John The Baptist’s Dream
Unlike the other three gospels, in Matthew, John the Baptist bursts upon the scene without any preparation or warning. Whenever there’s a significant difference in how the gospels present a person, event, or story that gives us insight into that writer’s particular perspective or view. Matthew believes the action of God in history is often sudden and unexpected. Perhaps this reflects Matthew’s spiritual experience, for; although he may have known Jesus he was minding his business tax collecting when Jesus saw him and said, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed him (Matt 9:9). That suddenly and unexpectedly, his life began a completely new path.
December 7, 2014
Matthew 3:1-12, John The Baptist’s Dream
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
[powerpress]
The first two chapters of the gospel bearing Matthew’s name display how often God works in unexpected, unanticipated, and often sudden, new ways. These unexpected, unanticipated ways include people with questionable social backgrounds and ethical behavior (adulterers, prostitutes, and foreigners) who are part of the Messiah’s family tree, a child conceived by the Holy Spirit, and angels repeatedly speaking to Joseph in dreams.
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, John the Baptist appears, challenging people to change their life and their attitude. We could sure use John the Baptist in our nation today. Each of the four gospels deals with John the Baptist differently, but all see him as the one who stands at the beginning of the gospel story, demanding of us a beginner’s mind. He prepares the way for Christ by calling us to repent, to let go of all previous sources of our security, so that God’s new word can be heard. We look for security in a number of places – our home, our bank account, in familiarity, in people we know and comfortable patterns of living.
Surrendering our security is not easy. This passage is a prophetic challenge to religious traditions and institutions, and the established way of doing things in the faith community. The Gospel of Luke asserts John the Baptist was born into traditional religion as the son of priestly parents. Yet God led him to a very different style of practicing his faith. He abandoned the priesthood with its prestige as well as elegant society in Jerusalem to take up a simple life in the Judean wilderness where he ate locusts, (described as ritually clean food in Leviticus 11:22) which were eaten by the poorer people of the desert from ancient times until today. Dressed like a prophet of old, John the Baptist preached a new message and offered a new experience baptism for the repentance of sin. It was a message of hope to those who recognized they were powerless to change their lives on their own. The message was that your family’s religious background was of little consequence, what was needed was a change of attitude. Listen to Matthew 3:1-12,
“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.’”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and
his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. 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 will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Let’s pray: God of prophets: in the wilderness of Jordan you sent a messenger to prepare our hearts for the coming of your Son. Help us to hear good news, to repent, and to be ready to welcome Jesus.”
One of the ways many people get through the wilderness of preparation leading up to Christmas is through the use of lists. Lists of things to do, events to attend, gifts to buy, things to make, and people to write. How many of us have repenting as part of our Christmas preparation list? Repentance is not a message we like to hear, especially this time of year. We want carols and baby Jesus and Santa and warm fuzzy feelings. You don’t see many signs,
“Only nineteen days to repent before Christmas.” And what about all those old popular songs like, “I’ll repent for Christmas, you can plan on me.” Or, “Oh, there’s nothing like repentance for the holidays, so no matter how far away you roam…”
Yet when we speak of God’s love coming down at Christmas we do so remembering that God’s love, like all love, makes demands of us. God’s messenger John the Baptist says what we need to hear even if we don’t want to listen. John’s dream is of one more powerful than he is coming to baptize people with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He believes the ax of God is ready to chop down every tree that is not bearing the good fruit of repentance. John’s vision made a lot of people nervous and many came to be baptized, but as is often the case, the commitment of some to personal change was questionable. There is a temptation to baptize ourselves into spiritual security without truly repenting of the sins in our life, without asking God to forgive us through Jesus Christ, and without really asking God to transform us by the Spirit.
More than once I’ve spoken on a particular scripture or topic only to have somebody do the exact opposite of what the scripture says within minutes of the worship service ending. Sin is persistent, deep rooted and hard to get rid of, even with God’s help. We see that all the time in our personal lives and in our nation.
We have family coming to our house for Christmas this year so there is a lot of work to be done to prepare. I was getting the leaves out of our gutters the other day and I realized there is dirt and grime on the second floor windows. Jill likes to clean windows the old fashioned using newspapers like her grandmother taught her but that’s hard to do on the outside of second story windows. The process for cleaning windows is time consuming, uses a lot of newspapers, often you get a little sore and dirty, and it produces a fair amount of garbage.
Cleaning windows is a picture of repentance. Repentance is time consuming, most of us don’t turn around in an hour, especially if a habit or behavior or way of speaking has been part of us for years. It takes humility and determination to take personal inventory and ask God to come into our lives and clean house. Many of us clean where we live when guests are coming. John the Baptist warns us to clean up our life, because the Messiah is coming. Showing up for worship, even doing acts of service, is not sufficient if we’re still at heart, what John calls a snake.
Repentance maybe painful because it is hard for many of us to admit to God or to someone else that we’re wrong or that we’ve sinned. Repenting may produce a fair amount of garbage that needs to be thrown out of our memory, behavior, or speech. Repenting means to turn around, to no longer continue in the path or direction in which we have been going. So if we’ve been acting inappropriately, we turn from that way of acting. Repenting is intensely personal, so our tendency even at this moment is to be thinking of the ways other people need to repent rather than our selves. In our nation, this is also true. There is a tremendous need for repentance on the part of so many people from so many attitudes and behaviors; yet we’re more likely to see where we think others need to change rather than ourselves.
We may think John the Baptist’s call to repent is for someone else who is really bad and, not for me. Yet John speaks most strongly to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, to people who believed they were very religious and faithful. If you need help figuring out what you need to repent of, just ask a couple of people who know you well…and they’ll tell you.
