Sermon Tone Analysis

*A Sober Christmas*

 

December 9, 2007

 

Luke 3:2-18

 

 

Father Ralph, the local Episcopalian priest, was wearing his clerical collar while visiting his wife, who was in the hospital for minor surgery.

He stopped in to see her and chatted with her for quite some while.

Before leaving, he leaned down and gave his wife a great passionate kiss and left the room.

The woman in the next bed over stared in disbelief.

After the priest left, the stunned woman spoke to her roommate, "You know, I've been a faithful member of the United Methodist Church all my life, but my pastor has never even come close to treating me as well as yours does."

When you drive long distances, as some of you just do for holidays and special events, it is so easy to be lulled into a state of semi-consciousness.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

I’d like you to imagine this scene:

 

You are driving down the freeway, and your mind is a hundred miles away.

You’re thinking about all kinds of things.

You’re thinking about the time you just spent with your family and friends.

You’re thinking about the conversations you had, things they said that made you mad, things they said that made you laugh.

You’re thinking about how much you ate and how long it’s going to take you to fit back into your clothes.

In fact, you are so lost in thought that it takes you a while to realize that there is a police car.

coming up fast behind you, and the lights on the car are flashing.

Immediately your mind snaps back into the present.

Your heart starts pounding.

Your foot automatically goes off the accelerator and over to the brakes to release the cruise control, which is set well above the speed limit.

Your eyes are riveted on your speedometer and then to your rear-view mirror.

Every nerve in your body is wired for action.

You are completely alert.

Your attention is riveted outward.

Then words cannot describe the extreme gratitude you feel when the highway patrol moves into the next lane and zips past you on down the freeway.

That is what you might call a sobering experience.

So often we drive down the road just that way—maybe not that fast, but lost in a daze of self-absorption until a rock hits the windshield or the truck in front loses its tire.

All of a sudden, you are jarred to complete attention.

You straighten up, and you take whatever corrective action is necessary.

Our focus goes completely outward.

Friends, that is exactly what God has in mind to prepare us for the experience of Christmas.

There needs to be a sobering.

There needs to be a snapping to in order to prepare the way.

There needs to be a waking up, a coming to complete attention.

As the Old Testament prophet Isaiah put it, we need to straighten up and fly right in order to “see the salvation of God.”

 

Please turn in your Bibles to Luke, chapter 3 and we’ll read verses 2 through 18: /“during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

And he 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 Isaiah the prophet, "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 become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, \\ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers!

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.

And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.'

For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

And the crowds asked him, "What then shall we do?"

And he answered them, "Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise."

Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do?"

And he said to them, "Collect no more than you are authorized to do." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what shall we do?"

And he said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages."

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, "I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

\\ His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.”

/

Essentially that is what is happening when the people go to hear John the Baptist out in the wilderness.

That’s exactly what the words of John the Baptist accomplish.

They sober people up.

You’ve heard about preachers who preach fire and brimstone.

Well, John the Baptist certainly was one of the best.

As it says in verse 3, he came proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

There’s a reason his name was “Baptist”—the emphasis of what he was saying was baptism: “You need to be cleansed from sin.”

The emphasis was repentance: You need to turn from self-absorption [and that’s what sin is—self-absorption] to an outward attentiveness to God.

So, with the sobering effect of the police car’s lights flashing behind, he tells the people that there is an axe against their necks, that the fire of God’s wrath is ready to fall, and that they better straighten up and fly right

.

John is using this harsh judgment language (that’s exactly what it is—judgment language) in order to say to them, “Wake up! Hey!” He’s giving them an absolutely necessary wake-up call so that they can be ready for the visitation of God.

The crowds who took him seriously were all ears.

They were completely sobered.

They were wired for action.

And they were begging him, asking him, “What should we do?

If the presence and the visitation of God is imminent, how do we get ready?”

That, my friends, is the question of Advent.

Listen to this story: “I was talking to a family that just joined our church.

I was suggesting to them that they might want to start having family devotions together, that this Advent season before Christmas was a good time to begin.

I suggested they could get together and read Scripture together, have prayer, focus on Christ, use the Advent guide that is in the entry way of the church.

I was just about ready to change the subject—I figured I’d exhausted that topic—when one of the family members looked at me innocently and said, “What is Advent?”

Good question.”

Advent is a time in the church’s life that is set apart to prepare us for the significance of Christmas.

By the way, Luke is a great believer in preparation.

Luke believes that anything worthwhile is worth preparing for.

Anything significant requires significant preparation.

How do we know that Luke thinks that way?

We see it by the way he writes his book.

As a medical doctor, Luke was practiced in preparation.

He’s writing this book about Jesus Christ, the most significant person and event of all history.

All history revolves around the coming of Christ.

But it takes Luke much longer than any of the rest of the Gospel writers to get to the point.

It takes him two-and-a-half chapters, over 150 verses, to even start talking about the ministry of Jesus Christ.

He’s doing this on purpose.

He is saying that this is God’s way.

God has a divine order.

God has a divine preparation in mind in order to prepare us for what is ahead.

Luke won’t let us fast-forward to Jesus.

He’s telling us that we need this order.

We need this preparation.

We need the sobering of John the Baptist first.

Perhaps the best word to describe this time of preparation is the word humility—recognizing that we really have been lost in our own thoughts.

Humility—recognizing that we really have been a million miles away from God’s presence and purposes in our lives.

There’s a story told of a pastor who was officiating at a funeral.

When he was done, he was asked to lead the funeral procession as it made its way to the cemetery.