Title: The Snares of Advent: Snares in Life
Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Thesis: There are misconceptions, attitudes, actions or the lack there of that keep us from embracing the coming of the Christ and Kingdom Life.
(John said the Kingdom is “near” but Jesus clarified that when he said the Kingdom is “among” you. The rule of Christ in our lives is both now and then… so while we wait for the visible rule of Christ we live into the invisible Kingdom rule of Christ now. Embracing the Christ who came and is coming again is to live into Kingdom life now in anticipation of then.)
Introduction
There is a sculpture of a figure wrapped in a blanket, looking a lot like the homeless we see on the benches and grates of a city. The figure has gaping wounds in his feet. The piece is titled: Jesus the Homeless. Two prominent churches, one in Toronto, Canada and the other in New York city, have rejected that image of Jesus opting to not have the sculpture places on their campuses… they did not like the idea of Jesus identifying so much with the homeless of society. Never mind Jesus once said of himself, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
This time of year the nativity accounts and scenes of Jesus’ birth are the artwork of our Christmas cards and outdoor Nativity Scenes and the centerpiece of our Christmas pageants. A crude animal shelter and a hay manger hardly make for the scene of the birth of the Son of God. Certainly the cruel depictions of Christ’s death on a cross hardly make for a majestic coronation of the King of the Jews, much less the Savior of the world. And a sculpture depicting Jesus as a homeless person sleeping on a park bench hardly fits the image of the Son of God.
Jesus did not look or act the part of the Son of God and Savior of the world.
Our text today introduces us to John the Baptist. John the Baptist was Jesus’ front-man. He looked little like a slick Madison Avenue ad-man or a TV preacher or televangelist. John the Baptist did not look or act the part of someone God would send as the official front-man for the Son of God and Savior of the world.
Today I am wondering if there are some misconceptions suggested in our text, that keep us from seeing and welcoming the Christ of Advent.
Half-truths always seem to trip us up.
I. Beware the snare of the half-truth
John the Baptist began preaching, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Matthew 3:1-3
Here is a little misconception. Have you heard that George Washington wore wooden teeth? The fact that he had no teeth is true but wooden-teeth is a half-truth. In fact his dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth (including horse and donkey teeth). That little known factoid is gross but hardly of any eternal consequence.
However, failure to fully hear John the Baptist’s “Prepare the way of the Lord” speech may be of eternal consequence.
Few people probably really grasp the whole truth of who Jesus is. Not every Jesus is the real Jesus.
• There's the Republican Jesus—who is against tax increases and activist judges, for family values and owning firearms.
• There's Democrat Jesus—who is against Wall Street and Wal-Mart, for reducing our carbon footprint and printing money.
• There's Therapist Jesus—who helps us cope with life's problems, heals our past, tells us how valuable we are and not to be so hard on ourselves.
• There's Starbucks Jesus—who drinks fair trade coffee, loves spiritual conversations, drives a hybrid, and goes to film festivals.
• There's Touchdown Jesus—who helps athletes run faster and jump higher than non-Christians and determines the outcomes of ball games. (Especially so today as the Broncos host the Tennessee Titans here in Denver…)
And then there's Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. The one to establish God's reign and rule; the one to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, freedom to the prisoners and proclaim Good News to the poor; the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.
This Christ is not a reflection of the current mood or the projection of our own pre-conceived notions and needs. He is our Lord and God. He is the Father's Son, Savior of the world, and substitute for our sins—more loving, more holy, and more wonderfully terrifying than we ever thought possible. (Kevin DeYoung, "Who Do You Say That I Am?" from his DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed blog, posted 6-10-09)
Today we find ourselves in a Season in which we are reminded to once again welcome the coming Christ by preparing our hearts and lives through repentance and turning to God.
If you think of Jesus as anything other than the Son of God sent to be the Savior of the world who compels us to follow him and be conformed to his very image, your image of Christ is a half-truth image.
