"Vipers and Fruit, Sandals and Fire"
Our annual Advent visit with John the Baptist comes almost like that odd relative that we see at the holiday family gathering. We know and love him, but we aren’t always sure what to make of him and his odd ways. Strange clothing, strange diet, strange living arrangement – but all of that seems designed to get your attention. What’s really notable about John is his message. He’s the voice, after all, of one crying in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way of the Lord…’
And at the heart of John’s message is a call to repentance. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
Repent. It’s a hard word. An unpopular word, perhaps even in the church.
Did you know that Advent, as a season, is meant to be a penitential time, a season of repentance? Sorrow for sin, and renewal of faith – that’s how the church prepares for its major celebrations. Advent is, in this way, of a similar tone to Lent.
Preparing means repenting. Preparing for Christmas means repentance. Just as Christmas isn’t about gifts and good feelings, the preparation for Christmas isn’t about shopping and cleaning and cards and cooking. The one who prepared the way is the one who comes and says, “Repent”. We do well to listen.
John makes us uncomfortable, not just because he’s an odd character, but more importantly because he points to our sin. He reminds us we are a brood of vipers – the venom of sin running through our veins, tracing all the way back to the lies of the serpent that our first parents bit into. It’s a deadly poison, this sin of ours, and our condition is terminal. John minces no words, pulls no punches, but straight up calls out sin and sinners and boom, wow, does he!
Sometimes we need that verbal shock to the system. Sometimes we need a John to slap us with a stark call to repentance. Sin is serious business. It’s not just a problem, it’s a disaster. Even your little sins are deadly. Even your secret sins make you filthy. By nature sinful and unclean.
And so what do we do with dirt? Wash it. John brings a baptism, a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Our annual encounter with John should remind us of our own baptism. Every day you wash your face you should remember your baptism. For there in those waters, all your sins went down the drain. There in that blessed flood, the Old Adam was drowned. You are prepared, through repentance and faith, for the kingdom. You are prepared, through your baptism, to receive the one who comes, the one greater than John.
So just what are the “fruits in keeping with repentance”? Certainly not good works that make up for our sins or blot out our bad works. It’s not like we can balance the ledger book ourselves, or even help the process. The fruits in keeping with repentance are first of all, genuine sorrow for sin. Not taking it lightly or minimizing its deadliness. But rather confessing our sins to the one who is faithful and just, and who will forgive our sins.
But the fruits of repentance are more than that – for confession and forgiveness bring change. They bring renewal of life. And so by the power of the Spirit we are different.
One example close to John’s sermon here is that of humility. Fruit in keeping with repentance would lead people not to rely on their own credentials, “Hey don’t you know who I am? Who we are? We’re children of Abraham!” John is not impressed with that. God can bring children of Abraham from stones. And he does, in a way. For we are children of Abraham by faith, and he brings us out of nothing, even from death, as from an inert and lifeless stone. Glory be to God! Not glory be to me.
And the fruits of faith are the natural outcome. They are just what good and healthy trees do. So the works of love for God and neighbor are the fruits of Christian faith. They are just what Christians do. And the new man doesn’t need to be told to do good than a tree needs to be told to bear fruit. And a tree that has no fruit is cut down because it is dead. So too the fruitless, faithfulness, unrepentant sinners have a fate in the fires of judgment.
The axe is already at the root of the tree. The lumberjack is winding up and about to swing. Judgment is ever at hand. Repent! Believe.
But don’t believe in John. Don’t repent for the sake of John. Even he would tell you all this is not about John. He’s preparing the way for another. He’s making way for someone far greater than he.
And John confesses this in another marvelous word picture.
“I’m not worthy to carry his sandals” John says. Or in another passage, “to undo the thong of his sandals”. Either way, a likely reference to the slave’s job of washing feet. John uses strong language to show that he’s not even worthy to be his slave, wash his feet, carry his sandal. He’s not in the same league as this one who is mightier. Even John’s baptism isn’t as great or as full. It is preparatory. John’s paving the way, but another one is coming, a greater one, a mightier one.
And of course we know that it’s Jesus. The shoot from the stump of Jesse. The one on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests (as it would do at his own baptism). Jesus – the Christ – the servant of all. He comes not just to undo sandals and wash feet, but to lay down his life as a ransom for many. To go to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus is certainly greater than John, but he makes himself last and least in the kingdom, which is why we regard him as the greatest. Jesus, by his death becomes the fount and source of all baptism, by his blood and in his death. Jesus, the one who makes us clean first by becoming sin and dying. And then in our baptism he distributes and applies the work of the cross to each of us. And there we are buried and raised with him.
Jesus comes to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. It’s not that Jesus’ baptism is entirely different than John’s. But John’s was preparatory, and Christ’s baptism is in all its fullness. And in Jesus, the true and final division will be seen between the repentant and unrepentant, between the believer and unbeliever. The believer will be baptized in the Holy Spirit, that is, cleansed and made righteous unto life with Christ forever. But the unbeliever, the one who’d rather slither with the vipers, the dead tree without fruit, that one is burned in the baptism of fire – that is a different sort of cleansing, if you will, by destruction and judgment.
It’s similar to Jesus separating the wheat from the chaff with his winnowing fork – that’s how they separated the edible kernel of wheat from the dead outer husk or shell, by tossing it in the wind and watching the chaff blow away. So will the Christ separate the believer from the unbeliever. It’s the same idea that he will separate the sheep from the goats when he comes to judge the living and the dead.
John would prepare us to receive Jesus. And receiving Jesus is always best done in repentance and faith, and so do we receive him today under the forms of bread and wine. Sorry for our sins, wanting to do better, and believing his words of promise attached to these humble earthly things. Here, in the sacrament, the kingdom is at hand. Here, according to Christ’s promise, he gathers you in again – with the faithful who are forgiven.
And soon he will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, and to gather us into his eternal garner. Then will his kingdom be seen in glory forever. Then will we, and John, and all the faithful receive the fulfillment of baptismal promises, even resurrection from the dead and life in the world to come.
Be prepared for that day, and for this meal, and for the celebration of Christmas – be prepared as John would have you – in repentance and faith, always in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
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