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Church Sermons
Second
Sunday of Advent, Year A – December 9, 2001
"Then Jesus Came”
Matthew 3:1-12
What a rude interruption - here in the middle of the Advent Season – with the Poinsettia Tree ablaze with red blossoms - and the Chrismon Tree adorned with finely crafted symbols of our faith - the Advent Candles are burning, and the wreaths depicting the circle of eternal life are hanging - and there are the purple altar cloths, and Christmas cards are arriving in the mail - and we can hear carols being sung about a holy night in a humble stable in a little town called Bethlehem where that special baby is born, complete with angels, shepherds and wise men from the East. What a rude and unexpected interruption! There is a gatecrasher in this Norman Rockwell-like Christmas party! An uninvited and unwelcome guest!
And just look at him! No pretty Christmas sweater and nicely pressed slacks, but instead a garment of camel skin. Wet camel skin. Can you smell it? His hair is long and unkempt, and his beard still contains the crumbs of yesterday’s meal – remnants of grasshoppers and hardened gobs of wild honey.
And listen to him! Join in with others as they sing fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la? No! Become very quiet and pensive as a choir sings “What Child Is This?” No!
He does not join the Christmas joy, but instead rears back his hair-tangled head and all of a sudden starts shouting, “REPENT!” Into the middle of the candlelit congregation he comes as they sing “Silent Night, Holy Night”, and he blows out every single candle in the place and again screams, “REPENT!” Into the live nativity scene he goes. REPENT! Out to the mall, and into Christmas-decorated homes, and right to the very top of the Living Christmas Tree at Thompson-Boling Arena he dashes, all the while crying, “REPENT! REPENT! REPENT!”
What a party pooper!
So maybe you’re wondering – like I am – “What in the world is John the Baptist doing in the middle of the Christmas story?” I mean, in the New Testament, John doesn’t come along until much later, when Jesus is about thirty years old. So why do they stick a reading like this – about a man like that – smack dab in the middle of the tranquil, joyful and beautiful Christmas season?
Well, maybe – just maybe it is to remind us - that the coming of Jesus is not for mere celebration and decoration, but rather for judgment - for the transforming re-creation of the world and all its people. And what I hope you’ll consider today is that while we easily fall in love with the Christmas story, and are preoccupied by its rich beauty, there is something more to it than that. And part of the attraction we feel toward Christmas may not be exactly what we think it is on the surface.
Rev. Richard Fairchild recalls a story a woman told him a few years ago about her first love affair. She went out on a date with a very attractive young man. It was one of the first dates she’d ever had, and she was quite smitten.
Well, after the meal, as she sat listening to his every word and gazing into his eyes, she began to feel all those things you feel when you’re falling in love. Remember? She felt lightheaded. When she looked around, the whole world seemed different – it was brighter and the lights seemed to pulsate– and then the rest of the world just seemed to go out of focus, as she drank in his every word. Nothing was as real to her as his smile, and nothing as clear as his calm, strong voice. “He filled my eyes,” she said. “He was the only thing I could think about – the only reality I could connect with.” She began to swoon and feel dizzy.
Richard Fairchild asked her if it turned out to be true love.
“No,” she replied with a certain amount of
embarrassment, "It turned out to be food poisoning. They had to take me
to the hospital and pump my stomach out!”
Maybe part of what draws us to Christmas is not the superficial beauty of the moment, but the deeper illness in our souls. And maybe you and I need someone like John the Baptist to interrupt us in this season to tell us what’s wrong, and how it can be made well.
Listen to the words of John: “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. 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.”
These are words about Christ’s coming not for the purpose of making a nice holiday, but for performing surgery on the world. Jesus comes for the specific reason of healing us. Can you imagine that? Christmas has something to do with God reaching into this terror-filled world of ours, pumping out all the poison that produces evil and hurt, and creating the Kingdom of God where life is as it should be, and as we want it to be.
