Sermon – 2nd Advent – "Bear Fruit In Keeping With Repentance" – Matthew 3:1-11 – 12/9/07
December 10th, 2007Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
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If you have teenagers at home, or if you have ever had teenagers at home, or if you’ve ever been a teenager, you know that teenagers possess a fearless compulsion to question things. Once the children pass a certain age it’s no longer good enough to explain that we do certain things the way that we do them because, ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ They want to know why it needs to be done that way. When they were little and still in awe of parental authority, it was enough to simply say, ‘because I said so.’ But when they become teenagers, authority is only authoritative when it is backed up with a legitimate reasons for why a certain standard of conduct is expected. Once young people reach a certain age its as if they acquire a sixth sense for detecting discrepancies between words and deeds, and a they feel that it is their duty to point them out. ‘Don’t do what I do but do what I say’ just won’t fly with teenagers.
One of the issues which teenagers are not afraid to challenge has to do with faith in God. The questions go something like this. “Why do you go to church?” “Why do you believe in God?” “What difference does it make?” They ask, because sometimes it’s not apparent. They don’t see any real connection between what goes on at church and what goes on at home. Sometimes, they can’t detect any discernable difference between those who put our faith in the Triune God, and those who put their faith in the economy or the elections or the alignment of the stars. They may hear a lot of ‘god-talk’ yet not see very much ‘god-walk.’ They want to know, where is the evidence for your faith? Where is the “love, joy, patience, goodness, gentleness, and self control.”
- Bear Fruit Worthy Of Repentance Truth is, you don’t have to be a teenager to ask these kinds of tough questions, and you don’t have to be a parent to know what it means to squirm when asked to account for your faith. From the desert of Judea, John the Baptist was calling people to give an account for their life before God. John was acting just like a teenager in many ways. Not afraid to challenge authority and point out discrepancies between faith and life. ‘Examine your life according to the Word of God,’ he preached. ‘Use the 10 Commandments as a mirror and look into God’s Law, what do you see,’ he asked. And before you could hem and haw around for some weak excuse or slick explanation for why your pathetic life wasn’t your fault, he’d tell you to repent. And without delay, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
And many people did just that. They actually listened to the sermon. They saw their hypocrisy and the double standard they were living under. They lived one life while they were in church and another life once they got back home. They were saying one thing but doing another. And rather than denying it, explaining it, rationalizing it… they confessed it. And this they did while being baptized. The way St. Matthew records it, it was all one motion. “They were baptized by [John] in the river Jordan confessing their sins.” It was like the water was forcing the confession right out of their mouth as they went under.
John’s baptism wasn’t Jesus’ baptism because John wasn’t equipped to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But John’s baptism worked true repentance in the baptized. It changed those who were washed in the water so that when they came up out of the water, they desired to amend their sinful lives. They wanted to change and live by faith. Not just at the temple or synagogue but also at the office and in the classroom, in their home and in their marriage.
But there were others who came to be baptized but whom John turned away. “You brood of vipers!”
When you come to church where John’s preaching, don’t expect to start off with a couple of praise songs and a pretty prayer to get you in the right mood. John’s probably going to start things off with a good hard punch in the heart.
“Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” That’s the kind of question a teenager would ask. Just like a teenager, John ignores all of the authority and respect that these Pharisees and Saducees were used to getting.
Had they taken his question to heart, they would have known that it was an excellent question. What they should have said was, “Who warned us? Why all the prophets of the Old Testament warned us that we must repent and conform our lives to the Word of God. The holy prophets of old have always insisted that none of us, no not one, will be able to stand before the Lord by our own merits and worthiness, when He comes to judge between the living and the dead.” They should have said, “we confess that we have sinned against God in thought, word and deed. We are vipers by nature. And therefore we are fleeing for refuge from God’s terrible wrath to God’s infinite mercy according to His own Word and promise to forgive the sins of all who believe and are baptized.”
But sadly, this is not what they had come for. They didn’t come to confess their faith and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and new life that baptism gives. They came to be to be baptized as a public demonstration of their worthiness. They wanted to be baptized saying, “We have Abraham as our father.”
To which John replied, “don’t even think about it.” “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” Or as James would later say it, “Faith without works is dead.” “Be doers of the Word and not hearers only.” Or as a teenager would say it, “what difference does it make?” “What difference does your baptism make in your life?”
I am no teenager anymore, I don’t think that I needed to tell you that. But I too, am frequently disappointed at the lack of connection that I so often see between faith and life. I see Christians behaving as if they never died to sin and were never raised to new life with Christ. I see people who go to church and speak the Creeds and say the prayers and receive the gifts of God yet who could never begin to ask God to bless what they say and do in their own home or classroom or office. I see this every time I look into the mirror. And I wonder, “what difference does all this make?” “Where are the fruits of repentance.”
We need to repent. And without delay or excuse or explanation. “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
- Jesus is the fruit of repentance. Speaking of trees being cut down, in our Old Testament reading, the prophet Isaiah directs our attention to a whole forest, which has just been clear-cut. Every tree has been cut down and there are nothing but stumps left. There was no one righteous, no not one. But in the middle of this devastation is one stump. And from that one stump one shoot has come forth. And that shoot will become a branch and that branch will bear fruit. And what wonderful fruit it will be.
The shoot from the stump of Jesse is none other than our Lord, Jesus Christ. What Isaiah saw forth long before long before it spouted forth in a remote village called Bethlehem, John now says, “is at hand.”
Jesus has come into the world. He has come as one of us. Along with us and on behalf of all of us, He too will come to John to be baptized in the Jordan. He comes to John to be baptized, not confessing His sins, for He has no sin, but He comes to make John’s baptism a blessed washing for the forgiveness of sins. And John will not ask Him what difference His baptism will make, because John knows that this is He who, through baptism, makes the difference in all the baptized.
The axe that is about to fall, falls on Jesus – the stump of Jesse. The winnowing fork is plunged into Him and He is thrown into the unquenchable fires and you are separated and set aside for holiness. Because the axe was laid to Him you are spared it’s fierce cut. Because He was cut down for your hypocrisy and duplicity, you are raised up and become the wonderful fruit of His good work.
- Bear Fruit in keeping with repentance. Now go and bear fruit in keeping with what God has done for you in Jesus Christ. Through your baptism, He has grafted you into this true tree of life. Apart from Him and you are cut down and thrown into the fire. But abiding in Him and you bear much fruit.
I am no teenager, and yet I am continually amazed at the difference I see that your baptism continues to make in your life. I see the connections between the faith which you have been given and the good works that you do. I see it in your desire to “bear fruits of repentance” by your works of service and charity to others, beginning right in your home, with your spouse and your children, even your teenage children. I see you ‘bearing fruits of repentance” through your commitment to support the work of the church to preach and teach God’s Word and call people to come, repent and be baptized before it’s too late. I see it in your hunger and thirst to grow in the knowledge of God’s Word through your attendance at bible study and Sunday School and your diligence in teaching your children the stories from the bible at home that they might learn to live by them. I see it in the way you teach your children the holy habit of prayer.
This is the kind of change that baptism produces in a person. It changes us from sinners to saints, trees that are good for nothing but being cut down and burned to fruitful trees that bear much fruit. I know that’s not the way you see yourself, and it’s not the way your teenagers see you either. When we look at ourselves what we see is that we continue to fall short of the Word and will of God for our lives. Even teenagers see this if they’re as honest with themselves as they expect adults to be with them.
But incredibly, mercifully, graciously, God doesn’t see what we see. All He sees is righteous, holy, and perfect. He sees nothing but His Son, Jesus, the shoot from the stump of Jesse. And you are hidden in Christ.
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