Tis the season... to repent?

Isaiah 11:1-10

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,    the spirit of counsel and might,    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see    or decide by what his ears hear,

4 but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

6 The wolf shall live with the lamb;    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;the calf and the lion will feed together,    and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze;    their young shall lie down together;    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

9 They will not hurt or destroy    on all my holy mountain,for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Matthew 3:1-12

1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:‘Prepare the way of the Lord;    make his paths straight.’ ”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, 9 and do not presume 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. 10 Even now the ax 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.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 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.”

It feels like we’re already fully in Christmas mode.  The Christmas markets opened more than two weeks ago, shops have had their decorations up even longer, and the same playlist can be heard everywhere.  Everyone loves Christmastime.  

But then when you come to church, instead of warm, cozy feelings, you get to hear passages about repentance and judgment.  Outside it might be full of cheer, but in here we’re not messing around.  We’ll get to Christmas, but first we need to tend to Advent, a season of preparation.  If this child is coming - and coming again - we need to be ready.  

The passage we read from Isaiah is one of the quintessential Advent passages.  It speaks of a coming king who, life David, will be descended of Jesse, one on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest, who will judge not simply according to what his eyes see and ears hear, but who will rule with perfect righteousness.   And his reign will so transform life on earth that even the lion and the lamb will lie down together, the serpent will pose no threat to a child, no creature will hurt or destroy.   This passage closely resembles Isaiah 65, which we read just three Sunday ago.  We return to these prophetic visions every Advent because they give expression to the hope of those who were in exile, who longed for a time when they’d no longer be oppressed, but when God’s kingdom would be established.  And these passages thus also give expression to what our hopes must be, an image of what it looks like when the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.  

The tricky thing about this is that, what was for them a future hope is, for us, an event in the ever more distant past.  They awaited the one who was to come and make this vision a reality, and yet there we are on the other side very much still waiting for the lion and lamb to lie down together.   We declare every Christmas that God entered the world through Mary’s womb, that God is Emmanuel, God is with us, and that this changes everything.  And yet these visions from Isaiah don’t seem any more realized now than then, the kingdom seems no closer to coming.   If this passage was fulfilled in Bethlehem, it nevertheless awaits a more complete fulfillment.  It’s easy then to wonder what difference Christmas makes.  For as much as we might want to join the angels’ declaration, “Peace on Earth!”, we know that there is not peace on earth, nor is there any reason to think that’s going to change.  

There remains a way in which we remain in the same position as the Israelites in exile, awaiting a time when justice would be done, when God would come and make things right, when the chasm between heaven and earth would be eliminated.  

What we celebrate at Christmas is that there in Bethlehem is that the very character of God is revealed to us, that God is not one who remains far off, disinterested in human life, but God comes to us as one of us, who empties himself and takes on our flesh, who comes humble and suffers humiliation.  And that, mystery of mysteries, in this child, to use again the language from Colossians, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things” - the very meaning of existence is revealed in this child, the purpose for which we were made and our destiny which will be realized, that God will - that God must - make all things right, that all things must be reconciled to God through Christ.  The incarnation is the answer to every question.  This is our hope: Christ has come, and Christ will come again.  

So we too might heed the word of John the Baptist.  We might even be called to imitate him who prepared the way of the Lord, who called people to repentance in light of the one who was to come.  Repentance is a word that’s fallen out of use, even within most Christian communities.  The call to repent already implies judgment upon the person, that someone is getting it wrong - perhaps badly wrong - a needs to turn from old ways to new ways.  We resist recognizing any authority which might make such a claim upon us - and not just because we’re all narcissists who want to be our own little gods - but also because those prone to make calls to repentance have often shown themselves more interested in oppressing people than liberating them.  Even so, if we’re willing to accept that God might actually exist, that God actually created the world in love, and even that God intends to redeem the world, then perhaps we shouldn’t be so resistant to the thought that there is a right way and a wrong way to be human - and that we might be getting it wrong. 

John was more of a provocateur than a peacemaker, it would seem.  He shows up telling people that judgment is coming, that some of what has grown will be preserved while some will be cut and burned up.  He speaks of God’s coming wrath, something we’re rarely disposed to hearing about, but especially not at Christmas.  How does John’s message square with these other passages?  

John’s message is to repent because the kingdom of heaven is near, and the passages in Isaiah provide an image of what that kingdom is like.  And if that kingdom is indeed coming - and if that kingdom reveals what is true and good, if it restores that which is broken - then that kingdom and its king already have authority here and now.  We should be living in light of that kingdom, as if it were already here.  The call to repentance is exactly that, not to live according to the age that is passing away but according to the age which is to come.  

It’s probably no secret at this point that I believe that, ultimately, all people will be saved, that in the end God will indeed reconcile all things to himself through Christ.  But what then of John’s statement - and others like it - which suggest an ultimate division and destruction?  I think the answer, at least for me, is fairly simple, which is that the dividing line between the wheat and the chaff is not between me and you, as if I’m good and you’re bad, but rather it runs through all of us.  We are all comprised of both wheat and chaff, in some measure, and ultimately God intends to take all of which is dead and useless, all that is false and wicked, and cut if down and burn it up.  We will be judged, and to some extent or another, we will all be found wanting.  We will be baptized by fire.  So many of the places in Scripture which we assume speak of eternal torment can more fruitfully be read as images of purification, of the painful but necessary process of transformation.   Eternal punishment is literally pointless; any suffering we are to endure must serve the purpose of our sanctification.    The discipline of a loving parent still feels like wrath to the child.  

John - and Jesus - would spare us this by calling us to live in the kingdom now, voluntarily to repent ourselves, rather than waiting to pass through the refiner’s fire, which will indeed hurt like hell.  Why wait?  There is no good reason.  The prince of peace is going to bring about that peace, whether we like it or not, but for those of us who are violent, who consume and devour, who exploit and oppress, this will indeed be an uncomfortable day.  And deformed as our desires are, we might not even reject the coming kingdom as bad news.  The wolf, the leopard, the lion, can scarcely imagine a day when they won’t want to kill their neighbor, but a day is coming when their desires, their nature, will be transformed, restored.  Perhaps it’s pushing the metaphor too far, but the call to repentance, for the wolf, etc., looks like refusing to eat the lamb, of perhaps trying some straw instead, to live now in light of the kingdom that is coming.  

Even though the Pharisees and Sadducees seemed to respond to John’s message, he sent them away because they were interested only in putting on repentant clothing without actually bearing the fruits of repentance.  John was an unsentimental character, unimpressed with mere appearances or claims to a change of heart.  

So this Advent, rather than just passively hoping the Christmas Spirit comes upon, rather than just making room for Jesus in our hearts, we might consider that now is the time to reflect upon the shape of our lives and the desires that drive us, and to consider the ways in which we are not aligned with the coming kingdom, and to repent - not just identify these things and feel vaguely bad about it, but to actually turn from old ways to new ways, not out of fear - though some fear might be useful - but because it’s true, right, and good.