Barry Unwin. Venue: Upton Parish Church, 3/12/16
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 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.’”
4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 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 to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 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. 10 Even now the axe 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.
11 “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. 12 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.”
William Haslam was a 19th century English country parson. In those days, clergy-selection and training was perhaps not as rigorous as it is today so in 1842 Haslam found himself leading a church in Truro without actually being a Christian.
His congregation at the time contained many from a Methodist background and their regular testimonies about conversion, and the fruit he saw of it in their lives, affected him deeply, because he knew something was missing from his life.
So he resolved to preach one final sermon in which he would announce he could no longer preach, and then ask the congregation to pray for him.
In his own words, here’s what happened when he stood to preach:
“Something was telling me, all the time, ‘You are no better than the Pharisees. You do not believe Jesus has come to save you any more than they did.’ I do not remember all I said, but I felt a wonderful light and joy coming into my soul, and I was beginning to see what the Pharisees did not. Whether it was in my words, or my manner, or my look, I know not; but all of a sudden, a local preacher, who happened to be in the congregation, stood up, and putting up his arms, shouted out in Cornish fashion, “The parson is converted! The parson is converted! Hallelujah!”
In another moment his voice was lost in the shouts and praises of three or four hundred of the congregation. Instead of rebuking this extraordinary ‘brawling’ as I should have done in former time, I joined in the outbreak of praise, and then gave out the Doxology – “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”, and the people sang it over and over again.” [Source]
The revival that followed Haslam’s spiritual awakening lasted three years – and a great many were saved. I rather think John the Baptist would have approved! But probably not until he’d called Haslam one of the brood of vipers!
If you’re not familiar with John the Baptist – he’s like the warm-up act for Jesus. If you’ve ever been to a concert – you’ll know they put on the lesser-known act first to warm the crowd up . And that’s John’s role. He’s there not for his own sake, but to help us come to know Jesus personally, by smoothing the road to spiritual renewal.
Now that phrase “spiritual renewal” is a tricky one. If you remember the end of our reading, John said,
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11)
That’s what I’m talking about when I say “spiritual awakening”, and it’s a thing that can happen in a person suddenly like it did to William Haslam, or over a much more prolonged period. It doesn’t really matter how it happens. What matters is that it does. What matters is that each of us come to a saving faith, a personal knowledge of Jesus. And John can help us with that because he came to straighten the road.
Do you remember how our gospel writer Matthew described him? He said of him,
The voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
In those days, when a great king came to visit, the hosting king would order the roads be repaired before he arrived. They’d get rid of strange junctions and unnecessary bends, fill in the potholes, repair bridges and so on – anything to speed the arrival of the king.
Well the road John is talking about is the road to the spiritual renewal of all our hearts, and he’s gonna’ challenge us to fill in the potholes, and fix the bridges and smooth out the bends so that we can go deeper into God.
And I reckon there are three big areas John’s concerned with. Three big bumps in the road to spiritual renewal. Here’s the first one.
- Have we really understood who Jesus is?
Do you remember that rather odd description of John the Baptist’s clothing?
John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. (Matthew 3:4)
For years I used to think that was just a bit of an odd fashion statement. You know – some people are into denim, others are into Tweed, and John the Baptist was a camel-hair man. But it’s actually much more important than that. You see this isn’t the first time someone appears in the Bible dressed like that – the Old Testament the prophet Elijah dressed in exactly the same way.
So John is a an Elijah fanboy – a sort of tribute act. Well no – there’s still more to it than that.
You see, the very last book of the Old Testament – the last word from God that the Jews had had for centuries, was written by a prophet called Malachi. And the last thing he wrote was,
I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. (Malachi 4:5).
And then the Old Testament ends. And God is silent. For 400 years.
So why is John dressed up as Elijah? It’s meant to be a sign to us – that the one he’s pointing us to – Jesus – is the one who will bring about the day of the Lord – or in simple terms – the end of the world.
He’s trying to get us thinking about Jesus’ identity. If you take a straw poll about who Jesus is – and you’ll get answers like “A prophet”, “an inspirational teacher”, a liar, and of course the Son of God. But which of those identities is the one that will enable him to bring about the end of the world?
Well Matthew doesn’t tell us that in our reading – but if we read the rest of Matthew’s gospel we’ll be in no doubt by the end of it that Jesus is the Son of God – which to all intents and purposes means he is God.
An until we come to that sam conclusion, we’ll never experience that spiritual awakening that John promises. You see Jesus is not just a good teacher. He’s not just an example to follow. He’s way more than a prophet. He’s God – both fully human and fully divine. That’s the only way he could accomplish his mission.
So there’s the first bump in the road to iron out – have we really understood who Jesus is.
Let’s pick up the story in v5,
…the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to [John], and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. (Matthew 3:5)
So here’s our second bump on the road to spiritual renewal: our sin.
2) Have we repented of our sin?
A couple of weeks back I had to go on a trip to Ripple for the meeting of a small trust that I’m involved with, and I turned off the A38 to discover that BT Openreach had completely closed the road to Ripple.
Sometimes we’ll meet obstacles on our journey into God that stop out progress completely. But unlike those Ripple roadworks, these are things that are self-inflicted: namely our sin.
If we’d asked John the Baptist what he meant by sin – he’d no doubt have asked us how we are doing keeping the Old Testament law. Jesus helpfully summarised it as love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.
So on the roadway to spiritual renewal, any failure in those two loves – of God or of neighbour – is going to make for a bumpy passage. And persistent failure is going to close the road.
This is hard stuff to talk about. Normally there’s a perception when someone’s delivering a lecture that “they’re the expert, they’re the master” – but vicars are just as sinful as anyone else.
I’m ashamed to say that I let God down on Friday afternoon as I was writing this section of the sermon. That’s why I love how Paul talks his own struggles with temptation in Romans 7, he says sometimes,
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15).
We’ve all been there. We’ve all known the right thing to do…and then not done it.
Listen to how Paul continues:
Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:25)
You see Jesus is the only one who can really deal with our sin – but we have to bring it to him and ask for his mercy.
The question is – are we sincere? If we are – then that will help smooth the roadway to spiritual renewal.
This business of sincerity is where our passage turns next, when the religious leaders – the Pharisees and Sadducees – turn up for baptism. How did John address them?
You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.
At first glance that sounds pretty ungrateful doesn’t it? I mean having a go at people while they’re confessing their sins. But actually its completely appropriate. You see the Pharisees and Sadducees were professionals at piety. They made a ritual out of repentance. They were good at looking good.
But there’s a world of difference between being good at rituals – and actually changing. So John challenges them to produce fruit worthy of repentance. He’s saying – “Are you for real?” You see the last big bump on the road to spiritual renewal that John wants to warn us about is ritualised religion.
3) The danger of ritualised religion
That’s what the Pharisees and Sadducees were all about. Ritualised religion. They knew the liturgy, knew when to bow and scrape, knew all the knowledge of God – but they had no relationship with him. There was no spiritual fruit in their life.
That’s why John continues,
Even now the axe 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.” (Matthew 3:10)
He’s saying – look for the fruit. Look for the fruit!
I hear this area produces quite a lot of fruit. From it’s farms and orchards. But what about spiritual fruit from it’s churches? Think back to the story of William Haslam: Are we just about the rituals, or are we after the relationship with Jesus himself?
Well the good news is that Jesus’ offer of spiritual renewal stands open to us. Whoever we are. Whatever we’ve done. The road to spiritual renewal is there– but we need to straighten it, to smooth our journey towards the one who is more powerful that John the Baptist, who will baptise us with the Holy Spirit and fire: namely Jesus, the Son of God.
Time is short – I’d love to talk about this passage much more but I won’t. I haven’t got to dash off at the end and I’d love to try to answer any questions you have or go deeper into the issues – let’s chat over coffee. And if you’d like to dig even deeper – I’m starting a course in January called Christianity Explored – it’s all about straightening that road. So come on it and get back to the heart of Jesus’ message.
Let’s pray