Matthew 21:1-9; Romans 13:8-14; Jeremiah 23:5-8
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” These words of the Prophet Malachi are the final words of the Old Testament, and then there was silence. For four hundred years no prophet spoke a word from God until John the Baptist.
Then, when all hope was lost – Israel and Judah were under the control of the Roman Empire; the glory of David’s kingdom wasn’t even a faint memory anymore – the tree of Israel had been cut down, flush with the earth, burned and scorched with the fire of God’s wrath. No one hoped for a Savior, a Redeemer, or anything at all, but only for things to simply keep on keeping on. That was when God acted; that is when God always acts: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (the Roman Emperor), Pontius Pilate (the Roman Governor) being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee (a puppet King), and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis (another puppet king), and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene (still yet another puppet king), during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas (Jewish leaders who cared little for God’s word, prophecies, or truth, but only that the status quo was maintained), the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”
After four hundred years of silence, God was ready to speak once again. His message? “Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!” Even though John appears in the New Testament, he is truly the final Old Testament prophet. He is the one of whom Malachi prophesied saying, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” Over those four hundred years of silence Israel had made do. It was during this time that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Jewish Council (the Sanhedrin) came into power. They had built a comfortable empire for themselves in the space between Roman law and the law of God. Instead of calling the people to repentance that God might show mercy and forgive them and restore them, the Jewish religious leadership invented new laws in addition to God’s law and burdened the people with them, directing them away from God and His word, and securing their own positions of authority and privilege.
It was the Jewish religious establishment in particular whom John condemned as a “brood of vipers,” literally, offspring of the devil himself. “He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Who warned you? The prophets had warned for over one thousand years that Israel and Judah must repent and stop their adulterous whorring after other gods and their loveless and godless treatment of the poor, widows, orphans, and sojourners and they didn’t listen, but they “killed the prophets and stoned those sent to her.” John exhorted them to “bear fruits in keeping with repentance” and not to rely upon their blood descent from Abraham. The people gave only lip service to God’s word and commandments, honoring Him with their mouths while their hearts were far from them. Their hope was in their blood descent from Abraham, in being an ethnic Jew, and not in God’s word and promise. Theirs was a false religion, and their gods false gods. “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham;” this was an unambiguous reference to the Gentiles, whom the Jews regarded as dumb and lifeless as rocks. Suffice it to say, John the Baptist was a preacher of the law.
Still the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the Forerunner would “Prepare the way of the Lord” and “make his paths straight”; “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways.” That is what the preaching of the law does: It levels the playing field, for it condemns us all. Perhaps Paul has put it best: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”; “There is not one who is righteous, not even one.” To prepare the way for the coming of the Lord is to prepare hearts, by the preaching of the law, for the coming the of the Gospel, Jesus Christ. The image is of the king’s servants who go before him to prepare the road for the safe passage of the king’s chariot by filling in the potholes and by leveling the bumps and high places. The preaching of the law brings the mountains of human pride and self-righteousness down and it fills in the valleys of hopelessness and despair by turning men’s eyes and hearts to the King who is coming proclaiming the good news that the law has been fulfilled and that the righteous will now live by faith.
But faith is never alone. Faith is life-giving is and always fruitful. Thus did John warn, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance,” and “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.” The crowds were troubled by these words and they asked, “What then shall we do?” John answered them saying, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” In other words, what blessings have you from the Lord? Share them with those whom God has given you to serve. Don’t do it in order to become righteous, but because you are righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s a love thing: As God has so loved you, so must you also love your brother and your neighbor.
To tax collectors John said, “Collect no more than you ae authorized to do.” To soldiers John said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” And so, we see how the fruits we are to bear, the works we are to do, are not foreign to us or unnatural, but they are borne through our Christian vocations, husband, wife; father, mother; son, daughter; butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Your good works are fruits, and they are borne naturally from faith and love in God and Jesus Christ.
The people began to wonder if John might be the Christ. But no, John was not the Christ, but he was the forerunner. The Christ must increase, John must decrease. John’s vocation was to prepare the way for the coming of the Christ. John prepared men’s hearts to receive Jesus by preaching the law unto repentance and then by pointing them to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” Jesus. Christian preachers and pastors continue to do the same today, tomorrow, and to his final Advent. Then “you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” Until then, hear the law and let it crush you, receive the Gospel and let it comfort you, love God and love your neighbor and share the Lord’s gifts. Keep your lamps full of the oil of faith. He has come, and He is coming, and even now He comes.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment