Matthew 3:1-12
Second Sunday in Advent - 4 December 2016
Rev. John Derme
When you think about the sports season, who is the first person you think of? Chances are that you think of one of the best players on your favorite team. But unless you watch all of your team’s games in person, there is someone who doesn’t play the games, yet is almost as important as the players are. If you watch the games on television or listen on the radio, the broadcaster is vital to your enjoyment. I love listening to baseball on the radio. Without the broadcaster, they could be playing the greatest game ever, and I would have no idea what was going on. But a great broadcaster can make even the most boring game entertaining.
What makes a broadcaster great? It’s the voice. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. What matters is what he tells you. What matters is how he says it. When he describes the action on the field in exactly the right way, he is a great broadcaster. And the best broadcasters are called the “voice” of their team.
When you think of the season of Advent, who is the first person you think of? Chances are that you think of the main character of Advent, and that is Jesus. But you and I did not witness Jesus’ first coming to earth in person. And even for those who did, there was another person who was very important, even though he himself was not the Savior. John the Baptist prepared those who were alive at the coming of Jesus to meet him. Without John, they wouldn’t have known what was going on. John the Baptist still prepares us who are alive today to meet Jesus.
What made John so great? It was his voice. Sure, the Bible tells us a bit about what he looked like, but that’s not nearly as important as what he said. He spoke about who Jesus was and what he had come to do. John the Baptist is the “voice” of Advent.
In our Gospel of the Day, we meet John the Baptist. He lived in the wilderness of Judea, a barren, mountainous, and uninhabited place. John’s clothes were a garment made of camel’s hair and a leather belt. John’s diet was made up of locusts and wild honey. This may not seem too out of the ordinary. Poor people in other parts of the world still eat locusts and wild honey today. But John didn’t really have to be a poor person. His father was a priest and he came from a good family. John didn’t move out to the desert, make his own clothes, and eat bugs because he couldn’t get a job and a nice home in Jerusalem. These details helped the Jews recognize that he was a prophet of the Lord and they should listen to what he said. They drew attention to his message. And people did come to hear his message, from Jerusalem, Judea, and all the region around the Jordan.
John’s message to these people is summarized in our lesson: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” When you think about that, you might first think about a crazy, long-haired guy in our own time standing on a street corner wearing a sign that says, “The end is near.” The Jews didn’t think that about John. They recognized that his message had authority. A huge number of people believed what he said. Many of them knew that the coming Savior was near. And many of them recognized John as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 40 of a “voice” of one calling in the desert to prepare the way of the Lord, to get ready to meet the Savior. That is what the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God” means in the Bible: God’s work of saving his people.
Not everybody believed John’s message. The Pharisees and Sadducees came to hear him preach, and even wanted to take part in his baptism. But they weren’t there for the forgiveness of sins. They were probably there just to keep an eye on him, since so many others were listening to him. John could tell right away that they were phonies. He scolded them because their lives showed that they had not repented. They thought they were good with God by virtue of who they were as Abraham’s descendants. Their idea was that Abraham had done enough good works to save the whole nation of Israel. John said, “You’re not special. God doesn’t need you. God could make children of Abraham out of the rocks if he wanted to.”
John didn’t just enjoy getting after the religious leaders. He was doing what was necessary to show them how serious their sins were so that they would repent and trust in the coming Savior. Unfortunately, they were following and speaking the voice of false teaching. They were in danger of rejecting the salvation that the Savior was coming to bring.
The Jewish people heard the truth from John, but they also learned false teaching from those Pharisees and Sadducees back home. You and I hear those same two competing voices in our world. Through the Word of God, John’s voice tells us, since the kingdom of heaven is near, “Repent!” What does it mean to repent? Repentance has two parts. First, I acknowledge that I am by nature sinful and that I have sinned in my thoughts, my words, and my deeds. This acknowledgment includes sorrow, deep regret, over those sins. The second part of repentance is faith: the confidence that God has forgiven my sins.
Yet in our lives we hear another voice. Right now, as we prepare to meet our Savior at Christmas, the world is telling us that we have to be good little boys and girls, because Santa Claus is going to reward us for all the good things that we do. This is exactly the opposite of what John the Baptist and the rest of the Bible tells us. We have not been good; we deserve God’s judgment. Works righteousness is more than just a silly holiday tradition. It is the default religion of the human race.
We’re tempted to listen to the world’s voice that tells us that we can be good enough to earn good things in our lives and that we do not need the Savior. We’re tempted not to listen to John’s voice, because we don’t like it when another person tells us to repent. But we need to hear and to take to heart John’s message of law and gospel. We need the Holy Spirit to work in us through his Word so that we repent of our sins and produce fruit, that is, live lives that show our repentance. If we follow any other voice than the voice that leads us to Jesus, we are rejecting the Savior. Then we will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Jesus didn’t come to judge. He came to live and die to save us. He doesn’t want to baptize us with the fire of his judgment. He wants to baptize us with the Holy Spirit, who brings us to believe in him. And that is just what he has done. He has used a human voice to speak his Word to us as he baptized us with water. In our baptisms, he has applied to us the forgiveness of sins that he won for us. Still today he speaks his Word through human voices, and the Holy Spirit comes to strengthen our faith.
Through John the Baptist, the Lord prepared many to meet Jesus. It wasn’t because of who he was. It was because of what his voice spoke. It is that same Word of God spoken by human voice that brings Jesus to people in our church. Sometimes we think that we would be a great church if we had better programs or a bigger building or something else. But we already are a great church because of the message that is proclaimed here. We speak with the same voice that John the Baptist spoke, telling people of their need for a Savior, and telling them that Jesus has saved them.
I am praying that more people will come to this church to hear the voice of God’s Word this Christmas. This coming Saturday at Christmas for Kids, we’ll invite children and their families to come. As a congregation, we’re mailing out postcards this week to invite our community to come. Please pray that the Lord will bless these efforts. But what is amazing to me is that John the Baptist didn’t have to send out postcards to invite people to come and hear his voice. People heard the Word of God he spoke, recognized its authority, and took it to heart. Then they told their family, friends, and other people they knew, “You gotta hear this voice.” That is our invitation to the people we know, too. “Come and hear the voice that speaks Jesus’ Word!”
John the Baptist is the voice of Advent. We are blessed to hear his voice today. The Holy Spirit is working in us through it. Take his words to heart. Repent of your sins. Trust Jesus and his salvation. And realize that you and I get to be the voices that point people to Jesus, too!