Luke 3:7-18
December 17, 2000
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Here we are, on the third Sunday of Advent, pretty far into December, only seven shopping days left. “It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Or Macy’s?” as they say. And the last person you and I are in the mood to hear from is John the Baptist. He’s never polite, crude and outdoor smelly, no table manners, an odd misfit invading into our Christmas holiday on December 17th. Hallmark has never put him on a greeting card. And you never see him in a Christmas pageant either.
We would rather sing “Away in the Manger” and “Deck the Halls with boughs of holly” than to listen to John’s thundering and piercing preaching. But today, we somehow must grapple with this bizarre preacher man in order to get to Jesus. While we can’t wait to celebrate the birth of Christ as something warm and fuzzy, we must first listen to rough John spit out fire as he points to Christ.
John is a prophet like that of the prophets before him. His job was to expose, unmask, and tell the truth. And we know what people do to truth tellers? They are irritating and after a while you want to get rid of them. John was telling the people that they had to repent.
“Repent” in Hebrew means to “make a 180-degree turn.” It’s like you’re going down this road in this direction and you turn completely around. Not 90 degrees or just slightly, but completely around because you were not being honest with yourself or God. You were not telling the truth.
“Repent” in the Greek means a “change of mind.” But repentance is never just mental, never merely making an apology to someone that you offended. As we turn around, our thought processes are refocused, our minds changed, and our corrected vision alters everything we are about. It’s like the scales falling off our eyes and now we can see again.
As John cries out, “Repent!” and as he turns the people’s eyes to the carpenter’s son, he reminds us that “Jesus is coming, not so that we can feel different but so you can be different.” You just don’t feel odd, but you are odd.
John’s Odd Message
For us who are seeking Christ, we need to be prepared to be odd. John preaches a three-point sermon in Luke 3 to remind us how to be different.
1. First, John told the crowds, the men and women who journeyed with him into the wilderness, that they were a “brood of vipers.” Keep in mind that these people were not wicked, irreligious folks. They were really among the pious, regular worshipers, devoted to prayer and sacrifice. They were the children of Abraham.
And John is saying, “that is the problem.” You can’t depend on your proud heritage to expect God’s forgiveness. Mere lineage, simply being born and functioning week in and week out as Jews, is not enough. As those who are seeking Christ, we don’t inherit the faith of our parents or grandparents. No Christian environment, however genuine or sincere, can simply transfer this Christian life to others.
Our church can be a nice place where nice people do nice things with nice people. “We’re pretty nice down at our church!” But God wants our hearts, not just our politeness. God wants a radical kind of commitment. As John the Baptist was preaching to the people that they needed to repent and be true to God, he is telling them that the truth will make them odd. Being odd with God will bring us in conflict with others and even suffering. Being odd will disrupt our comfortable lives.
John said, “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” This radical kind of commitment will make you odd.
2. John’s second point is surprisingly simple, practical, and doable. The repentant life is ordinary, as simple as doing this or that, sharing a coat or your dinner, or refusing to cheat anybody or take advantage of anyone.
Remember the story of a father who gets pretty serious about a local shelter’s winter coat collection. He takes his children out shopping for their own winter coats, and while they are in the store, they buy a new coat for a needy child. We think that’s pretty good. Very nice. People do, do good at Christmas, precisely the kind of thing John the Baptist suggests. But John says, “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’” Buying an extra coat for a needy child is not enough!
People are hungry in April too. Children need shoes in June too. The homeless are cold in August too.
On the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, he was speaking at the Mason Temple, rallying support for the garbage workers in Memphis. He said,
It’s alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s alright to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey.’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee.”
When we turn our lives around to follow Jesus, we are commanded to care for each other. We are to do simple, practical, and doable things that will help alleviate the suffering we see.
3. Point number three is that as impressive as John was, he was not the one. In those days in Palestine, there was a messianic expectation. Charismatic leaders claiming to be the messiah came and went. And sometimes, when we really want to believe in something to happen to us, we can find ourselves easily swept off our feet by some speaker, some personality, some author, and we wind up missing the one, the actual Jesus sent by God.
John said,
“I baptize you with water; but the one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Sounds serious? It is. Fire, despite its destructive force, is here the primal element to purge off all the impurities. We might prefer to be left as we are, accepted warts and all. But John roars at us and say that Jesus would change us.
