Proper Preparation
Text: Luke 3:1-20
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
How are your Christmas preparations going? Do you have everyone’s gifts ready, or at least have an idea of what you’re getting them? Grocery shopping? Decorating? Have you switched over your regular music listening? If you’re going somewhere, do you have your travel plans set up? If you have guests coming, is your house ready? Guest rooms prepared, baseboards dusted, house cleaned from top to bottom?
In the rush of getting ready for the celebration of Christmas, it seems that our to-do list grows exponentially these weeks before the holidays. And the irony of it is that we’re going wild with a list of things to do in order to have a day of rest, a holiday, a holy day, a day without our usual work tasks. But as we all know, it’s a lot of work getting ready to rest.
The Lord knows this too. That’s why He sends John the Baptizer: a man whose entire life was one of getting people ready for the arrival of the Lord of the Sabbath, who would win salvation for all mankind through His own work while we receive the benefits of it through faith. His task, his life’s work, was to get people ready for Jesus.
There were those who thought that they were ready enough. They’d cleared the to-do list that the traditions of the elders and the rules of the Pharisees laid out. They walked closely in those hundreds of rules that separated them from Gentile sinners and even their fellow Israelites who didn’t keep every rule they had established. They were even extra ready because they had the bloodline that guaranteed their readiness for the Messiah. They were children of Abraham, they had been part of the covenant forever, born into it, born ready.
Or so they thought. John corrected them. He preached to the crowds coming out to hear his preparatory message, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And if they thought that their outward, mechanical going-through-the-motions was enough, he told them, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, not trusting those self-chosen works that humans think will impress God.” To those who thought they were born ready simply by having the right ancestry, he said, “And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”
John the Baptist is one of those figures from Scripture that makes us a little uneasy. He hits pretty hard and it’s always close to home. For we too like to think that we’re safe just because we’ve been a part of the assembly for a while. We like to think that we’ve checked off our to-do list of things that should make us worthy before God. We want to be able to hold up something—anything—that we do to show Him that we’re ready, we’re good enough, we’ve heard it all before so there’s nothing surprising about God coming to be with us. So when John preaches this fiery message about the axe being laid at the root of the tree, ready to cut down every tree not bearing God’s fruit and being thrown into the fire, it makes us a little uneasy.
And that’s good. We get too comfortable with holy things, especially when we’ve grown accustomed to them. We tend to recite things out of rote, we walk the same paths, we let our minds wander when we’re repeating holy words, we zone out when divine wisdom is being read to us from God’s Word. That’s why we need John the Baptizer. We need him to snap us awake again, to realize that it really is a powerful thing when God arrives to be with humans. We need him to sort through our to-do list of preparations and rip out the things that aren’t actually helping. This is all to say that we need to repent.
Repent isn’t a very popular word today, when in our own society it seems that the only sin is telling someone that something they want is bad for them, or that something they wish were true isn’t. But repentance is good. Repentance is nothing more than slamming on the brakes and turning the car around before driving off a cliff. Repentance is seeing the label on the bottle that says “poison” and setting it down before taking another swig. Repentance is opening your eyes and seeing that you’ve been facing away from God, walking, running down a road that leads away from Him and all the good things He’s promised.
So John says, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Turn away from those harmful things that God has warned about in His commandments. Leave that destructive path behind you. Turn around and see your God, return to Him, hear His promises. Be forgiven.” Because that’s the ultimate goal of repentance. We don’t repent just to feel bad about ourselves. We repent so that we can have those bad things removed from us, lifted off our shoulders, taken out of our hands, washed away.
Repentance is encapsulated in Baptism. The baptism John gave to the crowds was to wash them clean of the things they assumed were helping them, the things that they thought made them good enough for the coming Lord, but were actually standing in the way. They went down into the water, had those sins and errors washed off and drowned in the Jordan, and then they went back up onto dry land, restored and ready. And what happened in John’s baptism happens in yours too. Baptism is nothing less that the old fallen nature in you being drowned and dying every day as you ask God to forgive your sins as you forgive others, bringing forth a new child of God to emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Your Baptism is getting you ready for eternity, whether you received it seven days ago or seventy years ago. Your Baptism is constantly cleansing you and getting you ready.
That means that you don’t have to do any kind of self-chosen to-do tasks. You don’t have to leave your life behind or live a miserable existence, saying no to God’s good gifts of light and life and joy. Those who came to John the Baptist, even the worst of the worst, the traitorous tax collectors and soldiers, weren’t told by this prophet of the Most High to walk away from the callings they had. When they came up out of the water, forgiven, cleansed, turned back toward God and His treasures of mercy and grace, they asked John, “What shall we do?” John told them to live as God’s children in the places where they were. To the tax collectors, he said, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” That is, live in your calling and be of service to those whom you are given to serve, without damaging the livelihood or property of others. To the soldiers, John said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” He didn’t tell them to quit their jobs working for the Roman Empire, but rather to be content and to protect others, rather than abuse and squeeze them for what was not theirs.
You are being prepared for Jesus’ arrival in the places God has set you. Whether you’re a mother, father, brother, sister, grandparent, friend, employee, employer, teacher, student, or hearer of God’s Word, He’s getting you ready for His arrival. Yes, hearing Scripture will get you ready for the proper celebration of Christmas, focusing on Jesus’ coming to this world. But you’re also being prepared now for His arrival in your life in His body and blood in just a few minutes. You’re being prepared for His arrival at the end of time, when all His promises to you will be made visible to your eyes. You’re being prepared by your baptism, by repentance, by forgiveness. You are forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Your Lord comes to you now. Receive Him. In the name of Jesus, who is coming. Amen.
