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RORATE COELI is the Latin designation for this the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Rorate is the Latin opening of this morning's Introit, meaning, "Drop Down," "Drop Down, ye heavens." That's in fact why you're here. That's why you are drawn back week after week by the Holy Spirit. The King of Heaven has dropped down. He is here. Abiding in His love, secure in His peace, you wait eagerly for the celebration of His Nativity and His return in glory.

Well, are you finally tired about hearing of John the Baptizer? NO of course not! St. John the Last Great Old Testament Prophet, (i.e. speaker of God's Words), is the first New Testament Apostle, the forerunner of Christ, standing literally before His countenance (His face) in the cool of the Jordan River.

"Now this is the testimony of John" begins today's Gospel. Better is the literal translation: "Now this is the 'Martyrdom' of John..." John's words and actions testified to the truth. John's entire life and ministry witnessed to the truth. The Truth is Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. Earlier in the Evangel it is written: "The light was in the world and the world did not know Him, He came to His own and His own did not receive Him..." [St. John 1.8,10] The unbelieving Jews would kill the Christ of God, but first they would kill His messenger, St. John Baptizer: "...a servant is not greater than his Master. If they persecuted Me they will also persecute you." [St. John l5.20]

You: like your brother John, you too are martyrs; witnesses to the Truth. Whether you too will be blessed as the Baptist to be physically martyred is up to the will of the Master---His will be done.

On that day it was a confrontation between the forces of Light and the forces of dark; a clash between two different groups of "sent ones," two different apostles. The corrupt and stinking Sanhedrin sent, (i.e. apostle-ized) their minions: priests and Levites. The Truth, the Light, the Way, He who is pure and fresh sent the strange man clad in camel's hair and leathern belt. John the Apostle would stand upon the Faith that epic day the same way you are given opportunity to testify to Jesus everyday in your own cataclysmic lives.

"Who are you" they barked to John. Or maybe they hissed "who are YOU?" Well, really, they didn't care who he was; some crack-pot eccentric, peripatetic, rabbi who would sooner or later fade from the scene. But for the fact that his message was having phenomenal effect on the general populace of Jerusalem they would have ignored this "locust-eater." But John's words, God's words could not be ignored, were moving people; the Holy Spirit was active; people were being washed (indicating they were aware of their filth) people were confessing their sins (indicating they knew they were guilty and powerless to make amends themselves.) So too, the Lord's words have worked upon you. This is why you were washed (+) and have had your children born-again. This is why you daily drown the old Adam in contrition and repentance. This is why you hang on the Baptizer's words and those of the Evangelist John as well, for you know them to be the living words of the Living One.

"Now this is the 'Martyrdom' of John..." for we hear that "He Confessed." He did not enumerate his sins, not that kind of confession, but rather He spoke the Creed, He uttered the Faith, he shared with his audience the "same words" (which is what the term confession really means) which God had given him; he was after all a prophet, a spokesman for the Lord. He answered in what can only be a Holy-Ghost worked love & peace. John said "I am not the Messiah." How hard this is for our sinful natures to say; and how difficult to admit that we are not the important ones, the decision makers, the little "god-lings" in our own self-contained universes of influence and control. John said "I am not Elias." How hard to turn down the mantle of fame, honor and celebrity. How hard for all of you to answer, not with self, not with 'will' but with submissive servant hood and fidelity to the "The" Truth. Don't look to me or my wisdom, talents, wealth or goodness. Of myself I have nothing. All that I can give is He who is the great giver of remission of guilt and life eternal.

And "He Confessed," for this is "the 'Martyrdom' of John." "I am the crying wilderness voice." I cry out good news to those lost and condemned wandering in the dessert of sin and death. I am not the "origin" I am but the voice, the noise, the reverberating sound from the source. Why do you think the Lord said so often: "he who has ears to hear let him hear?" Christ is the Subject you are the objects. The Lord Jesus is the very WORD of God, in the beginning He spoke and there was light. He is the Light. He is the I AM who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. He is the One who spoke for you upon Calvary, "It is finished." You hear and believe for you have in your heads, minds and hearts, the Word, God. You see and believe for you have in your eyes, heads, hearts and souls, the visible elements of the Mysteries of God. You taste with your mouths the Body and Blood of God and you have God, you have the Infinite and Eternal in you and with you for you are Baptized into Christ. Jesus makes the wilderness into a garden. The Messiah makes the crookedness and bent twisted mess of your lives into the straight way of His Righteousness; a straight way leading to the ever-mansions.

Old Adams do not understand these ways of God. The priests and Levites certainly didn't. And you don't either apart from Him and His Life for you.

If John was such a nobody, merely an echo of Someone else, then why was he turning Beth-abara upside down? Can only God wash clean? Can only the Lord Jesus, Who is God, forgive? Yes. Can only God wash clean and forgive? No. For God has deigned to shower His grace through His servants, as conduits, channels, and means. Elijah can wash clean and forgive...as could Moses before him and other pastors after him. The King, the ultimate source and power, binds and looses, to be sure, but also those Whom He appoints and sends as His official ambassadors. His apostles, also speak His words with His authority. Or as my catechumens take delight in repeating my analogies, "so, gee, Pastor, you sort of like a ventriloquist dummy that God uses, you move your lips, but it's Jesus doing the talking." Yes, but I wish they didn't emphasize the "dummy" part so clearly.

John washed with water to show people that they were dirty; that the deeds they did could never put mem right with the Lord. John preached the Law; he convicted them of their sin. Then John stepped back out of the picture and gave them Jesus, the Gospel, the 'clean One' Himself Who had been standing there all along in the crowd.

The Christ, the Lamb Who was slain to free you from the curse. The paschal Lamb Who is your feast of light and life; the source Who makes you sing and chant with the voice of a martyr.

Rorate indeed. The King of heaven has dropped down. Meet Him again; dine upon Him and with Him again. Your Advent is near the end.

In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost