The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Scripture:  Luke 3:7-18

  Every holiday season there seems to be some sort of hot toy that a lot of kids want and that sells out everywhere.  This year one of those toys is a remote-controlled Minecraft creeper that explodes.   I realize that some of you have no context to understand what I just said, but I am sure you kids or grandchildren can help explain it to you.   Every now and then though a toy comes along that leaves most parents at a complete loss as to why it is so popular and unable to understand why kids would ever want it.   As I look over a list of popular toys from the past, one that really rises to the top in my mind as a real head scratcher is the pet rock.  The pet rock only had one year of breakout popularity in 1975, but during that time it sold more than a million units at $4 each, which equates to over $20 today.  The pet rock was literally a rock in a box.  That is it.  The pet rock was before my time, so I am missing whatever it was that made the joke appeal to a million people 49 years ago.  A lot of things that get inexplicably popular are like that.  Either you had to be there for it or you just have to kind of get it, because from the outside looking in or from the present looking back it can be hard to see what the appeal was. 

This morning’s scripture gives me the impression that John the Baptist might have been the same way.   The gospels mention that John garnered quite a lot of popularity.  In fact the gospel of Mark quite hyperbolically states, “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.”   While it probably was not the whole countryside, John managed to draw a crowd.  He managed to do this despite being based in an isolated area and despite insulting his audience by calling them a brood of vipers.  Despite these obstacles, John was inexplicably popular during his time.  While what worked for John, would very much not get over today, we can still learn from the message of John the Baptist today.  If we take that message to heart, I think we can find it is a gift that keeps on giving and can fuel our faith all year round. 

 When we consider the ancient context that John lived in, his popularity and ability to draw a crowd is even more remarkable.  The traditional baptism site that John operated at was along the Jordan River outside of Jericho.  From Jerusalem to Jordan would have been a day journey both ways.   John the Baptist was not some sort of roadside attraction that people stopped at because they happened to be passing by.   It required real effort and intentionality to get to him.  Plus, it is not like John the Baptist had a marketing campaign and mass media advertisements to get the word out.   Some people came out to see him for the specactle of it all or because they were curious if the rumors were true.  As verse 15 of this morning’s scripture states, “The people were waiting expectantly  and were all wondering their hearts if John might possibly be the messiah.   However, those with curious expectation could not have been the entirety of the crowds.  There were those who were drawn to the wilderness for John’s message and what he was offering.  As we read last week, John’s message was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

For the people of John’s day, the idea of baptism would not have been a new one.   The idea of immersing one’s self in water for ritual cleanliness was a common Jewish practice.  In the Jewish law there are several things that can make someone ceremonially unclean.  Immersion was a physical act to symbolically show cleanliness.   In ancient Judaism this was done through a ritual bath called a mikveh.  In Jerusalem, outside of the ancient temple steps, there are the remains of several of these mikvehs.  When the Israelites would go to the temple, they would first bathe in one of these as an act of worship to present themselves clean and unblemished before God.  A mikveh has steps that lead down into the bath, and there is a clear division on the steps indicating two sides.   A person would walk down on one side, unclean, immerse themselves in the waters and come up the other side clean.  The ritual bath of the Mikveh was to wash away the imperfections that made someone unclean, John’s tweak to this formula was repentance.   

The baptism that John was offering out in the wilderness would have felt like what the people were used to, but at the same time a baptism for the repentance for the forgiveness of sins was something new.   To repent is more than just to be made ceremonially clean.  As my endless piles of laundry and dishes attest to, being clean is only a temporary status.  That which has been washed can get dirty again. Repentance is meant to be more. Repentance means to turn around completely, it is a true 180.   John’s message was an invitation to re-focus on God because God’s kingdom was coming.   Those that came to John the Baptist wanted a fresh start, they came too baptized to acknowledge their need for repentance, and their desire to start over. 

In this morning’s scripture we get a glimpse at some of the types of people that this message was highly appealing towards.  Verse 12 and 14 specifically mention tax collectors and soldiers.   These are people who probably would have been interested in second chances.  Tax collectors and soldiers had a reputation, likely somewhat deserved, of using their authority to take advantage of others for personal gain.  Socially they would have been considered traitors with how they served the Roman empire and spiritually they would have been considered unclean because of their association with non-Jews.  However, John makes the point that it is not just the soldiers, the tax collectors, and the known sinners that need to repent.  That is the point that John is making in verse 8.  Here John refutes a theoretical argument by saying “And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘we have Abraham as our father,’”.  John is trying to cut off anyone from saying they do not need to repent because of their background or who they are.  One of the major points being made by John the Baptist in this morning’s scripture is that all needed to repent and turn away from their sins.  

 John offered a baptism that was a symbolic action to represent an act of repentance and a turning from a life of sin, but as John himself said there was one to come who was more powerful, who is the real messiah.  Jesus offers real forgiveness of sins and grace that fully reconciles us with God.   Because of Jesus when the day of judgement comes, we can be confident that we are gathered with the wheat because the penalty of our sins has already been erased and by his righteousness we are fully redeemed.  This is possible for all who earnestly repent of their sins and seek forgiveness.  There is a good chance that if you are here today, you know this and you have experienced this saving grace in your life.  
The problem is that even after we have been saved by grace and forgiven we still struggle with the “go and sin no more part.”  We find ourselves falling into the same habits we thought we escaped.  Even though we are forgiven, we still find ourselves turning back to the same unhelpful things we repented and turned away from in the first place.  Now thankfully, grace is not a one and done proposition.  Nor is it even a three strikes and your out situation.  The grace and love of God is greater than we can fathom, and we can have an assurance that when we fall short, God will forgive us again. 

I am thankful that God’s grace and patience does not run out, but I also would like not to need it so regularly.  I cannot speak for you, but I want to be able to repent and mean it.  I want to turn away from that which I know I should not do, that which I know is not right, and that which I know is not best for me and stay that way.  As followers of Christ, I hope we all want to be more like Jesus in our everyday life, and that means we go and sin no more.  It means that when we repent and we turn away from the sins we committed, me are able to stay away.    It can be a struggle, and I am thankful that when I stumble God’s grace is there, but I do think the words of John the Baptist can be helpful to us here. 

In this morning’s scripture John urges the crowd to repent, but he urges them to do more than repent.  He states, “produce fruits in keeping with repentance.”  He then gives several examples:  Share with those who are without, he tells the tax collectors to act with integrity, and the soldiers to be content with what they have.  John’s message is more than just repent, it is more than just stopping doing the things you know wrong, but it is stop doing them and replace those actions with something better.  That is what it means to produce fruits in keeping with repentance.  It means that we make the mindful choice to do something that brings us closer to God and more Christ like instead of taking actions that move us away from God.  

When I think about this works practically in our lives, I am reminded of the time I spent at Edinburgh UMC.   That church had a gym, and the teens would play basketball every Sunday night before youth group. And since I wanted to be involved with the youth ministry, that meant I played basketball every Sunday night.  I am not very good at basketball, I am too short, and I was never that great at handling the ball.   At the beginning my goal was not to embarrass myself too much.  After doing this for five and a half years I was still not a great basketball player.  But I was much better than I was when I started.  While I had not got any taller every other skill needed for basketball, especially shooting, was notably better than it was before I started playing basketball once a week.  It is a simple truth about human nature, the more we do something the better we get at it.  The same is true for repentance. 

We can tend to treat faith development in our lives as a checklist.   Once we accomplish a task, such as reading a book of the bible, we mentally cross it off the list and consider the job done.   We often treat repentance in the same way.  When we become convicted of our sin and seek forgiveness.  We treat it as a one and done thing, where we said the prayer and now we hope this time is sticks.  That’s now how repentance is supposed to work though.  It is a process.  It is a commitment to turn away from set of behaviors and instead embrace a better set of behaviors.   Repentance is like showing up to play basketball once a week.   There are going to be a lot of mis-steps, missed shots, and questionable plays but eventually all of that practice and experience will add up and there will be noticeable improvements.  If we consistently seek to say no to that which pulls us away from God and say yes to that which makes us more Christ like then there is only one possible outcome.  We become more like Jesus and our lives bear the fruit of repentance. 

John the Baptist found popularity, because his message of repentance connected with a lot of people.   Perhaps, that is a message that connect with you today.  Perhaps, there are behaviors or choices you keep making that you know deep down are not what is best for you.  If you feel that in your soul today, then may you repent.   May you turn away from that which is wrong for you and turn towards God.   May we not treat repentance like a single moment in time, but may we commit to the process.  May we trust that God’s grace is there for us when we fall short and may we consistently strive to be the righteous person we know we can be.  Wherever we are in our walk with God, may we all seek to live righteously may we all be committed to repenting of our sins and not turning back to them, and may we find that the provision and strength that God gives us to do that is the gift that keeps in giving.