads to the number that are for anti depression medicine, I begin to wonder if we have become a society that believes that no one should suffer or be depressed. 

Do not get me wrong. Counseling can be helpful. It has helped me. And in certain situations medication is also appropriate. My concern is that we are overusing these because we have been convinced that suffering and depression are not normal human issues. But, you know that they are. We all have suffered and we all have had bouts of depression. That comes with life. If you paid attention to the readings from the Bible today they have reminded us of that point. The text from Isaiah which we read in the place of the psalm talks about the salvation that comes from God, Paul in his letter to the Philippians reminds us that true peace only comes from God. Counseling and medication can be helpful in our lives – they are gifts from God. But, with a life of prayer and of showing your gentleness to everyone, you can open yourself to fully experience God’s love.

As advertising plans go, John the Baptist did not have a good one. Calling those who came to receive what he was offering “a brood of vipers” does not seem like it would attract anyone. But it did because the people who came were looking for God’s salvation. Unlike us, they knew life was difficult and that only with God’s help could they live. There were many times in their history that they thought they could go it alone and failed. In all of those times it was God who rescued them.

We are quite good at deluding ourselves that we can save ourselves. That just may be part of this season we are in. By trying to make this the “most wonderful time of the year” we forget that it already is. Not by what we do but by what God has already done – given us a savior so that we may drink from the well of salvation. We do not need to go out into the desert, be called a brood of vipers, and be baptized by a man who eats locusts. We already know we are a brood of vipers, we confessed that this morning. We also know that we have been given salvation and filled with the peace which passes all understanding. Not because of what we have done but what this child we await did for us. Spend time in these hectic days with Jesus in prayer so that, despite your struggles, you will shine forth with the glory of God’s salvation for others to see.