Repent!

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Every Advent, we have to go by John the Baptist to get to Jesus.  That’s not easy.  In fact, his message is like taking your fingernails and scratching them across a chalkboard.  Although John was a powerful, charismatic preacher, he was more than a little eccentric.  He ate locusts and wore scratchy clothes and never cut his hair or beard (in other words, probably not the kind of man you’d want your daughter to marry). 

And John never shied away from his main message: repent!  The kingdom of heaven has come near.  He called respectable religious leaders a bunch of snakes and told them to bear fruit worthy of repentance.  His job was to point you to Jesus Christ, which he did, but in the process, he was pretty harsh!  Try as we might, the Gospel writers will not let us avoid him.  He is God’s messenger, sent to prepare the way of the Lord.  And, as Barbara Brown Taylor notes, “his message is that the one who is coming is not coming to host a tea party.  He is coming to chop and to burn…  He is coming to judge the world.”[1] 

I don’t know anyone who looks forward to judgment, do you?  It can be a bit frightening.  John uses strong images – The winnowing fork is in his hand.  The wheat will be gathered into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  So repent!

Fred Craddock says that those images are indeed scary, but what’s really frightening about listening to John preach “is that he puts you in the presence of God.  And that’s what everybody wants, and that’s what everybody doesn’t want.  Because the light at the altar is different from every other light in the world.  In the dim lamps of this world, we can compare ourselves with each other, and all of us come off looking good.  We convince ourselves that God grades on the curve, and what’s the difference?  We’re all okay.  And then you come into the presence of God, and you’re at the altar, and it’s all different.”[2]

This is hard for us to hear in our “You’re o.k. – I’m o.k.” world.  “We aren’t big into sin.”[3]  I mean, really, how many of us think about how sinful we are on a daily basis?  And yet, when we see ourselves in the light of God’s righteousness, we see how far we fall short.  John’s message is that we need to repent, to turn our lives around, because of our sin.

President Calvin Coolidge’s brevity was renowned.  He returned home from church one Sunday.  His wife asked what the minister’s sermon was about.  Coolidge replied, “Sin.”  She said, “Well, what did the minister say about it?”  The president answered, “He’s against it.”[4]  

It’s pretty simple really - God’s against sin.  We’re sinful creatures.  But is there any good news here?

Brown says that “One of the most frightening things about John’s vision of judgment is that unquenchable fire of his.  But if you read the Bible very much, you have to wonder about that fire.  Throughout holy scripture, fire is the one reliable sign of the presence of God.  God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush; a pillar of fire guides the people of Israel through the wilderness after their escape from Egypt; when Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments from God, it looks to those down below as if the mountain itself is being devoured by fire.

I do not mean to minimize the danger.  This is not safe fire; it can still burn and kill.  But it is God’s own fire, the fire of God’s presence, fire that wants to speak to us, guide us, instruct us, save us.  It is the fire of a potter who wants to make useful vessels out of damp clay.  It is the fire of a jeweler who wants to refine pure gold from rough ore.  It does not have to be the fire of destruction, in other words.  It may also be the fire of transformation, a fire that both lights us up and changes us, melting us down and reforming us more nearly to the image of God.”[5]

The good news is that God both judges and saves.  God is both a God of justice and a God of forgiveness.  James Ayers says that the atonement is God saying, “I will not pretend you have done nothing wrong.  The full penalty for your sins must be paid.  But I will pay that penalty myself.” (Presbyterians Today, March 2004)  We have a judge who loves us and pledges to be with us.

Because of God’s grace and love and forgiveness, we are free to repent, to turn our lives away from sin and towards God.  So what are some concrete ways we can repent and bear good fruit?  John Howard Yoder writes that “to repent is not to feel bad but to think differently.  Jesus called into being a new way for his followers to live: He gave them a new way to deal with offenders – by forgiving them.  He gave them a new way to deal with violence – by suffering.  He gave them a new way to deal with money – by sharing it.  He gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership – by drawing on the gift of every member, even the most humble.  He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society – by building a new order, not making the old.”[6]

John said, “The Messiah’s coming.  Get ready by repenting of your sins.”  And the people confessed their sins and were baptized in the Jordan River, and they were forgiven.  Forgiven.  Forgiven.

John not only proclaims God’s judgment – John also offers God’s forgiveness.  This is good news, indeed.  Amen.