Bear the Fruits of Repentance!

Matthew 3:1-12 Over the course of the last twenty some odd years of my preaching ministry I have preached this text at least six or seven times because the ministry of John the Baptist is always part of the Advent season.  And the challenge:  for me as the preacher-- and you as the hearer-- is how we can we hear these familiar words in a new way? 

What struck me this time around (in a way that had not occurred to me before) is how violent these words are!  Wrath to come! Brood of vipers!  An axe laid to the root of the trees!  Burning with unquenchable fire! 

There is no other way to hear and read these words than to understand that something desperately important is being communicated by John’s message and Matthew’s record of it—something with eternally important consequences.  And of course, it is!

The Kingdom of heaven is at hand!  That is the way that John the Baptist began his preaching and that is the way that Jesus began his preaching and that is the way the apostles began their preaching:  the Kingdom of heaven is at hand! 

It is John the Baptist who points to Jesus and says:  here in his presence, the kingdom of heaven is at hand!  Here in his presence is your purpose on earth! Here in his presence is your eternal future!  Here in his presence is the way to God!

And hearing these words in a brand new way, our response cannot help but be:  Lord, show me what I must believe and do to take my place in your kingdom!  The Bible says:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 

            The very first of Luther’s 95 Theses said that the entirety of the Christian life is found in this word:  repent--a change of heart and mind that results in a change of direction in life.  To repent means that we turn away from sin and we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And that we do this, not just at the beginning of our life of faith, but that we do this again and again throughout our lives.  The call to repentance was the complete content of John’s ministry because he was the one called by God to point the way to the Messiah who would open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.  The Bible says that John was the one:

spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

            When you begin reading in Mathew’s Gospel the thing that is going to leap out at you is how much Old Testament is quoted in his writing—and there is a reason for this.  He was writing to a primarily Jewish audience and he wanted to make sure that they understood that Jesus was the Messiah that God had been promising to his people all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

They knew the Messiah would have a messenger who would go before him to prepare his way and with the arrival of John the Baptist, that man and that message had come.

This is important for us to understand as well!  The faithfulness of God in keeping his word and fulfilling his promises can be trusted and counted on down to the smallest detail.  We can trust in his Word—and John and Jesus are the proof! 

From the moment God promised Adam and Eve that the Seed of a Woman would crush Satan, God was patiently, wisely, powerfully working out every detail of our salvation so that we could enter into his kingdom and with the arrival of the Messenger and the Messiah, that moment had come.  The Bible says that:

John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

            Have you ever wondered why, in the midst of such a momentous message as, “Repent!  For the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”, that the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to write down fashion and food details about John the Baptist? 

It’s because the people were expecting that Elijah the prophet would come again to usher in the messianic age.  Hundreds of years before this moment, Elijah had prophesied in the same wilderness, dressed in the same clothing, eating the same food, speaking the same stern message of repentance.  So closely did John resemble Elijah that when Jesus was asked about it later in his ministry he said that Elijah had indeed come!

The point is this:  Elijah and every prophet up to and including John had one ministry and that was to bear witness to the Messiah-- and Elijah and every prophet up to and including John had one message and that was to repent!  And many people took that message to heart.  The Bible says that hearing the message of John:

Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

            From this point on in our lesson, even though there are many, many people around John—they are divided into two, distinctively different groups:  those who take his message to heart and repent of their sins—and those who do not. 

That division continued in Jesus’ ministry and the apostles’ ministry and still continues today.  The only thing that really divides the family of man is their relationship with Jesus.  Here we encounter the first group who know that they are sinners, and know they need forgiveness, and so they confess their sins and are baptized with water.

Each week in the words of the Creed, along with the whole Christian church on earth, we confess that we believe in one baptism for the remission of sins.  We heed the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when he says that we are to make disciples of all nations by baptism and teaching.  And so we come to the waters of Holy Baptism, men and women, young and old (for we are all Adam’s children without distinction and need Christ’s forgiveness) and we are baptized.

The Bible says in Romans chapter six that in Baptism we are buried with Christ in a death like his and raised with Christ in a resurrection like his so that we can walk in newness of life.  Newness of life!

That is what the people wanted who came confessing their sins—a new life in the Kingdom of heaven.  They knew that they were sinners and they knew that they needed forgiveness.  But there were others there who didn’t—and that was the second group around John—many of them very religious people.  The Bible says that:

when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume 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.

            There was nothing wrong in and of itself in being a Pharisee or Sadducee.  There was nothing wrong with being a physical descendant of Abraham.  In fact, they should have been leaders and examples to the people of God.  But they were not!

Their religion was merely in external things:  keeping the details of the law and going through the formal motions of worship—none of it from faith in the Savior, none of it from personal sorrow over their sins.  It was merely outward, like their connection to Abraham.

And so then, from this point on in Jesus’ earthly ministry, the Pharisees and Sadducees are emblematic of those whose religion is for show—whose piety is external—whose worship and obedience have nothing to do with a changed heart.  And in this external religion, they are enemies of Jesus, under the wrath of God.

There is a warning here for us.  The Lord hates outward piety and religious acts that do not flow from sorrow over sins and faith in Jesus.  What the Lord wants from us is what he wanted from the Sadducees and Pharisees: the fruits of repentance that show themselves in a changed life before the day of grace comes to an end.  The Bible says that:

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. 

            Those who believed John’s message and repented of their sins and trusted in the Messiah were children of God.  Those who didn’t were a brood of vipers.  That was the judgment of God upon them at that moment.  So it is in the world today.  So it is even in the visible church.

But even for the brood of vipers it was still not too late.  So long as they lived and breathed, there was a day of grace for them to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus.  But it was a day of grace that would come to an end.  John said:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

            For many people during this Advent season their hearts and minds have already moved to baby Jesus in the manger.  We love that image of Jesus and we should!  He is the Savior of the world born into our flesh to die for us poor sinners!  How can we not love baby Jesus?!

            But he is also the risen and ascended Lord who will come again to judge the world and this picture that we have in John’s preaching, of Jesus as the Judge of all is also true.  For those who are his fruitful people, he will gather us to himself like a farmer putting wheat into a barn.  But for those who are not, the one who was the Baby of Bethlehem and the Suffering Servant of the Cross and the Risen Lord will himself cast the unrepentant and unbelieving into the unquenchable fire of hell.

That is what is at stake in the Advent season—eternity itself! That is why John uses words in his preaching like:  Wrath to come! Brood of vipers!  An axe laid to the root of the trees!  Burning with unquenchable fire!  The Holy Spirit uses these stern warnings because he wants us to repent and look to Christ for salvation-- and in this way, look forward in faith to being gathered unto the Lord.  Amen.