I hope we are all making some progress towards being ready for Christmas. We know the drill, decorations, shopping, Christmas cards, wrapping presents, cooking, and so on.
Today we meet John the Baptist, who gives us a very different list of things we need to do to be ready to meet our Lord, things that may be harder to do at first because they move us against the flow of where everyone else is going, but the things that will give us lasting blessings.
To help you appreciate John the Baptist, I was trying to think of someone similar in our world today. But I don't know of anyone like John the Baptist. The job that God gave him to do was something like the warm-up band for a rock concert. His job was to get the crowd’s attention and get them into the mood to participate. But his message was much more than a warm up band. His job was to get people ready to meet the Son of God, who was about to begin his public ministry on earth, not just enjoy an evening of music.
There is no way you would find John the Baptist on the cover of People Magazine. John’s clothing was not trendy. He wore what people wore when they couldn’t afford anything better, the poorest, cheapest stuff you could get, camel’s hair fabric. Sounds scratchy to me. He ate the food that you could find out in the wilderness, things like grasshoppers and wild honey. He never showed up at high society functions. He stayed out in the desert. He had no influential friends. He had no money or political power.
There is no way you would find John the Baptist on the cover of People Magazine. You might have found him in the National Inquirer, but they’d have his story all wrong.
I think it would be fair to borrow John McCain’s campaign slogan back in 2000, “The Straight Talk Express” to describe John the Baptist. He never beat around the bush. I’ll read an excerpt from one of his sermons in a minute. When I do, listen to how he spoke. He spoke to people very directly, going to the heart of the matter.
You could compare John the Baptist to Dr. Martin Luther King because his refusal to compromise God’s message eventually cost him his life. But when we meet him in today’s passage, huge crowds are coming out to listen to him. And it’s not just the religious people you would expect, but the ones you hear interacting with him in the passage are the people that normally weren’t considered very religious at all. But in John the Baptist they knew they were hearing the truth, straight from the heart of God. He gave them hope that God was about to do something very special. And they were hungry to hear all about it.
Does that give you something of a picture of John? Our text for this morning is Luke 3:1-18. We’ll read it in parts. I’ll be the narrator. Bill will be John, and you all can be the crowd.
Pastor: (1) In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, (2) during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. (3) He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, (4) as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
(5) Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
(6) and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
(7) John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him,
Lay Reader: "`You breed of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (8) Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. (9) Even now the ax is laying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'
Pastor: (10) And the crowds asked him,
All: `What then should we do"'
Pastor: (11) In reply he said to them,
Lay Reader: `Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.'
Pastor: (12) Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him,
All: `Teacher, what should we do?'
Pastor: (13) He said to them,
Lay Reader: `Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.'
Pastor: (14) Soldiers also asked him,
All: `And we, what should we do?'
Pastor: He said to them,
Lay Reader: `Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.'
Pastor: (15) As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, (16) John answered all of them by saying,
Lay Reader: `I baptize you with water; but 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. (17) His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.'
Pastor: (18) So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
There’s an old saying that “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” But there is no hint that John the Baptist ever heard that. He obviously had not read any of the books about how to make your worship services “seeker sensitive” or warm and welcoming, because he broke just about every rule that modern church consultants give you for success in working for God.
He didn’t build a beautiful sanctuary at a major intersection on the edge of town with theater seats and ample parking. You had to walk out to him and sit on the ground, out of doors. There’s no mention of a choir or comforting music. There are very appropriate times for all such things. We don’t want to do anything to alienate people unnecessarily. But the message of the kingdom of God must always come through the loudest.
He didn’t start out with things people wanted to hear. Look in your bulletins at verse 7. Who can tell me what John called the crowds? He describes them as snakes trying to escape from a prairie fire and wonders how they were even smart enough to realize they were in danger. It’s not a flattering image.
He didn’t limit his sermons to talking about God as all loving and accepting. In verse 9 he said that their nation was like a tree that God was about to cut down and throw into the fire, so they’d better watch out! John had a burning awareness of God’s holiness and hatred for sin. He knew that we are accountable to God for our actions.
This is not what you normally do to win friends and influence people. You did not hear comfortable, pious platitudes from John the Baptist. He was not content with superficial solutions. He went right to the point. If your heart isn’t right with God, you need to fix it right now.
So, did the people ignore him? Was he alone in the wilderness, preaching to the wind? No, huge crowds came. And these weren’t the people who were in the synagogue and in the temple all the time already. These were the people whom everybody else frowned on. In today’s text we hear tax collectors talking to him. Tax collectors were helping the occupation Roman army. They were notoriously crooked. There were soldiers there from Herod’s guard and Herod was a bloodthirsty tyrant, so they were at times called to do horrible things.
And the crowds were huge. If you want to read the history of this period, the next best resource besides the Bible is the works of the historian Josephus. He spends more time talking about John the Baptist than he does about Jesus, and that is probably because John got people more excited and drew bigger crowds than Jesus did.
And so, you ask yourself, how did he do it? Why did people come to hear this cranky prophet out in the wilderness?
