The Promise of Peace; a sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

Matthew 3:1-12

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the desert of Judea announcing, 2 “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” 3 He was the one of whom Isaiah the prophet spoke when he said:

The voice of one shouting in the wilderness,
        “Prepare the way for the Lord;
        make his paths straight.”

4 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey.

5 People from Jerusalem, throughout Judea, and all around the Jordan River came to him. 6 As they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. 7 Many Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized by John. He said to them, “You children of snakes! Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon? 8 Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives. 9 And don’t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father. I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham’s children from these stones. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and tossed into the fire. 11 I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives. The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am. I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands. He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn. But he will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

The faith of Abraham in a single God whose authority surpassed all the gods of the surrounding peoples has morphed into something else.

Abraham wasn’t monotheistic, per se. He simply trusted in one God rather than others.

His sons and their families would call that God the Bull of Abraham.

The Bull of Abraham would become the God of the Israelites, a people defined by slavery; a people defined as sojourners, aliens; a people defined by history as conquerors; a people shortly thereafter defined as conquered, enslaved again, exiled.

The God of the Israelites became the God of the Hebrews, the God of the Temple that once was a tent.

That Temple developed rules, laws. Some today say those laws were given by God; some say they were, in fact, written by God; some say most, if not all of the laws, were written or reformed or expanded by people, specifically by the Temple hierarchy.

Following those laws became a burden to the people. The dietary laws, the sacrificial laws, the holiness laws all had become so expensive, so unattainable, so alienating that no one but the uniquely privileged could follow them.

The law had once been liberating, but now it was enslaving. It was intended to set the people free for their God, but now the powerless were given to the service of the powerful, the priestly class who stood to benefit from the people’s sacrifices and goodwill.

Now, in the first century, the powerful and the powerless are under the occupation of Rome. The oppressors have become the oppressed.

The Baptizer sees what has happened to his people. He sees the greed, the corruption of the Temple hierarchy echoed and magnified exponentially in the presence of Rome.

And that magnification makes the corruption of the Temple all the more clear, so John doesn’t mince words in calling them out.

You children of snakes! Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon?

Now, here’s the thing about John, the thing that gets to me, and has since I recognized what kind of man Jesus is: John’s rhetoric is fear-filled, threatening, foreboding. Jesus admittedly gets that way toward the end, but most of his message is hope, though, and patience, and peace.

What I have to keep reminding myself is that Jesus is divine and John is not.

Jesus sees the broad scope of things happening. He is not immune to being affected by his environment, but he is divine, and John is not. He is fully divine and fully human: so we confess. Jesus knows all that God knows, and feels all that humankind feels. Jesus loves as God loves, but has the limited sight of any man born of woman.

There’s that difference, and there’s also a minor historical difference. John looks forward to the coming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the Kingdom of God.

Where Jesus is, the Kingdom of God is.

And John is the one sent to shout in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make his paths straight.”

He is come to make Israel ready for the One who will hack off at the stump every tree that isn’t bearing good fruit, who will make a brush fire of those fruitless trees.

He is come to make Israel ready for the One who will sort the husks out of the wheat, who “will burn the husks with a fire that can’t be put out.”

But John is also called to make Israel ready for the one whom Isaiah speaks of:

A shoot from the branch of Jesse.

The one who 

won’t judge by appearances,
    nor decide by hearsay.

The one who will bring the time when

The wolf will live with the lamb,
    and the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
    the calf and the young lion will feed together,
    and a little child will lead them.

This is the promise of peace.

You will hear it said that Isaiah speaks of a king, an emperor whom he has already seen, a Persian named Darius, but I say to you that history has a tendency to repeat and magnify itself. And the One who has an eye on history has hinted in Darius the shape of the Divine One to come, the Human One who is God come to earth.

And I would remind you: Where Jesus is, the Kingdom of God is.

Where Jesus is, the wolf is already living with the lamb, and the leopard with the young goat.

Where Jesus is, the nursing child is already playing over the snake’s hole.

Where Jesus is, there is no harm or destruction.

Where Jesus is, the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord.

Where Jesus is, he stands already as a signal to the peoples. Where Jesus is, the nations do, in fact, seek him out.

But Jesus is not in our fruitlessness.

Jesus is not in our violence.

Jesus is not in our callousness.

Jesus is not in our anger.

Jesus is not in our spitefulness.

Jesus is not in our bigotry.

Jesus is not in our superiority.

Jesus is not in our greed.

Jesus is not in our oppression.

So if we would prepare the way for Jesus today, we must allow Jesus to burn away with unquenchable fire all that destructive sinfulness. We must allow Jesus to burn it away from us. From us, because it is not ours to burn it off others.

We must take control of our own lives. Rather, we must relinquish control of what we claim as our own. We must give all our lives to Jesus and trust him to sort our husks out of us and incinerate them so that we might never reclaim them from the ash that remains.

We must relinquish control and allow Jesus to bring the promise of peace through us.

So today, let’s recognize in ourselves those parts of us that don’t reflect Jesus’s promise of peace. Let’s let them go, and let God purify us.

God will not burn off what is godly. We need not fear the flame. God will burn off what is sinful.

It will be painful, though. It will take courage. It will require vulnerability.

But it will make peacemakers of us. It will make us able to faithfully and unfailingly shine the Light of the World into the darkness. It will make us way-preparers and fruitful branches of the One True Vine.

Will you let Jesus refine you today?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.