Luke 3 - the ax and the cross

Well we are already in the THIRD week of Advent! And as is typical in the RCL, the second and third week this year feature John the Baptist (or Johnny B as I like to call him). Johnny B can be difficult to preach on, he's no casual preacher. And he can either be twisted into some works-righteousness decision theology preacher (in which case John the "Baptist" seems a very appropriate title) asking you to make a choice for Christ or he can be some justice lover who has left unjust society behind and preaches on the fringe now. And of course he can be tons of things in between. The point is, Johnny B is hard to lock down, and harder to preach. He's like a Jesus who never died for you.

But let's take a look at this weeks take on the wilderness prophet. The text can be found here.

Some people begin sermons with inspirational stories or a joke, John starts with an insult, "You brood of vipers!" The depth of this accusation come to light in the following verse when he says we do not get to use Abraham as an excuse for our lives or a way to avoid the wrath to come. The claim of being Abraham's children is contrasted with his claim that they are instead children of serpents - which immediately has beyond the initial insult of the phrase a contrasting illustration to who the people would claim to be. You say child of Abraham, John says child of a serpent (an OT character with a much different connotation). Instead of being of the promise, they are children of a cursed creature, cursed for its role in the garden. Instead of being of the line that promises blessing to others the implication is that we deceive others or cheat others. This even begins to come out in some of John's practical advice of living for people in the crowd, tax collectors should not be taking more money for themselves, soldiers should not use their power wrongly against others. It was also a common belief at the time that vipers ate their way out of their mother's womb. Is there a better imagery for the way sin has so infected and rampantly damaged society in general? We eat our way through it, we gnaw on each other. It also says something in relation to God: we turn on the one who bore and created us. All of this stands in John's opening words: you brood of vipers.

And it certainly gives perhaps a negative tone to the whole message, yet we need to pause and reread it after coming to the final words "With so many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news." John's message ultimately is founded on bringing good news. All this is put in the context that Luke gives us that John has come to prepare the way. The key comes in verse 15-16: his preaching brings about a messianic expectation, and John replies with the promise of one who comes to baptize with the Holy Spirit. One of the things the Bible oft shows is that with judgment comes action - namely God is breaking into the world. Sometimes in a terrifying way like exile sometimes in a powerful way like an exodus to freedom, but warnings of judgment (judgment coming or judgment passed) usually indicate that God is going to bring something about. A message of repentance and judgment, of telling us not to flee the wrath, to change our lives, it comes with a hopeful expectation. John indicates as much when he says the ax is at the tree.

At the tree, the tree has not been cut off. If God can raise children of Abraham from stones, what about from a brood of vipers? What about from Gentiles? From the sleazy tax collectors or empirical roman soldiers? If the turn in John's message is always to prepare the way, if it is he is coming (unto the moment he gets to declare he is here) then the words of judgment are that for how ready God is to cut us off we aren't. The message of repentance is not simply some altar call to choose God and show God you have not abandoned him, it is God saying to turn back and for he has not abandoned you! With the ax at the tree, One is coming, he will bring the Holy Spirit, the One who works our sanctification and repentance, the One who ignites the faith that makes us sons of Abraham (not our bloodline). Jesus is coming! And as I said before, the difference between him and John is he will die for you. With the ax at the root, when we are at the place where we should be cut off entirely God comes closest, enters in human flesh, and instead of us being cut off and us crying "My God, My God why has thou forsaken me?" that becomes the words of his when he takes the cross. When he takes all our sin and lets the ax strike.

Sometimes we feel utterly cut off or we wonder why we or others are not. It's not because we could turn and all be nicer people, following John's practical instructions. The message to bear fruit, the call to change our outward lives, does not prevent Christ from coming. And when he came he fulfilled God's promise. He made children of Abraham as surely as God made Isaac for an old barren couple. John's message is not to scare us into being good kids. It's to prepare the way of the Lord. The unquenchable fire of judgment is juxtaposed with the [refining] fire of the Holy Spirit.

If judgment is accompanied by action, the expected action to the judgment here is the trees to start being cut down, but John has been baptizing and preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the way of the Lord was not to act on the judgment with the ax but with the cross. The first reading for Sunday perhaps puts it best, "The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more." (Zephaniah 3.15)

We mustn't remove Jesus from the preaching of John. If we remove Jesus from the preaching of John we are left with the hope that we all change our lives enough. We are left with the hope that the soldiers stop abusing their power and the tax collectors take only the fair share, that those with two coats will always give to the one with none or that the food of this world will be distributed in a manner that sees that no one starves. In that vein the fruits of repentance looks as though a great drought has spread through the whole of human history, such preaching leading to little fruit, much of which rots quickly. Not only is such a change not what saves us, but such a change seems by and large absent.

How does Jesus change this? Because he bears much fruit. And we get to partake of his fruit. Because he doesn't let forgiveness rest on whether we repented enough but rather has a word of forgiveness the repentant may rest in. Because he was the one tree that when cut down, God raised from the dead - like a fig tree that has withered, died, and yet now bears the spring leaves and bloom. Because he baptizes with the Holy Spirit, who gives us the faith that grafts us into the tree, into the family of God. And a whole millenia of sorry human history is not too much for him to bear or too dark to snuff out his light - which shines for us still each time he comes to us. Advent celebrates the coming of Christ into this world, when we hear just the situation that Christ entered into, and just what he does with it, then we know why the Christmas message is no mere birthday party, it is an announcement that to the judgment God has acted in the most marvelous, loving, and gracious of ways.

And Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. And again he will act, by gathering his wheat together, by separating us from the chaff that we ourselves through all of human history have not been able to separate from ourselves.

We mustn't separate John's preaching from Jesus, because John did not die for us. Sometimes we want the practical words, like the people in the crowd we ask "What should we do?" and John does have that, and we ought hear it. But for how much John tells us of what to do: be baptized, repent, obey the law - John also tells us what God does - he comes. When we need him most - he comes. When we are as rebellious as vipers - he comes and lets us sink our teeth into him. And so we must not miss what John says - he comes, he is here! The Lord is in your midst, you shall fear disaster no more.