Fairhaven Sermon 1-12-2025

Well, this morning, as you have heard from the scriptures and can see from the cover of our bulletins, we are remembering the baptism of Jesus. And what Jesus did in being baptized is kind of amazing beyond words. I mean, baptism represents, among other things, a washing away of sin, but Jesus didn't have any sin, so he didn't need this. He had no sins to wash away, so why is he being baptized? And of course, this also kind of raises the question of why we baptize babies, because babies don't have any sins to wash away either.

But the answer is this. In both Jesus' time and in ours, the children of God's faithful people were initiated into the faith shortly after their birth. And in Jesus' day, that initiation came in the form of circumcision when he was eight days old. For our children today, that initiation comes in the form of baptism into the Christian family.

In every age, that initiation has then been followed up with some other ceremony when the child is of decision-making age. In our church, that would be confirmation, a time when a young adult is able to say of their own free will, Yes, I believe what my parents believed when they baptized me. The wonder of all this, though, is that Jesus didn't need any of this. Jesus was the Son of God.

He was holy from day one, and he had nothing to confess, and he had nothing to confirm. Jesus was willing to be baptized for our sakes as an example for us to follow to complete all righteousness, as he put it, and to identify with us in our weakness and in our need. And thank God we have a Savior who understands us completely and loves us so well. So having said these things, I wanted to shift the focus just a little bit today and focus instead on John the Baptist and his message.

And I need to kind of go back and start back at the beginning of that passage of Luke. If you noticed, the passage that was read a moment ago wasn't even half the story, actually, just a piece of it. So let me go back to the beginning of chapter 3 of Luke. You can follow along in your Bibles if you'd like to.

This is Luke chapter 3, verse 1, and going on from there to hear what John the Baptist was saying to the crowds and what he was doing. So starting at Luke 3, verse 1, In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and Herod's brother Philip ruler of the region of Aurea and Draconidus, and Licinius ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

' 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. 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. Even now the axe 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.' And the crowds asked him, 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.

' And even the tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said, 'Teacher, what should we do?' And he said to them, 'Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.' And soldiers also asked him, 'And we, what should we do?' And he said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.' All of these words, all of these words and events led up to and happened just before the baptism of Jesus. So John really is preparing the way for the Messiah.

So what does all of this tell us about John and about Jesus? Well first off, like I said, Luke is setting the stage in this gospel. Luke always, whenever he writes, I mean Luke is coming from outside of Jerusalem, outside, I think, I believe Luke was the only one of the gospel writers who was not born Jewish, okay? So he takes in everything around him as he writes. And so he begins at the very beginning with some historical context. And he tells us that John the Baptist's ministry and the very beginning of Jesus's ministry took place during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, which was in the years 14 through 37, as we count it now.

The local leadership included Pontius Pilate, who the Romans appointed over Jerusalem. We're going to meet him again later, as you know. And also the four sons of Herod the Great, who had been the ruler when Jesus was born. Herod's four sons, known as Tetrarchs, four rulers, okay? And they included Herod Antipas in Galilee and Herod Philip east of Galilee.

And we remember these two names because in the not too distant future, Herod Antipas is going to start a very public affair with his brother Philip's wife. And John the Baptist will take issue with this publicly, saying to Herod in Galilee, it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And John the Baptist will be arrested for this, and Herod in Galilee will be the one who kills him. So interesting footnote that we will see about Easter time, if we're watching carefully.

Herod in Galilee is the one and only person who Jesus ever met that Jesus refused to speak to. Luke 23 9 tells us that Herod questioned Jesus at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. Watch for that during Lent. So getting back to John the Baptist, okay, so that's what we're talking about here today.

Luke describes John the Baptist by quoting the prophet Isaiah. He calls John a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord. And in saying this, Luke points to Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. All of history, both Israel's history and Roman history and the world's history, come together in the arrival of Jesus the Messiah.

And John's message to the people is, You brood of vipers. Great way to start off a message, right? This is not how you win friends and influence people, right? That's good old Dale Carnegie. So what kind of evangelism is this? What kind of good news is this? Why would John say brood of vipers to the people? And what was it about John's message that made people want to listen to him? Well what attracted people, first off, John didn't start off with the brood of vipers thing. That kind of actually came along mid-ministry.

