Matthew 3:1-12 (NIV)
Christmas preparations are always fun for me. At our house, we light up everything we can. There are lights across the back fence and the shrubbery in front. We have a plastic Snoopy with a Santa hat that sits in the backyard and a red candle that lights up the front door. There is a wreath on the front door made of greenery and on the back door one made of jingle bells that rings a merry tune when anyone goes in or out. The Christmas tree is filled with lights and covered with ornaments, some going back to when my mother was a little girl. And underneath are wrapped gifts for family near and far. I have a Christmas card wreath on the wall that holds greetings from family and friends. And then there is my office, which looks like a Christmas explosion happened! The tree, the Hallmark snowmen, the stuffed characters from “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” the stockings, the nutcrackers, the mice that were sleeping, and 3 nativity sets, including one made of rubber ducks (you have to see it to believe it) that was a gift from a 7 year-old girl in a congregation I served some years ago. And the Christmas CDs in my office and my car, probably over 100 or them, provide a cheerful backdrop for work and errands.
How do you prepare for Christmas at your house? I am sure that, like me, there are traditions and sentimental decorations and things that you always do. Those things help make the season merry and bright!
But we miss out on something very important if those are the only things we do to prepare for Christmas. As John P. Burgess writes, “Christians need to set aside [a regular time of the year] to consider again the full significance of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.” Advent is that time of year. But, Burgess continues, in our society “preparations for Christmas have been reduced to hanging twinkling Christmas lights, listening to cheery holiday music, and gazing at an abundance of material goods for the buying, all of which we hope will evoke in us a sense of magical, childlike wonder and goodwill. Not the promises of God, but our own ideals and longings, have become the focus. How different is the preparation to which John the Baptist calls the people of Israel! … John asks us to examine ourselves, rather than bask in holiday wonder. We should bear good fruit, rather than worry about material things to get or give.”
This morning I want to talk about the kind of preparation that we are to recognize and participate in. It is the preparation that began long ago with John the Baptist. He was quite an interesting character, to say the least. Matthew tells us that John is the one who has come to prepare the way for the Lord, to get people ready for the coming of the Messiah. And yet, John is not just preparing the way for the Lord; he is showing the way. He is modeling how to become a part of the new kingdom of God, which requires a radical change in one’s lifestyle. John lived in the desert wilderness and wore a different kind of clothing and ate a different kind of diet.
I picture John with wild, uncombed hair, as he stood beside the Jordan River wearing clothes made of camel hair, with a leather belt around his waist and his diet of locusts and wild honey. As Charles L. Allen, a United Methodist pastor in Texas, puts it, “John appears as a preacher/prophet nearly antithetical to the contemporary institutional church. One can hardly imagine a situation in which he would fit. His attire would draw stares in ‘cowboy’ churches or in mainline congregations, even given the current trend of dressing casually. His contribution to a potluck supper would sit untouched.”
And yet, in spite of his wild appearance, people flocked out to hear him preach, coming from Jerusalem and all Judea. And they came, not to hear a message of comfort or encouragement; no, they came out to the desert to hear John shout at them, “Repent! Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Mark E. Yurs states, “John may have been like Alexander Whyte (1836-1921), noted preacher at Free St. George’s Church in Edinburgh. It was said that Whyte could be so direct and penetrating that to hear him preach was to take your life in your hands. Whether they knew it or not, those who went into the wilderness to hear John did the same thing.” And the people responded to this harsh declaration by confessing their sins and getting baptized.
What do you think of when you hear the word, “repent”? I think of the old-time preachers who would pound the pulpit as they shouted, “Repent!” John Burgess writes, “Repentance is a confusing concept to many Christians today. Does it mean feeling sorry for our mistakes? Is it a matter of trying to be a better person? Is repentance something that we even need to do …? For some Christians, language of repentance dredges up feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and may even evoke a deadly fear of a day of judgment … For them, the question soon becomes, Can I ever be sure enough that I will experience God’s mercy rather than God’s wrath? What John – and Advent – remind us is that repentance is not primarily about our standards of moral worthiness, but rather about God’s desire to realign us to accept Christ’s life. Repentance … is not so much about our guilt feelings as about God’s power to transform us into Christ’s image.”
