Foretaste of the Sermon to Come
A little nibble of the Revised Common Lectionary
Sunday’s readings are Zephaniah 3:14-20, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18
John the Baptist has a unique way of welcoming people to their baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins — “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
What do we make of this welcome? Well, I think it is the welcome into justification by grace through faith that will be unrolled during Jesus’ next three years of ministry. John is warning people not to look to their heritage for justification and not to look to works. But, repentance is a work of the Spirit and any good work that is produced after repentance is a result of that repentance and should be worthy of it — and if you look at the works John refers to, they are all about loving others. The thugs of the time, tax collectors and soldiers, were not turned away from this baptism — they were told that their baptism would lead them to honesty and to protecting those whom they had been extorting. This baptism will turn them away from their lives of sin to lives of bearing fruit.
AND, lest they are tempted to worship or be led by John, he tells them that one is coming whose sandal strap he is not worthy to untie. This is THE long awaited Christ, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire at Pentecost, which Luke will detail in the second chapter of his book of Acts. This Christ will burn up their sin, leaving only his righteousness and his shared substance with humanity, producing orchard after orchard of fruit.
Come Lord Jesus!