We hear sometimes about how the worship service warmed your heart. That’s nice, but it’s too tame. It’s not hot enough! On the road to Emmaus, the disciples discovered that the risen Lord made their hearts “burn.” After the risen Lord ate with the disciples and they recognized him, they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
When we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, this burning fire in us will burn away all of our doubts, our sins of impurities and leaves us with a repentant heart.
Being Odd Today
John does not urge anyone to copy his bizarre existence out in the wilderness. Rather, we are to live differently where we already find ourselves. Just because of this sermon, you’re not going to flee to a seminary, or to the mission field, for a life devoted to prayer and service. We still have jobs, families, responsibilities, school work, a mortgage.
John is calling us to be different in the normal routine of life. To be odd today hinges on an awareness of the future. Our hearts and minds are fixed on the one who has come, the one who is coming. And when we believe that Jesus Christ is coming into the world for you and me, that future changes everything.
When Joy and I were dragging out our boxes of Christmas decorations, we suddenly realized that our room was filled with strings of lights, ornaments, nativity scenes, holiday cups and plates. The kitchen counters were covered with new things that we haven’t seen for a year. In order for our Christmas decorations to find a place in our home, we would need to put away some of the things that we normally have around.
It was like our normal routine of life needs to be invaded so that we might take notice of what is to come. It was odd to put away our fuzzy and warm things that make us feel comfortable and at home to make room for a new thing. When we believe that Christ is coming into the world, that future changes everything.
When we should be decked out with holiday reds and greens and coming to church to sing Christmas carols and to exchange gifts, we interrupt our normal routine of Sunday morning worship to have baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Stephanie, Christine, and Nathalie got up this morning knowing that this will not be a routine day in their lives. By their faith in Jesus Christ, they participated in an odd experience. When they repented for all the things that they did wrong in the past and made a promise to turn 180 degrees around to follow Christ, they took on the characteristic of being odd in comparison to the world. Jesus is coming, not so you can feel different but so you can be different.
When Diana decided to renew her faith and to join this church, she publicly announced that she would be different because of what Christ has done for her. And every time when you and I reaffirm our faith in Jesus, we cannot assume that just because we are members of a nice church or that we have done something kind for someone at Christmas that we are not a “brood of vipers.” Jesus is coming, not so that we can feel accepted by society but so we can be odd and different.
“The Luck of the Roaring Camp”
It is odd for God to invade our world as a baby. Do you remember Brett Hart’s short story, “The Luck of the Roaring Camp?”
In a tough, lawless mining camp out west, in the late 1880s a miner discovers a little baby who has been abandoned by his parents. The baby is brought back into camp. Here is a group of rough and tumble miners who have, of all things, a baby. As soon as the baby is brought into camp, the transformation begins. One by one, each of the miners becomes a different person. There are clothes to be made, meals to be prepared, washing and tending to be done, all for the little baby of Roaring Camp. Not only are the individual miners transformed, but the whole camp as well. Swearing and cursing, fighting and feuding, once typical of Roaring Camp, now cease. Each man tries to be on his best behavior because of the baby.
This parable of how a little baby can change our lives is what Christmas means. It may look odd for rough miners to be changing a baby’s diapers, but when a little baby was in their midst, they changed their ways. When Christ is coming into the world, he will transform you and me to be different too.
And this transformation is not limited to individual persons. This is not just happening to Stephanie, Christine, Nathalie, and Diana or to the five brothers and sisters who will be baptized at the 11:15 worship. The entire Roaring Camp of miners stopped swearing and cursing. This transformation will happen in the whole world.
We like to come to Christmas with a sentimental perception and feelings. Joy and I got sentimental when we rediscovered our Christmas decorations. We remembered where and when we got these festive objects. We position our nativity figures to reflect how we perceive the birth of Jesus was like with the cattle lowing and the baby awakes.
The advent of the Christ child brought political uneasiness. While John is bellowing out his sermon, Herod’s henchmen were en route to shackle and imprison John. The fiction is that Christmas is the beginning of serenity and silence. The truth is that Christmas is the beginning of a new world when God invades our routine lives and makes us different and odd.
Let us pray.
Almighty and loving God, we praise you for the blessings of life and the many ways that you call us forth to be a different kind of people from this world and to be your disciples. Show us your Son so that we may be transformed and renewed. Thank you, Lord for this season of Christmas to remind us how you search for us because you love us. In the name of Christ, the joy to the world. Amen.