One snare of this Advent Season is to think less of Christ than Christ really is… but the opportunity of the season is to turn from your sin and to God so that the Kingdom of Christ may rule in your heart and life. The call of John the Baptist then and now is to seize this opportunity for spiritual transformation.
Sometimes pre-conceptions can be a snare in our lives.
II. Beware the snare of pre-conceptions
John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair; he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey. Matthew 3:4-6
Pope Francis has been in the news frequently… for some, if not most, Pope Francis is the epitome of an anti-pope. He is not what you would expect a Pope to be. He does not wear the gold-embroidered robes and sit on the golden throne… he wears a white robe and sits on a wooden chair. He drives himself around in an old beater automobile. He lives in a small modest apartment in the Vatican. He recently demoted a German Bishop for his greed and luxurious lifestyle. His desire is for the wealthy church to share with the poor. He says things Popes are not supposed to say. In so many words he suggests that maybe Christians have been majoring on minors and doing it with little grace. This past week he likened our love for money akin to worshiping the Golden Calf. Most recently it was discovered that he quietly sneaks out of the Vatican at night to minister to homeless men and women. He essentially is breaking all the rules of “popery.”
Pope Francis does not look or act the part of the Pope.
John the Baptist looked and acted like a wild-man. Fulfilling the voice of prophecy in Isaiah 40:3, he was the voice shouting in the wilderness, calling people to repent of their sins and turn to God. He was like a street preacher or one of those guys who walk around with a sandwich board declaring “The End is Near!” He wore the crude garments of an Old Testament Prophet and ate what he could find in the wilderness which was mostly locusts and wild honey. He was not making a grasshopper and honey shake with his nifty Bullet Blender.
John the Baptist was hardly a Madison Avenue front-man. Jesus was born in a stable and grew up to be essentially homeless.
In II Corinthians 5:16ff Paul wrote of how his way of thinking and seeing people had changed. He said, “We have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person… and all this is a gift from God.”
On Thanksgiving Day Bonnie and I went to dinner downtown. On the off-ramp at Speer there was a scruffy, forlorn looking young woman sitting on the curb. She held an equally scruffy looking little dog in her arms and held up a little sign. I was reminded of the words of Christ, “I was hungry and you fed me…” I was reminded of the text I just read that I dare not look at anyone from merely a human point of view.
During the Season of Advent we are reminded to not let stereotypes and pre-conceptions or mis-conceptions create a snare and keep us from embracing Jesus Christ. And similarly, it is a season to remind ourselves that we dare not see anyone merely from a human point of view. John was a Wildman living in the wilderness. Jesus was homeless… who knows what God is doing in the life of a forlorn looking young woman sitting on a curb or for that matter, in the life of the person who sees that young woman sitting on a curb on a cold Thanksgiving afternoon?
A third snare is to get caught thinking we are a shoo-in with God.
III. Beware the snare of a spiritual pedigree
Don’t just say to each other, “We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.” That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Matthew 3:7-10
Tony Robbins is a well-known life-coach, self help author and motivational speaker. He has become well known through his infomercials and self-help books, Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within. If it was Tony Robbins instead of John the Baptist in our text today he would have begun his sermon with something like, “We are so glad to have some Pharisees and some Sadducees visiting us today. We’d like to welcome you to the wilderness. We hope you enjoy and be richly blessed by our service today. And if you would like to purchase a CD or a DVD of my sermon today they will be available on that flat rock over there following the service.”
But it was not Tony Robbins. It was John the Baptist and when he saw the religious leaders coming he denounced them and said, “You brood of snakes! (Do you know what a brood of snakes is? Picture a den where a tangle of snakes writhe in the darkness… remember a couple of years ago when a plumber in Thornton, CO entered a crawl space and felt movement under his work mat? Remember how they removed forty some snakes from that crawl space? That was a brood of snakes.) Who warned you to flee God’s coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’” Matthew 3:7-9
Those religious leaders thought they had a free-pass because when the Messiah came they, as Children of Abraham and God’s Chosen People, would be a shoo-in for the Kingdom of God. But in fact they were not shoo-ins. The Pharisees had a weakness for showing off their spirituality. We are a lot like them. We like to think we are decent people and we like to think other peoples see us a decent people. However, no one, not even the best of the best are exempt from repentance from their sins and turning to God in faith.
