Grace to you and peace from our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is
written in the 3rd Chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew:
Verses 1 – 12:
In those
days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.”* 3 For this is he who was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,
“The
voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare1 the way of the
Lord;
make his
paths straight.’ ”
4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair
and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then
Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to
him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river
Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to
flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping
with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to
yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from
these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even
now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does
not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who
is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His
winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather
his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
There are several people in the
Bible who fit the definition of the word intense. If you were to make a list of these people in
their order of intensity, John the Baptist would probably be in the top
five. The word eccentric would
also be word that you would apply to John as well.
John was the last of the Old
Testament prophets and we could apply the words eccentric and intense
to most of them. Like Samson, John
had taken the Nazarite vow for life.
That meant no haircuts or shaving ever.
He wore camel’s hair and leather.
He ate locusts and wild honey. If
you saw John wandering around the streets of your suburb, you may even call the
local authorities to get him checked out.
John’s message is appropriate for us
at Advent. He is warning us that someone
very important is coming. Today’s Gospel
begins with John’s warning that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It ends with the promise of one whose sandals
John is not even worthy to carry. In
between these two proclamations of the one who is coming, John warns of
judgment and urges repentance. As we
hear John’s proclamation, we are inclined to think of Advent; but the judgement
part makes me think “which one?”
We know that the word Advent means
coming. Since we are so close to
Christmas, it is natural to think about His coming into our mortality as a baby
in a manger. He came in that way so that
He could grow up to die and save us from our sins. With His suffering and death He earned the
forgiveness of our sins. With His
resurrection He certified the authenticity of that forgiveness.
Advent also teaches us that Jesus
comes to offer that same forgiveness to us.
He offers that forgiveness to us here as He comes to us today. Next week He will come to us in a very
special way as we receive Him by mouth at the Lord’s Table.
Then there is His coming at the Last
Day – a day of judgment. There are those
who reject Him as He came to earn forgiveness and as He comes to offer
forgiveness. When the Day of Judgment
comes, they will learn that He will reject those who reject Him. He will ban them from any sense of His
presence forever. On the other hand,
those who received Him will join Him on that day and live with Him forever.
So, which Advent is John proclaiming?
Listen to his words. “You brood of
vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the
trees. Every tree, therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.” “He who is coming
after me is mightier than I … He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand,
and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but
the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” “… brood of vipers … wrath to come … the
axe is laid to the root of the trees …
His winnowing fork is in his hand … burn with unquenchable fire.” To me it surely sounds as though John is
proclaiming the Advent of God’s judgment.
Prophets seem
to do that a lot. When you read the
prophets most of them seem to proclaim judgment. This may be the reason that many people think
that the God of the Old Testament is somehow different from the God of the New
Testament. If you were to take a survey
of those who have average Bible literacy, you would find that most people think
the God of the Old Testament is all stern and judgmental while the God of the
New Testament is all sweetness and light.
Yet as we delve
into ancient Biblical text we find that it was Job of the Old Testament who
said, [Job 19:25–27] “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he
will stand upon the earth. And after my
skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see
for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Here is a proclamation of the Gospel from one
of the most ancient texts of the Bible.
The as we read the New testament we
find that shortly after Jesus gave us the Gospel in a nutshell, He said, [John
3:18] “Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Jesus also had a tendency to end many of His
parables with words of condemnation such as [Matthew 25:41] “Depart
from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angels.”
As we read and study the Bible we
come to understand that the bible proclaims two Advents in all of its
pages. One Advent is the coming of
Judgment. The other Advent is the coming
of Grace. These Advents have a variety
of names. In one place, Jesus calls them
Repentance and the Forgiveness of Sins. Other
times they are called the Law and the Gospel.
Now, it’s a fact that most people,
including preachers, tend to stay away from the proclamation of the Law – the
coming judgment – and all that negative stuff.
People don’t like to hear about sin and they surely don’t like to hear
about the punishment of sin – temporal death here on earth and eternal death in
the suffering of hell. That is not a
popular message, nor is it considered to be politically correct.
People would much rather hear about
how good they are and what they could accomplish if we all just worked
together. People want to believe that
they are basically good and if everyone worked hard enough and long enough, the
world would be a better place. What a
tremendous message this would be. If
only it were true.
Why, then, is it necessary for John
and all the prophets to proclaim sin?
Why should faithful priests and pastors continue to proclaim sin even
today? Can’t we just skip over that
part?
The fact of the matter is that we
have the resources now to feed, clothe, and house every human on planet
earth. Never the less, some children
still go to bed naked and hungry. We
have always had the resources to stop war – the aggressors simply need to stop
starting them. If people were basically
good and just needed a little guidance, we would have solved all of humanities’
problems long ago. The problem is that
people aren’t basically good. Dictators,
government bureaucracies, criminal elements, and others work to suppress their
fellow man. None of us is immune from
the desire to exploit others for our own purposes. The fact is that humanity’s greatest natural
enemy is humanity itself. We have met
the enemy and he is us.
People who are expert problem
solvers tell us that the first step toward any solution is an accurate
description of the problem. Sin is an
accurate one word description of our problem.
So, although people don’t like to hear about sin and its punishment,
faithful prophets warned about sin in the past and faithful priests and pastors
continue to warn of sin in the present.
Neither prophets nor Christian preachers enjoy telling people of their
sin, but it is a necessary first step toward a solution to sin – a first step
toward our salvation.
The warnings of John – the warnings
of the prophets of old – the warnings that faithful pastors proclaim in our day
– they all have one purpose. The goal is
to get the problem out into the open. Is
it painful? Yes. Is it harsh? Yes.
Does it make people angry?
Yes. Never the less, the Holy
Spirit does not present us with the solution to the problem of sin if we refuse
to acknowledge that we have a problem.
God’s faithful servants simply want us to know what our problem is so
that they can proclaim the solution to the problem.
John proclaimed the solution to the
problem in today’s Gospel. As the last prophet, John followed in the foot steps of the
prophets before him and proclaimed a mighty saviour. He preached, saying, “After me comes he
who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie. I have baptised you with
water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.”
This mighty saviour is
no one other than Jesus Christ. He is
the one whom the prophets proclaimed and He is the one in whom they
believed. He is the one who earned
forgiveness for our sins and offers that forgiveness to us for free. He is the one who makes us holy in God’s
sight.
How did He do this? As mighty as Jesus is, He demonstrated His
might in weakness. Even though we are
not worthy to touch His feet, He allowed mere men to nail Him to a cross. It was from the apparent weakness of that
cross that Jesus demonstrated His greatest might. In the apparent defeat of death, Christ
conquered death. He became the solution
for sin by taking our sin onto Himself and paying the price for it. It is only through Him that we receive the
forgiveness of sins.
Jesus Christ on the cross is the
Advent of God’s grace. He changes us
from slaves of sin into children of God.
He makes it possible for us to stand before God with confidence instead
of fear. He converts the Advent of God’s
judgment from an eternity of terror into an eternity of joy. He is the only true solution to our one great
problem. He is the salvation that saves
us from our sin. Amen
The love and peace of our Great
Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus. Amen
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