Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on December 9, 2007
(Second Sunday of Advent, Year A, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Carl D. Mann

Texts:   Isaiah 11:1-10
Psalm 72 or 72:1-8
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

John the Baptist was the Billy Graham of his day. Granted, he wasn’t as good looking, and his suit was a bit primitive but if he had had a stadium, it would have been filled to the brim. John was the first real prophet on the scene for some four hundred years. And the people of Israel living under Roman occupation were hungry for the Word of God. It was a first century revival meeting without the tent.

John had a message from God and he proclaimed it, and the people flocked to the wilderness to hear what he had to say. They came from Jerusalem, all of Judea and all the region along the Jordan River. He called, they came, he preached, they repented, he baptized, they confessed and went away with changed lives.

Now baptism wasn’t unique to John. Baptism was used as a ritual cleansing for any Gentile who converted to Judaism. It was a way for the unwashed outsider to become one of God’s chosen. But John was unique in that he was an equal opportunity Baptizer. According to John, everyone needed to be purified, the washed and the unwashed. Not just the Gentile outsider but God’s own chosen people, too.

You see, John’s baptism wasn’t just ritual, it was sacramental as well. Remember the definition of a sacrament? An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Ritually John’s baptism washed off the dirt and the filth from the skin and purified the outward appearance but sacramentally John’s baptism decontaminated the soul from the residue that the world leaves behind and cleansed the inward nature. John didn’t just call for a simple confessing of sins to be brushed off like so much lint from a coat. He called for repentance, which was a thorough scrubbing of the material inside and out. As I mentioned last Sunday, the word repent means to turn around and change direction as in turning around and facing the Light of God. Turning around is an outward and visible sign. But the word repent also means to radically change one’s mind or behavior, which is an internal function, and quite frankly this can only be accomplished by the inward and spiritual grace of God. And it is through repentance, by the grace of God that produces the fruit worthy of the act itself and worthy of the Source of grace from which it came.

This is why John begins to rail against the Pharisees and Sadducees who have come to the wilderness with the rest of the people. These are the people who have become very strict in their outward appearances but have not radically changed their inward thoughts. Their rituals have become hollow displays devoid of hallowed intention. The fruit they bear appears to be outwardly luscious but is inwardly rotten to the core.

Now changing metaphors for the moment, John calls them a brood of vipers. This may be the equivalent of our calling them SOB’s. Literally, brood of vipers means the offspring of snakes or snake bastards. By calling them a brood of vipers, John is calling into question the legitimacy of their social status and subsequent honor, which functionally is the result of their birth. In other words, he is leveling the playing field by verbally bringing the Pharisees and Sadducees to the same plane as the average Jewish citizen. John’s message is that everyone is equal in the eyes of God and all are in need of repentance.

Now continuing with the snake motif, John then asks the Pharisees and the Sadducees who it is that warned them to flee from the wrath to come? This alludes to the action of setting the stubble of a harvested field on fire before the winter sowing, and all of the snakes flee from the grass when the smoke and the heat become too intense. John is basically asking who told them that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Did God tell them or did they just hear it on the streets and follow along with the crowds to see what was happening down by the river? And if the latter, did they think they could just blend in and escape the outcome of the coming kingdom? No! If they were coming to be baptized then they had better bear fruit worthy of repentance!

This is serious business. John is telling the Pharisees and Sadducees that if they submit to his baptism and truly repent that their lives will be radically changed. They will not only live within the letter of law, which they do so well, but they will begin to live out the intent of the law as well. They will not just perform the rituals; they will carry out the commands. They will love the Lord, their God and their neighbors as themselves. They will care for the widows and orphans, they will shelter the sojourner, they will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned. These are the fruits worthy of a radically changed life from the world to the kingdom of Heaven. Anyone not producing the good fruit of a changed life will be chopped down and thrown into the fire. And not just chopped down but cut into the root so as to prevent any future growth at all.

Down on the farm a lot of time is spent clearing out the fencerows of saplings and trees. If left unattended, they grow up and shade the fields stunting the growth of the crops, and competing for the nutrients of the immediate soil around them. So during the winter and early spring, the wood is cut either for the fireplace or stacked into brush piles to be burned at a later date. But if a tree is only cut down above the surface, little sucker shoots spring forth and rapidly grow again recreating the problem and starting the process all over again. Unless you dig them out and cut the main root or apply powerful herbicides, the problem continues.

This is the point of John’s message. John warns the people that if they don’t repent and change their ways, there is One who is coming who will wield the axe that will cut the root. Whereas John baptizes with water for repentance, the coming One will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The coming One will winnow the people like so much grain, casting us up into the wind of the Holy Spirit, which is the breath of God.

Now there are two ways to look at this. One way would be that if we repent, like grains of wheat, on the Day of the Lord, the day of the harvest, we will be purged of our sins by the power of the Holy Spirit just as the chaff falls from the wheat. We will then be gathered into the kingdom of heaven after the chaff has been burned away. The other way to look at it would be that we are all living together as wheat and chaff. Those who choose to repent are the wheat, which is the good fruit, and they will be gathered together into heaven. Those who do not repent are the chaff and they will be thrown into the unquenchable fires, eternally separated from God.

Either way, the key is repentance, that radical change of mind and behavior. And just as the Pharisees and Sadducees can’t count on just being children of Abraham, the chosen people of God to get into heaven, we, as Christians, can’t just say Jesus is Lord and not mean it. We can’t just be nominal Christians. If we say that Jesus is Lord then that means we will completely subject ourselves to God’s will. Saying Jesus is Lord is to radically change the way that we live our lives, and if our lives are changed then we will bear fruit worthy of that transformation: we will love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls and minds; we will love our neighbors as ourselves; we will make disciples of all nations; we will baptize them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And we will teach them all that Jesus has commanded us, which is to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the imprisoned.

It’s been some two thousand years since John the Baptist came as a prophet. Now, as then, the people are hungry for the Word of God. There is a need for revival in the world and in the Church. There is a constant need for repentance. There is a constant need for radically transformed lives by the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. In this season of Advent, let us all look inwardly and heed the call of the Prophet to confess and repent so that we may bear the fruit worthy of the kingdom of heaven.

Gloria Patri