Living in the desert makes you familiar with the tumbleweeds, succulents, and wildlife, and helps you understand that what something looks like on the outside may not accurately be predictive of what lies beneath. One who has spent any significant time in the desert or even on the hilly trails knows that what might look like a dead branch or stick on the dirt road might just end up being a snake. As the heat begins to bring its fury upon the desert floor, we see the fires fueled by the dead brush and dry landscape. This prompts the creatures nested in the brush to emerge from their smoky hovels and try to understand what is happening. Meanwhile, on the banks of the Jordan, John stands addressing the crowds arriving from the comfort of Jerusalem, relying on the name given to them by their ancestors. However, John addresses them with disdain: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” This serves as a reminder to the people that a snake fleeing fire is still a snake, and just wearing a particular name and saying you belong to Abraham is not enough, because proximity to religion is not life in the Spirit. Therefore, any journey to begin following Jesus cannot start with flashing credentials or spiritual posturing; it must begin at the root, with genuine repentance.
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin 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. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” 15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.
Luke 3:7-18 NRSVue
There is nothing that grants us access to the change of the Holy Spirit short of making this repentant turn. In our world, there are membership clubs and all-access passes that might grant us entry into areas that the public may not be able to gain admittance to, but that doesn’t exist within the kingdom of God. Similarly, those that came out to see John relied on their covenant lineage: “We have Abraham as our ancestor.” Thus, assuming that the baptism offered was necessary for the Gentile outsiders but not required for respectable insiders. However, that type of good-for-thee but not-for-me thinking is shattered through John’s statement that “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” God is never captive to our traditions or our heritage. Carrying this into our church, we must be wary of relying solely on what is visible within it. How long our name has been on the roll sheets, the focus on the pews our family has sat in for years, or the fact that our friends and family funded or built this or that. Simply calling ourselves Christian or members of a particular congregation will not withstand scrutiny against what God actually requires of a follower. What makes us feel as if we belong to God’s flock? If we view our faith as a family heirloom rather than a living, fruit-bearing branch, we are prime for being cut off.
We then come to the question of what is required of a true follower of Christ. John speaks to the crowds with a succinct prescription about the requirements of one who wants to be a part of God’s kingdom. He does not need time to come up with a list, nor does he need to separate himself from the group, because the instructions are direct and obvious. Stop doing things that harm people; repent of your sin. This call reminds us that genuine repentance is relational, ethical, and economic. Share your excess. Winter nights bring freezing winds off the mountains; therefore, a second coat sitting idle in a closet is life-saving warmth withheld from a neighbor. The more challenging aspect is that we are specifically told not to hoard our belongings, which includes our money. The bunker mentality of saving against tomorrow’s fear is completely foreign to Kingdom living, because we cannot earn security, and to live repentantly, we must learn to open our hands to provide resources to those in need. Use your position to show grace through justice. John’s instruction to government officials and those who enforce the power of the state was not to flee, but rather to show God’s grace through justice enforcement, because proximity to power tempts us to lean into how justice can edify oneself, but a repentant life will use that position to reflect the grace of God. Therefore, for those working locally in schools, county offices, clinics, or running small businesses, the call is simple: we must refuse to pad the bill. Refuse to leverage authority to humiliate subordinates. In all circumstances, we must choose equity over leverage. Repentance isn’t a feeling of guilt; it is the joyful, concrete reordering of our ordinary lives to love our neighbors as God has loved us.
The repentant life culminates in the purpose behind why we live the way that we do, so that our lives ultimately point to Jesus. Our world is constantly in search of deliverance from its ills. In the same way, the crowds coming to John are hungry for a deliverer, wondering if he might be the one, the Messiah. Instead of basking in the power that might come from people seeing him as such, John points decisively toward Jesus: “One more powerful than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Water only goes skin-deep, cleaning only the outside. While this is a good start and an act of preparation, Jesus comes to surgically reconcile us to God. For only Christ brings the internal refining fire of the Holy Spirit to burn out our greed, division, and fear. No matter what good we might be able to do for people in the world, it becomes utterly meaningless if we don’t ensure that the glory goes to Christ. Jesus is light, and brings life to a world that has been decimated by brokenness and division. Therefore, we must embrace that Christ strips away our masks, pretenses, and poisonous instincts so that the true person God created can flourish. This is the Gospel, as it is good news because we no longer have to pretend we are whole when we are cracked. We are invited to let Christ’s life shine through us.
However, we cannot point others to Christ without first fixing our lives upon Jesus. John the Baptist clears the path so that we can be prepared to hear the teaching and understand Jesus’ life. Just because we may have heard the stories of Jesus and the Bible hundreds or even thousands of times, we are in no better position than those who are hearing them for the first time; we must allow our lives to be changed by them. This is the only way we can open ourselves to the repentant life. Those who sought to wear the badge of Abraham are just like those of us who lay claim to heritage and tradition, and those are nothing more than snakes hiding in the brush. However, when we see that John points out to the religious that they are called to give up false security, just like the false security the snake finds by hiding in the brush, and the false security we have in our excess, then we are able to walk the repentant life in the light of Christ, and the Spirit can refine us through the fire that helps purify us. Then we can be a wonderful manifestation of the person that God calls us to be, and we can then point to Christ as the one that follows, for whom we are merely preparing the way. Faith is not an inheritance we coast on; it is a life we turn toward.
Elpis and Shalom 