And the answer is that John gave them a vision that God was going to do something very special among them. And he called on everyone in society to get ready and be part of it.
John understood that he was making a royal proclamation from God; that God was coming to his people. And in verses 4 and 5 he picked up the analogy of roadwork to describe that the prophet Isaiah had written centuries before to describe the work that needed to be done. When the king visited a remote part of his empire in ancient days, there would be a lot of cleaning up. Fill in the dips in the road. Shave down some hills. Clean out the bumpiest rocks in the road surface. Get things ready to run smoothly. That’s the image that John used.
But he was talking about human society. God is coming. We need to lift up those who are in the lowest, most vulnerable positions in society. People are hurting and God cares about it. We need to deal with those who are on top and throwing their weight around. We need to straighten out the things that are crooked. We need to reach out and help those who are hurting. We need to prepare our society for this king.
And John was not content to stop with pious generalities. He made it painfully specific. In verse 11 he said that those who have extra clothing need to share with those who are short. He seems to assume that everybody would have either one coat or two. In my closets I have a lined trench coat to wear over a suit when it’s cold. I have a newer heavy duty winter jacket for really cold days. I finally got it out this week. And I kept the old heavy duty winter jacket in case I have to do something dirty outside in the cold. And I have a couple of light jackets for days that are just cool. Probably we all have more than one coat. I don’t think I want to make a rule for how many jackets Methodists are allowed to have. But we should all look for ways that we can share. I’ll bet FACC in Freeport would welcome some warm winter coats for the needy. The Eastland Council of Churches is buying warm winter things for local kids from families that can’t afford much. One of the most important ways that we prepare our lives to honor our Lord is by looking for ways that we can share with those who have needs.
And in verse 11 he said that anyone with extra food should share with those who are short. Are there any folks who are short on food in our world?
The US Department of Agriculture just came out with their report on hunger in America for 2008. They said that 50 million Americans struggled to put enough healthy food on the table in 2008. That was up by 13 million people from 2007. And that total of 50 million Americans who are short on food included 17 million children.
To the tax collectors he gave a message in verse 12 that applies for everyone who deals with finances, “you need to conduct your business with complete honesty.” God expects no less from us.
To the soldiers he gave a message for all those who have various forms of power in the world, whether parents or teachers or bosses, “you cannot use your power for any advantage for yourself that hurts somebody else. You cannot.”
Mostly we don’t think of ourselves as having a whole lot of power to abuse, but I ran into an example back in April. On, April 18 this year I was polishing up my sermon on Saturday afternoon started having pain in my stomach area. I thought it was gas at first, but it didn’t change and it didn’t go away. When I thought about where it was located, I went online to read about appendicitis. In the evening we went over to the emergency room. At 5 AM Sunday morning I had my appendix out. The lay folks at Oak Lawn did just fine without me. I was home in time for lunch on Monday. I got off about as easy as you can for appendicitis.
Then the bills started coming in. The total cost was just over $25,000. Blue Shield picked up most of it, not as much as I had hoped, but it got the cost down to something easily doable for us. But when I looked at the reports that came from Blue Cross, on each one I saw a huge write-off that the hospital gave me because I was covered by Blue Cross. Because I’m covered by Blue Cross, I got a 55% discount. At first, I thought, great! Then I thought, wait a minute, what about some poor guy that just got laid off because a machine could do his job cheaper. And he’s struggling to put food on the table for his kids. And he doesn’t have the power of being part of an insurance group. And in the end my bill got marked down from $25,000 to $11,000. And he was expected to pay the full $25,000. That’s not fair! And that could be my family because our youngest son, Joel, just started a new job and his benefits don’t kick in until January 1.
In all the talk about health care reform, a lot of people are saying their needs are covered under the present system and they don’t want to risk any changes. John the Baptist would remind us to notice those who aren’t doing well in today’s system and work for something better.
God is building a new world. And that new world requires new people to make it work. Come and be made new.
Can you dare to dream of a world of generosity where no one is left short because everyone who has extra shares? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Will you start out by living that way yourself?
Can you dare to dream of a world where all business is done honestly? Will you start out by living that way yourself?
Can you imagine a world without bullies, without greed, without anyone taking advantage of anyone else? Will you start out by living that way yourself?
John the Baptist would not let people just tell themselves, “Yeah, maybe I need to try harder” and walk away and forget about it. He called them to take a specific first step into this new world or righteousness. He called them to name out the specific sins they had committed in confession to God and then walk down into the Jordan River and be baptized as a first step towards joining God’s new society.
And this morning I’m going to do something similar. I’m going to ask you to silently name out to God anything that you see is keeping you from walking today in God’s new kingdom. Make it your number one Christmas present this year to give God the gift of a changed life.
John the Baptist was the one whom God called to plow up the hard soil so that it would be ready to receive the seeds of the gospel from Jesus. Will you say to God, "open me up, make me ready for all that you have for me.” A new world requires new people. AMEN
