"In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
Matthew 3:1-6
John the Baptist preaching in the Judean outback must have been a sight for sore eyes… with his funky camel’s hair tunic, leather belt and sandals, the biblical equivalent of Grunge clothing today. I imagine his hair was long and free-flowing too… maybe even a little matted from being in the water for all those baptisms. He ate locusts and wild honey – a real nature-food diet. And when we hear this description of John we harken back to the 60’s – he sounds like one of those nature-lovin hippie-types right out of the 60’s. When Matthew’s congregation hear this description of him however, they would have harkened back a lot further – back to Old Testament times…because to them John sounds like a dead ringer for the prophet Elijah.
In 2 Kings chapter 1 King Ahaziah had suffered a fall and convalescing in bed he worried about whether his injuries might be terminal. So he sent a messenger to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron and on his way the messenger met up with the prophet Elijah who said to him. Go back and tell the king because he doesn’t have faith in the God of Abraham, but instead inquires of Baalzebub, he will surely die of his injuries. So the messenger goes back and gives the king the message. The king asks who gave him this message and he says ‘Some hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.’ And King Ahaziah says ‘It’s Elijah the Tishbite.’
Elijah was one of a long list of hairy guys in scripture. In fact there was a group of hairy Jews called Nazirites (a name that has nothing to do with the city Nazareth). Nazarites were set apart by the vows they took…among them vows never to consume strong drink and never to cut their hair. Samuel was a Nazarite, the first prophet the people of Israel ever had. He was known for speaking the truth and he even called King David to repentance at one point. The legendary Samson was also a Nazarite– and in fact the secret of his Herculean strength was in his long hair. So people with long hair set apart, and their long hair was a statement. It said that they were different – they did not represents the status quo.
Long hair was a statement in the 60’s too. The hippies saw themselves as set apart from the status quo who lived in neat little suburban homes, dressed in business suits, worked from 9-5 each day, and bought their food at the grocery store. The bonafide hippies lived off the land, abandoned classic dress and conventional living. Many took their quest for freedom beyond the bounds of biblical morality and actually became enslaved to drugs and sexually transmitted diseases as a result, but their long hair was a declaration of freedom.
The long-haired prophets were declaring freedom too – spiritual freedom. They were free to be the persons God wanted them to be…free to speak the truth unbridled, free to criticize even the noblest of kings, free to call God’s people to repentance and faith in the name of God. These prophets could not be bought off, and were never indebted to anyone for food, lodging or anything. They tended to distance themselves from all social structures … government and even organized religion because they knew these could become self-serving rather than God-serving. So they lived simply (almost none of them owned Blackberrys or cell phones or i-pods. .. free.)
And John’s long hair, rough clothing and raw diet of bugs & honey was a declaration of his freedom. He belonged to this long list of prophets who were indebted to no one and spoke the unbridled truth to God’s people. And speak he did – holding nothing back when he preached. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ When he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming he said to them ‘You brood of vipers – who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? Don’t presume you are safe because you are descendants of Abraham – I tell you God can turn these stones into children of Abraham! Even now the ax is at the root of the tree, ready to chop down any tree that does bear good fruit and throw it into the fire…’ O, John could preach and they came in droves from Jerusalem and all of Judea just to hear him and be baptized in the Jordan confessing their sins.
John preached repentance - he called people to repent and be baptized with water for repentance. And repentance takes a bad rap today. It brings to mind fire and brimstone preaching, the pointing of an accusative finger and feeling guilty about our evil ways. But repentance is more than admitting you are a sinner and have to stop doing bad things. Repentance comes from the Greek word ‘metanoia’ which literally means ‘to turn around’. Repentance is a physical turning around …making a 180 degree turn in your life. Repentance is turn around your thinking, to turn around your beliefs and attitudes, to turn around your priorities, to re-direct your energies and actions. Repentance is to make a complete turn around in the way you’ve been living your life. And historically, baptism symbolized this repentance very well. In earlier times a candidate for baptism would face the west - the direction of the setting sun and the gathering darkness. They went down into the water, drowning and dying to their old way of life, and when they came up the would face the east – the direction of the rising sun, and gathering light. That’s repentance!
And this is the sort of change that John preached out in the wilderness. This is the sort of baptism he offered to people in the Jordan River. He wasn’t talking about a minor overhaul but an extreme makeover. And the people who came out to hear John preach and be baptized went back home ‘another way.’ Change. That’s true repentance.
True repentance is looking deeply inside ourselves and discovering who we really are. It’s honest self-examination. And that’s hard work because it’s more than just recognizing some simple shortcoming, it’s acknowledging the well-worn patterns of selfishness in our lives. It’s admitting to the hectic schedules we set that cater to ourselves and keep us from spending quality time with God, reading scripture or in prayer. Repentance is getting down and dirty with God.
