Advent 2, Year A (December 4, 2022) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Advent 2, Yr A (2022)
Isaiah 11:1-10
Matthew 3:1-12
In the name of the one, holy and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come! Amen.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Mt 3:2)
John the Baptist appears in the wilderness,
and the people of Jerusalem and all Judea
as well as people from all the region along the Jordan
are flocking to see him.
Why?
What is going on?
If some dude showed up on the banks of the Pigeon River,
draped in camel’s hair cinched up with a leather belt,
standing next to a picnic basket filled with honey and locusts,
people might flock to see him,
but I doubt they’d hop into the river to be baptized.
And yet,
all these folks flock to John the Baptist to be dunked in the river
after confessing their sins.
What were they looking for?
What did they need?
One of my favorite translations of this passage is from Eugene Peterson in The Message.
His language brings the words ALIVE in a vivid way!
He translates “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” as:
“Change your life.
God’s kingdom is here.”
Change your life.
God’s kingdom is here.
At the Jordan River those who came to John to confess their sins
were baptized into a changed life.
I wonder if the people of Jerusalem, Judea, and all the region along the Jordan were not so desperate for new life that they sought out John for the possibility of transformation.
Perhaps they were so desperate for a change…
for new life…
that they were willing to take a long, hard look at themselves,
confess their sins,
and get dunked in the Jordan.
Perhaps John’s baptism provided for them a coveted invitation to hope.
New life just might be possible after all.
“Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
“Change your life.
God’s kingdom is here.”
The difference in wording is both subtle and enormous at the same time!
When we hear the word “repent,”
I’m guessing that most of us think it means saying we’re sorry.
And saying we are sorry for doing harm is important…
it is necessary for healing…
for new life.
But repentance has a much fuller meaning.
Peterson translates “repent” as “change your life.”
It’s not enough to examine ourselves and our way of living (as if that’s not hard enough),
but repentance requires turning around,
taking another direction,
choosing another course.
Choosing another course could be as subtle as “at the stop sign take a slight left.”
Or it could be as radical as “take a sharp right,” which turns out to be a hairpin turn!
Peterson continues his stark imagery with John addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees:
“Brood of snakes!
“What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river?
“Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference?
“It’s your life that must change, not your skin!...
“What counts is your life.
Is it green and blossoming?
Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
So, this invitation we have from John the Baptist is about hope for new life.
The purpose of examining our lives and confessing our sins
is so that we can live our lives in accordance with God’s intention for the kingdom!
The burning of the deadwood is only the beginning,
and we all have deadwood to be burned.
We seem to be living in a crazy, mixed-up world
and yet my guess is that every period of time would say the same.
During desperate times it is all too easy to point fingers outward at what others are doing wrong or how their thinking is skewed, but seeing all the chaos in the world and in our country invites us also to sit down and examine our ownparticipation in such events.
When might we have uttered angry or divisive words
or kept silent
when speaking up would have better served our neighbor?
John the Baptist invites us to examine such things in our lives…
and to repent –
to change the course of our living,
turning our old life in for a kingdom life through the Grace of God.
Paraphrasing David Lose: “Change isn’t necessary for change’s sake.
“Change is necessary because we become aware that our actions are out of step with God’s deep desire for peace and equity for all God’s people and… for the whole of creation.
“Repentance, in short, is realizing that God is pointing you one way,
that you’ve been traveling another way,
and changing course.”
In Isaiah’s vision the wolf and the lamb live together,
the cow and the bear graze side by side,
the lion eats straw like the ox,
babies play next to the snake pit,
and “they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.”
They will not hurt or destroy!
God’s dream is about a world in which there is no predator or prey,
no hatred or fear.
What a dream that is for our world,
our city,
our neighborhood,
our families.
John the Baptist is a witness to the coming of the Christ.
How might our lives witness to the coming of the Christ?
How might our lives become green and blossoming?
John says, “the one coming after me will ignite the kingdom life within you,
a fire within you,
the Holy Spirit within you…
changing you from the inside out….
He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God;
everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
While that may be a tad frightening,
it is also a message filled with hope…
hope for God’s Kingdom, here and now.
My friends,
as we take stock of our lives and allow God to burn away the deadwood,
we are preparing the way of the Lord,
beginning to make some paths straight.
God’s kingdom is coming…
God’s kingdom is here! Amen.
