Sermon 11/30/2021 “Repent!”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: The Fountains at Washington House, Alexandria, Virginia
Text: Luke 3:1-6
Day: 2 Advent, Year C
On Sunday, we began the four-week season of Advent, the season when Jesus asks us, “How are you preparing for me?”
This is a good question to ask ourselves, “How am I preparing for God to come into my life anew?” Because a close encounter with God always requires preparation. And I’ll tell you right now, that there is only one biblical answer about how to prepare for God’s coming: Repent!
God always shows up, but God rarely shows up in the form we expect. I mean, coming as an infant? THAT surprised us humans. We thought we had God all figured out, that God would come and set things right (yes he will!), which will require an army (no it won’t). And, having made this bad turn in our thinking, we failed to recognize our Creator in the Christ Child.
John the Baptist tried to tell us. John was the first Hebrew prophet since Malachi, the first prophet in Israel in about 500 years. Think of this: God’s voice, the prophetic voice, was absent among God’s people for nearly five centuries!
For many years I envisioned the coming of John the Baptist this way: There was a strained, prolonged God-silence, and then in the deserted physical space of the wilderness God’s voice, God’s message, came booming through John the Baptist, breaking the silence.
And of course, being a modern-day Christian, a progressive Christian I suppose, I imagined that God’s Word would be “Love,” as in “I love you” and “Therefore you should love others as I love you.” But what did John actually say? ………. “Repent!”
Silly me. I rather recently—and sheepishly—have realized that the absence of a discernable message doesn’t produce silence. (I think I was watching a political debate when I realized this error in my thinking.) The absence of a discernable message produces great noise, not silence.
Of course, I have to slip sideways just a bit to say that God’s message to us is NEVER absent. The ultimate Word of God—Christ Jesus—is always with us through his Spirit. And even before God entered our physical world, God’s Spirit resounded through creation. So, God is NEVER silent. But sometimes we can’t discern what God is saying to us, especially when we are digressing from God’s ways. In broken times, God either sends a prophet to warn us, or maybe we are just deaf to the message. Either way, God speaks, but we don’t always hear God’s message. But 500 prophet-less years?? And then the word was “Repent!”
There must have been a lot of digression from God’s ways going on. Perhaps, like Psalm 81:12 says, God “gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.” FOR 500 years!
What were those pseudo-prophets saying all that time? We know that in Jesus’ day some of these false voices advocated an armed rebellion against Rome. Arm everyone! In the name of God, you understand, to free God’s Temple and God’s people from oppression. This message would have been “Rise up!” Oh yes, the Zealot prophets abounded. There were even one or two among Jesus’ disciples—Simon the Zealot, one was called. Judas Iscariot might have been another.
I’m sure there were other pseudo-prophetic voices. The theologically conservative Temple leaders always sought ethnic purity when things got tough. Any disaster brought a cry against inter-cultural marriage. Jerusalem even had a wall around the city to keep out the God-less foreigners. “For all that is truly holy, get out and stay out!” would have been THIS message.
Maybe you noticed that THESE voices are a LOT like the voices we hear today. And THESE voices don’t sound like God-Truth. We humans know God-Truth when we hear God-Truth. Just the way we know God-Walk when we see God-Walk. Because God’s Word IS self-authenticating.
That’s why people from Galilee and Judea all flocked to the region of the Jordan River to hear the prophet John. Amid all the pseudo-God talk of their day, they knew authentic Word when they heard Word. And so, they repented of their sins and found a new way of life.
To us, though, John’s message, “Repent!” sounds very old hat. We keep hunting for more: the what, the how, they why. But the answers are right there before us. The “what” is turning from our ways and following God’s ways. Isn’t this always a part of the God-message? “Repent and return to the Lord.”
Maybe you have been helping others cope with their difficulties in life. If so, GOOD on you. But have you AND THEY repented?
Advent is when Jesus asks us, “How are you preparing for me?” If so, John-the-prophet has a one-word answer for us today: “Repent!”