There is no better place better to do the work of repentance than in the wilderness. The wilderness is where Israel got down and dirty with God and where God re-shaped them from slaves in Egypt into God’s own people. And the wilderness is that barren place where God gets down and dirty with us still, and re-shapes us and re-directs us.
So John preaches to us in the wilderness and his sermon to us is: Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near. And both of those phrases are important - without the second part ‘because the kingdom of heaven has come near’ the first part ‘repent’ is simply a moral indictment which we cannot accomplish on our own. I know someone who has smoked all his life. He has smoked since he was a teenager and he’s heard the word ‘repent’ a million times ...from his wife, his children, his mother-in-law, his mother have all said many times ‘you should quit smoking’. He’s probably even said it to himself many times! He finally repented this fall. He quit cold turkey! Why? Someone finally said the second phrase of that sentence to him. He’s was having some health issues and he went to his doctor and he said ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’… ‘if you don’t quit it’ll kill you’.
Arthur C. McGill in his book Suffering, A test of Theological Method’ takes this even further. He says this… Whether people serve themselves selfishly or serve others generously is decided wholly in terms of the kind of world you think that you live. Our ethical lives do not grow out of our good intentions to live a better life but out of our understanding of the over-arching framework…the kind of kingdom we believe we are living in. And the reason that John the Baptist is so successful in bringing people to repentance is that his call for it is accompanied by an announcement that the over-arching reality has changed…a new reign has been established. (maybe one of the reasons that people are more generous and giving at Christmas time is that they’ve heard we are living in a new realm with the coming of Christ)
Back in 1989 an earthquake hit San Francisco and disrupted the World Series. Tom Long, homiletics professor at Columbia says that there was a clip on the evening news that night that intrigued him. There is a street in San Francisco where a ditch opened up right down the middle of the street caused by the shifting of the earth. And people were outside their homes playing around the chasm - kids were jumping over the ditch, others were riding their bikes over the ditch. Suddenly a policeman arrived and he said ‘What are you people doing? Do you not know what has happened? You must prepare yourself for three or more days without water or electricity! A major event has happened and you’re out here playing!’ This policeman is John the Baptist. The tectonic plates of the world have shifted and a chasm has opened up between the old and the new with the birth of the Messiah. This policeman is John the Baptist!
John the Baptist is anyone who stands at the threshold of a new age and says ‘wake up people – don’t you see what’s happening here! Repent! John the Baptist has many voices today…
Recently, 200 scientists from around the world signed a declaration urging politicians at the United Nation’s Climate Change conference in Bali to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than half. They say that global emissions remain unchecked, global temperatures will increase by more that 3 ½ degrees in the next 10-15 years and will cause irreparable harm to the planet. They encourage nations to cut green house gases now to avoid this fate. These scientists are John the Baptist – standing at the critical point in time and saying Repent!
Back in the 80’s I was the pastor of a 2 point charge in rural Ontario. The smaller of the two churches had about 30 people coming on a good Sunday, but it was growing, in fact they had a pretty good choir and a growing Sunday School too. They had attracted a number of young families and things were starting to take off in that little church. It hadn’t always been the case.
Before I came the church apparently was limping along Sunday to Sunday with little prospects of growth…no children, no Sunday School, no choir. The church building reflected their sense of hopelessness - it was dull, drab and drafty. Then it happened. The back wall of their church began to pull away from the side walls of the church. It forced the church to the a critical point of decision…do we re-invest in the church and move forward, or we throw in the towel and call it quits now? The pastor got up one Sunday and preached a John the Baptist type sermon. It was the sermon of his life. He told the congregation they needed to get serious about their church and its future …invest in it, be proud of it, be committed to it, if they were going to attract new members to it they need a more welcoming facility. He ended his sermon by saying ‘This church has tidy sum of money squirreled away collecting interest…being saved for a rainy day. Well guess what people? I think it’s raining.’
Well, that sermon was just what the congregation needed to hear. They dipped into that rainy day fund and fixed the problem wall, put in some new windows and better lighting. Then they got a work crew together and painted the entire sanctuary and did a number of other improvements. It wasn’t long after that they got their first young couple coming to church and that was the start of a whole new age for that church. The community started to grow and a new subdivision was put in. Soon other young couples started coming to the church as well. Last time I checked that congregation had an active youth group, a great choir, a growing congregation, a vibrant Sunday School program, and their minister lives in their community! It all began with a John the Baptist sermon by their minister.
These are just some of the voices of John the Baptist in our modern day. Many voices but the same message – Repent. And repentance is more than asking forgiveness for sins. Repentance is turning around and going the opposite direction. And what congregation doesn’t need repentance…because the seven deadliest words used in the church are: ‘we’ve never done it that way before.’ Repent is a powerful word – it prepared God’s people for the coming of Jesus Christ…and it will prepare us today for his coming again and again, bringing new life and fresh beginnings to us all.
Watch.
Amen