Repentance literally means turning around and moving in the opposite direction. We have to change our actions, not just our mindset. Laura C. Sweat, a professor at Seattle Pacific University, states, “In most church contexts, repentance is associated with guilt. People repent because they want to absolve themselves of the guilt incurred by sins they know they have committed. John’s repentance has little to do with the guilt that causes us to wallow in despair. Repentance for John is an action … To repent is not to feel bad, but to think differently, and therefore, to act differently.” And that action means putting into practice the commands of Christ, to live according to the Christian way.
The reason for repentance – for changing directions in order to follow Christ – is so that the people will be ready for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth. This kingdom, in the most basic sense of the concept, is the time and place that God chooses to intervene in human life in order to transform all of creation, and to establish his reign on earth.
John then spoke directly to two groups of people who were standing by the water’s edge, listening to him preach. He addressed the Pharisees and the Sadducees, referring to them as a brood of vipers. And he accused them of not producing good fruit in their lives and warned them that they would face judgment. The question was whether or not these members of the religious elite would be able to repent, to turn their backs on their positions of privilege. Could they change the directions of their lives, turn around and go in a different direction, in order to be ready for the kingdom of heaven? John did not offer them an easy way out; they also had to examine themselves and make their confessions before God.
Timothy Beach-Verhey, a Presbyterian pastor in North Carolina, writes a good bit about the encounter between John and the Pharisees and Sadducees. He states, “The dramatic confrontation … makes clear the threat presented by the advent of the kingdom of heaven. Suddenly King Herod’s violent response to the Messiah’s birth makes sense. The new age takes no prisoners and offers no quarter. John the Baptist is a frightening messenger of doom, with fire flying from his eyes and thunder rumbling deep in his throat. The foundations are shaking and about to collapse! ‘Even now the ax is lying at the foot of the tree’ (v. 10). There is no escape from the crisis at hand, no matter who you are. This is no mere reformation; it is a revolution! Everything will be turned on its head, and nothing will be left as it was.”
It is easy to see why John thought that the Pharisees and Sadducees should be worried. They were about to be judged and found wanting in their spiritual and physical lives. They would not be protected from God’s wrath by virtue of belonging to a certain party or even being of a certain heritage. Instead, they would face the same judgment as the ordinary people from whom they went to such lengths to separate themselves.
But all is not gloom and doom, not for the ancient Pharisees and Sadducees, nor for us. Because there is the possibility of confession, repentance, and new kind of life. We can choose to listen to John’s message and to respond to it with humility and in anticipation of receiving the grace of God. We don’t have to work to earn God’s mercy; instead, it is freely given to us. John Burgess writes that the Advent preparation that John calls Israel and us to is not primarily self-purification but “by way of radical trust that Christ himself is working to purify us and the world around us to become a dwelling place fit for himself … We need the space that Advent provides for remembering and affirming Christ’s incarnation and all that it means for us.”
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Pharisees and Sadducees rejected the message of John and, later, the message of Jesus. Timothy Beach-Verhey writes, “Beside the Jordan River, John the Baptist initiates a conflict that builds throughout the Gospel and leads straight to the cross.” And the Pharisees and Sadducees missed the coming kingdom of heaven that was begun in this world by Jesus Christ.
We have a choice to make as we experience the Advent season, as we prepare for the coming of Christ, both today in our hearts and in the future as he returns to the earth. We can heed the warning of John, confess our sins, and repent – turn around and go in the better direction, following the way of Jesus. Or we can reject John’s message and cling to our perception that we have no need to confess or repent, because we are already Christians. I would remind you that John Wesley saw salvation not as a one-time event, but as an ongoing process. We experience God’s grace as we move towards perfection, as we become more fit to dwell in the kingdom of heaven and to have Jesus dwell in us. And I would echo the preaching of John: “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near.”