There is a sense that repentance, like cleaning windows or house, is never finished. Clean windows look beautiful right after you finish them, but the windows that haven’t been done look worse. When we start to “clean up” part of our life, the parts of our life that aren’t as clean often become more obvious. And the ones that are clean will get dirty again over time. We can humbly, even tearfully repent, but we will sin again. We have to continually listen to God’s voice in scripture, through the Holy Spirit, and the counsel of others so that we don’t stop growing or get into trouble.
Rolf Zettersten shares the following story. “A good friend in North Carolina bought a new car with a voice warning system…At first Edwin was amused to hear the soft female voice gently remind him that his seat belt wasn’t fastened. Edwin affectionately called this voice the ‘little woman.’
“He soon discovered his little woman was programmed to warn him about his gasoline. ‘Your fuel level is low,’ she said one time in her sweet voice. Edwin nodded his head and thanked her. He figured he still had enough gas to go another 50 miles, so he kept driving. But a few minutes later, her voice interrupted again with the same warning. And so it went over and over. Although he knew it was the same recording, Edwin thought her voice sounded harsher each time.
“Finally, he stopped his car and crawled under the dashboard. After a quick search, he found the appropriate wires and gave them a good yank. So much for the little woman. He was still smiling to himself a few miles later when his car began sputtering and coughing and he ran out of gas! Somewhere inside the dashboard, Edwin was sure he could hear the little woman laughing.”
We may wish we could silence the voices calling us to repent but we can’t. Surely Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol is one of the great pictures of repentance. Ebenezer tries to silence the ghost of Christmas past yet her voice can be heard saying, “Truth lives. Truth lives.” Toward the conclusion of the story, the spirit of Christmas Yet to Come shows Ebenezer the final result of his life. In worship we showed a video clip, 2 minutes from the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol, of the following scene :
Ebenezer says on his knees, “Men’s courses foreshadow certain ends, I accept it, but if those courses be departed from the ends must change. Hear me; I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this visitation. Why show me this if I am past all hope? Good Spirit your nature intercedes for me and pities me. Say that I may change these things by an altered life.”
Ebenezer Scrooge was as good as his word. He became as good a man, as good a friend as the old city knew. People knew he was a genuinely repentant man because his facial expression, his language, the use of his money and time, his priorities all changed.
Charles Dickens reframes John the Baptist’s message that repentance, a change of heart, an alteration of attitude, must not be put off before it is too late. Failing to listen and to take appropriate action won’t enable us to escape the consequences of our behavior. Just because we’ve been baptized or called Christ our Savior or serve on a church ministry team or as a pastor doesn’t mean we can be complacent or smug or content. It is four chapters after today’s scripture in Matthew 7:21 that Jesus warns his followers who have called him Lord, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Paul soberly reminded the Christians in Corinth, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he or she has done in the body” ( 2 Cor. 5:10).
In a Peanuts comic Charlie Brown and Lucy are walking together and Charlie Brown asks Lucy, “Are you going to make any New Year’s resolutions, Lucy?” Lucy answers, “What? What for? What wrong with me now? I like myself just the way I am! Why should I change?! What in the world is the matter with you, Charlie Brown?!! I’m all right the way I am! I don’t have to improve! How could I improve? How, I ask you?! How?”[1]
Maybe learning a little humility and to control her anger would be a place to begin.
In the course of the church year, John the Baptist shows up, crashing our holiday party of joy every advent bringing his locust and wild honey appetizer to remind us how unprepared we are for the coming of Christ whether to remember his birth or his second coming in glory and holiness. We’re not ready for company at our house yet; there is still more cleaning and other preparations to be done, but we’re working on it and making progress. In the same way, we want to be ready for the return of Christ and we want to be making progress in our preparation for that event. We want to be sure we’re making any change of heart and in behavior that needs to happen. The fact that God gives us the opportunity to repent is good news, but we need to do it. Ebenezer Scrooge, thought his security was in his money until he brushes the snow off his own grave and realizes how horribly unprepared he is to meet God and what a terrible legacy he is leaving and how he has wasted so much of his life. What about us?
Some people may leave this worship service thinking, “I didn’t like that. It didn’t seem like Christmas. It was a downer.” The message of self-examination and repentance will be missed or ignored; dismissed as unpleasant or unnecessary, or for somebody else. Some of us may leave feeling like Lucy that “There’s nothing wrong with me, I like myself just the way I am! Why should I change?” Perhaps there will be a few of us who like Ebenezer who will get on our knees and pray for the Lord to help change our heart and the course of our life, to help us see our own sin so we may depart from it, so that when the Lord comes at Christmas or comes a second time, we’ll be able to say, “We heard your messenger John the Baptist, and we turned, we will not be the persons we were before, we will remember the lessons we have been taught.”
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
John the Baptist’s Dream Matthew 3:1-12
- Has God ever acted in a sudden or surprising way in your life? What happened?
- Where do you look for security in life – having what makes you feel secure?
- How effective have you been through the years at changing your life? For example, altering your habits or patterns of behavior and the choices you make and the things you say or do? Why do you find it difficult or easy to make changes in your life?
- What sorts of things are on your list of things to do in these weeks leading up to Christmas?
- What does John’s message about bearing fruit worthy of repentance have to do with you? What does it mean for you?
- Why must repentance, a change of heart, an alteration of attitude, not be put off before it is too late?
[1] Charles Schultz, December 31, 1956, The Joy of Peanuts Christmas, p. 24.