So in the Advent of Christ, God is handing us a diagnosis. There’s trouble in the world. There are things wrong in our lives. And Jesus is coming to perform a “sin-ectomy”. He will confront the powers of evil and overcome them. He will identify that which is broken, and make it whole. He will point out that which is darkness, and will make it light. He will locate that which is sorrowful, and turn it to joy. He will show us that which is wrong, and will work with us to make it right.
And we have to decide whether we are willing or not!
And so the operative message of Christmas is not only “Rejoice!” but also “Repent!” Turn to God, open your life to Christ, and let him drain the poison from your life and from the world, so that the Kingdom of God can come - for you, and your family, and the world!
And then comes the part of the passage I love. After John the Baptist so rudely interrupts this Christmas party of ours, and gets our attention by telling us the time has come to turn back to God and turn around our lives, the very next verse – verse 13 – says this:
And you know, there are a lot of us here today, who are looking for Jesus to come into our lives, into our situation, and into our world.
This past Friday, we remembered the surprise attack sixty years ago on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II. There is a whole generation of men and women in this congregation whose lives were forever changed by that experience. How painful and sobering it must be for you to look back and remember. And the sorrowful memory of Pearl Harbor and those who lost their lives has been joined now by the more recent attack on our country on September 11th, with its unfathomable loss of innocent life, and the ensuing war now against terrorism. And just this past week, our hearts were saddened once again as one of our own East Tennessee boys lost his life in the battle for freedom.
Is there any one of us here today who does not truly yearn for the day when young men and women no longer lose their lives at places like Pearl Harbor, or the World Trade Center, or in the hills of Afghanistan? There is something wrong with our world – some poison at work that produces suicide bombers out of children, mass murderers out of religious leaders, and even ordinary citizens who come to believe that violence can be redemptive, and that peace can be won by acts of hatred and disregard for human life.
Oh, we yearn for all this wrong to be made right! I think this yearning is what really draws us to Christmas, and this is what Christmas is for! But for Christmas to have power in our lives, each of us must look into our own hearts, and see where we have given in to sin, and then turn around and come back to God.
For then Jesus will come.
And Christ will rewire, and reconstitute, and remake our lives so that we can participate in the building of the better world we - and God - dream about for ourselves, our children, and people everywhere.
The Bible says that when people
began to respond to John’s call to repent, and were baptized acknowledging the
poison of sin in their own lives and their desire to be made well, “Then
Jesus came…”
And that’s how Jesus will come to you.
Just recently, one of our church families proved this promise. In the midst of a family health problem, they became deeply troubled by the fact that there was an estrangement between themselves and other family members. They hadn’t talked in a long, long time, and the last time they had talked, it hadn’t gone well. Things had been said that never should have been said by both sides. And now they faced the painful brokenness of that relationship as they tried to sort out the health need of another family member.
I believe John the Baptist must have intruded on their lives at some point, because when they came to talk with me about it, they had already pretty much decided what they had to do. They knew that they had control only over themselves, and so they had given a great deal of prayerful thought to what their part was in the breakup – the things they had said and done – the parts of it they were responsible for. And they had started turning it over to God, and knew that what they had to do. They had to ask God to help them as they went to these family members to ask forgiveness for what they’d said and done, and to express hope for a better relationship in the future. And so, several weeks ago, they did.
And I think it would be fair to say that, once they took this difficult step of identifying in themselves what was not right and needed to be changed, and once they turned around on it and asked God for help…then Jesus came!
And today they have a beautiful story of healing and reconciliation to tell! Christmas came to them!
Oh, it doesn’t always work so smoothly or quickly, and sometimes it may not even move the others in our lives to change at all, but facing up to how we need to change, and turning to God for help, always opens the door for Christ to come to us, and WE are changed!
So let me ask you this morning: where is the poison in your life? As you look into your own heart, where have you given in to sin, and where do you need to change?
This is the question of Christmas. For Jesus comes to judge the world and each of our lives, and to make them right by the power of God. So turn around, and ask God for help!
And whenever people do, something amazing happens!
Then Jesus comes!
And Christmas arrives!