But John started off by traveling around the countryside with the message, Prepare the way of the Lord. That is, turn away from where you're heading, head back towards God, and this is the definition of repentance. And what attracted people was that there hadn't been a prophetic word from God since the last Old Testament prophet almost 400 years before. The people of Israel were starving for a word from God.

And John was clearly the real thing. And John began to build up a following, and he located his ministry then in the region around the Jordan Valley at the riverside where he began to baptize people for the forgiveness of sins. It was baptism of repentance and forgiveness and purification. The problem was that John started to get really popular.

People started to come and hear him, not because they were looking for God necessarily, but because being baptized by John the Baptist was the in thing. It was cool. It was rad. You know, so here they all come, but they're not actually listening to the message.

That's because it's the cool thing. That's where the brood of vipers thing comes in. Okay, John says, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance, and don't dare say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor.' Because the Jewish people knew that God's chosen people were to be descended from Abraham.

So if Abraham was their ancestor, they figured they were in good with God. And John says, Don't even begin to think that way. If we took John's message into today's world, he might have said instead something like, Don't dare say to yourselves, 'I was baptized as a baby,' or 'I went forward in a Billy Graham crusade,' or 'I've been a lifelong Methodist or Presbyterian or Catholic or whatever.' These are all good things, but they alone are not enough to get us into God's kingdom, and that's John's point.

What we need is to do things God's way. We need to see the working of God's spirit in our lives, of God's good fruit happening in our lives. And the crowds ask John the right question, What then should we do? And his answer is straightforward. If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none.

And if you have extra food, do likewise. That's it. Not much, is it, really, when you get down? How easy is that for most of us to give away extra food and extra clothing? I mean, I'm so glad we have the food pantry here, the clothing pantry. And for most of us who give to these ministries, myself included, we don't even miss what we give.

It's not that big of a thing. But the pantries mean survival for people, so many of whom we haven't met yet. This is exactly what we're supposed to be doing. And notice, by the way, what John does not say.

John does not say things like, Join my mailing list, or, Become a member of the JTB club, John the Baptist club, right? We'll send you some locusts and honey as a free gift, right? He doesn't do this kind of thing. All that John asks, and all that God asks, is that we change course, return to God, and have a heart for those in need. That's it. Some of the people who came to John then had some specific questions.

The tax collectors, for example, John said to them, Only collect what's due and nothing more. Now, that would not have been easy for tax collectors back in those days because the system back then assumed that the tax collector would add a percentage for himself, some more than others, right? But someone who follows Jesus doesn't pad a bill. And the same with the soldier. It was almost expected that soldiers would help themselves to a little of this and that, wherever they were.

But John says, Be content with your wages. You put it all together, and John gives us instructions from God to feed people, clothe people, don't use taxes to play favorites. And if you're in a position of power, don't take away from the powerless. In all of these things, John was preparing the way for his cousin Jesus, the Messiah.

And Jesus will add one thing to John's teachings. Toward the beginning of his ministry, the apostle Matthew says what Jesus said, When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. So when we give, we give quietly, so that only God can see.

So to sum up John the Baptist's message, we want to prepare the way for God's Messiah. We do this by making changes in heart and mind that lead to actions, actions that are both generous and quiet. And it doesn't matter what our religious heritage is, whether Jewish or Catholic or Protestant or none at all. It doesn't matter where we're from or what our ancestry is or what language we speak.

None of these things matter. All that matters is that we change course and follow Jesus and practice being generous to those in need. But here's the rub. It's not enough just to believe all this.

We need to act on what we know. In the ancient world and in some parts of the world today, if words are not acted on, people say that they've never been heard. Repentance means listening to God and then acting. One theologian suggests taking out the word believe and replacing it with the word trust.

For example, For God so loved the world that all who believe in him have eternal life. Try, For God so loved the world that all who trust him have eternal life. Taking action is the difference between actually worshiping Jesus or just worshiping what we know about Jesus. In the end, John the Baptist's message, which sounded at first like an insult, is actually a message of inclusion and joy.

Bearing fruit is what counts, and anyone can bear fruit, no matter how young or how old, no matter how rich or how poor, no matter how quiet or how outgoing. We can all bear fruit in Jesus, and that's good news. So when we do these things, John the Baptist brings us the message and the promise of God. One who is more powerful than I is coming, and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

And that's the best news of all. Amen.