The Advent of Christ was upon them. Christ had come and Christ would be calling them to accept him as their Lord and Savior. Their spiritual pedigree and their good works were not merititorious.
As we approach the time we celebrate the birth of Christ and look forward with anticipation to the Second Advent of Christ and God’s judgment, we too may be counting on something other than the grace of God for the salvation of our souls.
Over the years I have served well-established churches that were over one-hundred years old. They generally had a rich heritage as having been founded by Swedish immigrants and in this case, Germans from Russia immigrants. Over the last 43 years I have heard many people tell me, “Oh, I grew up at 1st Covenant Church. I was baptized and confirmed there.” Just a few days ago a man told me about how he was from the 1st German Congregational Church down in Globeville. He was baptized there and confirmed there. When I asked him where he was attend now… he was not. His is not an unusual story. Baptism and confirmation do not make for a secure pedigree that insures a person that he is a shoo-in with God.
The Season of Advent is a season in our lives in which we are encouraged to turn from our sin to God and welcome the coming Christ by faith into our lives.
Growing up in a Christian home does not make one a Christian. Ultimately we all come to the cross of Christ for forgiveness and receive the gift of grace and eternal life.
Ultimately the snare of indecision may cost us the hope of eternal life.
IV. Beware the snare of indecision
He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire. Matthew 3:11-12
John the Baptist was not just preaching a gospel of repentance and turning to God for the sake of repenting and turning to God. He was warning the people of his day that Jesus was coming and there would one day be a time when there is a separation of those who follow Christ and those who do not., In Matthew 25 that day is referred to as a separating of the sheep and the goats. In our text today it is referred to the threshing of grain.
The farmer had what was called a threshing floor. After the harvest was cut the sheaves would be brought to the threshing floor where the farmer would use a winnowing fork to toss and shake the grain from the straw. The grain would eventually fall free of the straw and collect on the floor where it was collected and stored in the granary. The straw or chaff would then be placed in a pile and burned with a never-ending fire.
John the Baptist did not mince any words. Either decide to repent and turn to God or don’t repent and don’t turn to God… but know the snare of indecision has eternal consequences.
Kevin Miller suggests that God is kind of like a recycler. He tells of his ritual of standing in the kitchen and sorting his trash. He is looking for anything and everything he can recycle. Coke bottles, milk cartons, news papers… if he is uncertain he checks the bottom of an item to see if there is that little triangle with a 5 inside it and if so it goes into the blue recycle bin. Everything else, the strands of dental floss, used Kleenex, left-over casserole, goes into the garbage.
It is ironic that we actually decide if we wish to be good for the recycle bin or just garbage… it is in turning from our sin, to God and becoming devoted followers of Christ that we are either saved or discarded.
Conclusion:
I read a story this week about an associate pastor who was also a part-time manager of the townhouse complex where he lived. Every month he attended a manager’s meeting with the Management Company that oversaw the complex. It was at one of those meetings he heard about a manager who had a tenant who was living in absolute squalor. In January she warned them that they needed to clean it up and change their behavior. She finally had to forcefully evict them in August. Prior to the January warning and up to and through the August eviction the couple had not taken out the trash even once. The management company had to bring in a 40-foot dumpster to hold all the trash they removed from that condo.
Certainly not a perfect illustration but essentially over time, if we do not take out the trash in our lives it accumulates in massive quantities.
John the Baptist was essentially asking the people of his day to prepare for the coming of Christ by taking out the trash and changing their behavior. Advent is a Season in which we all may prepare for the coming of Christ by repenting of our sin, changing our behavior and turning to God.
This morning I want to conclude by returning to the centerpiece of our text: Repent of your sins and turn to God for the Kingdom of God… [is] here.
John the Baptist’s message is an invitation to sincerely turning from our sin to God and then living in such a way as to prove we are serious about being followers of Christ.
