Advent: Preparation

Intro

We’re in the second week of Advent, and as we talked about last week, Advent is this season of waiting with anticipation where we look back on Jesus coming as a child and we look forward to Jesus’ second coming, when he returns for his people. And last week, we talked about longing. All of us have this deep inner desire for something that we can’t explain. We looked at and we saw how the sin of Adam and Eve separated humanity from our relationship with God, and this is where our longing for something we can’t explain began. We try and fill ourselves with things that take away the longing for a little bit, but ultimately they don’t satisfy us. And why? Because God has put eternity in our hearts, and only the eternal God can fill the eternal emptiness that’s inside of us. And because of the birth, death, and resurrection, and promises of Jesus, that emptiness can be filled. The longing we have is met through Jesus Christ. And so part of Advent is reminding ourselves that it’s Jesus who we’ve been looking for. But, there’s more to advent. Let’s look at

Matthew 3:1–12 NIV

1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ” 4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. 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, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

This is the word of the Lord

Our main character in this passage is John the Baptist, and when I read about him, my first reaction is: this dude is weird. He lives alone in the desert, he wears camel hair and a leather belt, and he eats locusts - which is a type of bug - and wild honey. I’m down to eat some honey, but I’m not eating bugs by choice anytime soon. To us, or to me, John’s pretty strange, but to people 2,000 years ago, he was a preacher who was living a life of simplicity. I follow this account on instagram called preachers in sneakers. And every Sunday, they post picture of megachurch pastors who are wearing shoes or clothes that are mad expensive. Some have Balenciaga sneakers that are $800 dollars or Gucci belts that are $4,000. John the Baptist is a different kind of preacher. He came wearing simple clothes, eating simple food, and living in the desert, but he preached a message of profound significance. Going back to 1-3 it says In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”

What John is doing is he’s preparing the way for Jesus to come and take his rightful place as King.

What John is doing is he’s preparing the way for Jesus to come and take his rightful place as King.

That message had echoed through the life of the Jewish people for hundreds of years by the time of John the Baptist, ever since it was first uttered in . It was part of the great message of hope, of forgiveness, of healing for the nation after the horror of exile. God would at last come back, bringing comfort and rescue. Yes, John is saying; that’s what’s happening now. It’s time to get ready! The king, God himself, is coming back! Get ready for God’s kingdom! And John’s striking message made everyone sit up and take notice. In today’s language, they saw the blue flashing lights, and stopped what they were doing to get ready.

Wright, T. (2016). Advent for Everyone: A Journey through Matthew (p. 33). London: SPCK.

But no one was ready. When I was in high school, I was finally old enough that my parents would leave me home alone for a few days if they had to take a trip somewhere. The one rule I had was to make sure that the house was clean before they got back. And so, an hour before they returned, I’d panic and try and clean all of the dishes, all of my clothes, and everything else that I had left out. And I’d never get it all. I’d always get yelled at for being unprepared when mom and dad got home.

What John is doing is he’s telling the people that they need to prepare themselves for the arrival of their King. People came from all over, they went into the wilderness into the desert, into the wasteland where God often tests his people, and they listened to John’s message, confessed their sins and were baptized. Part of advent, part of Christmas, is us preparing ourselves to encounter Jesus. And the way we prepare ourselves to encounter Jesus, to encounter our King, is through repentance.

Repentance

Repentance is a difficult concept. Usually it’s presented as a command to do these things that are good and don’t do these things that are bad. And so, it becomes this guilt thing that we carry with us at all times. When we mess up we feel guilty, and when we do good we become prideful. This isn’t true repentance. To repent literally means to turn around. John’s message is that we need to make a complete U-turn, and live in the new Kingdom that God has brought. Christmas is more than celebrating the birth of Jesus, it’s celebrating the fact that because he has come as king, and because his kingdom is here, we are able to turn around, to make this complete life change - a life change that glorifies him. What has happened is that even when we were or are at our worst, God has come down to us and has extended his love and salvation to us, and he doesn’t just leave us where we are, but he turns us around. He’s set us free from the bondage of sin, from the hold of sin, and we are free to live in the fullness of life that he offers us, the fullness of his love that he offers us.

When we repent, when we turn around, we follow God fully with our whole hearts. We turn from our jealousy, we turn from our pride, we turn from our anger, we turn from a life style that places ourselves as boss and most important, and we place Jesus at the center of our lives and of everything else. When we repent, we live a life of love towards God and towards each other. When we repent, we surrender to God and let him pull out all of the mess and junk in our lives, and we turn it all over to him. When we repent, we prepare ourselves to fully encounter Jesus and be lead by him.

Pharisees

Too Good to need Jesus

But then it says: 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

My car is always messy. What I’ve gotten into a habit of doing is anytime someone is going to ride with me, I’ll hide all of the trash somewhere to where they can’t see it. There’s stuff in the trunk from a year ago, there’s a McDonald’s bag in my console that probably has old food in it. The parts that everyone sees are somewhat clean, but really all I’ve done is hide my mess from view.

The Pharisees didn’t have any blatant sins. They were pretty well-behaved in public, check all of their boxes, prayed all the time, fasted, did all the things that good religious people are supposed to do, but John calls them a “brood of vipers.” He literally calls them children of snakes. Their sin, the sin that was hidden from view, was that they thought they were good enough to not have to repent. They were way more devoted than any of us, but that couldn’t save them. Repentance, turning to Jesus the coming King is the only thing that could bring them true salvation. If we could be good enough, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come in the first place. But we can’t. And God’s love doesn’t depend on our good behavior.

A lot of us in here may not have very obvious sins that we need to turn away from. We’ve either gotten really good at hiding them, or we think they don’t really affect us or anyone else, so what’s the point of turning from it? I don’t know what these are for you. We all have things or habits that we need to turn over to the Lord and turn away from. And sometimes we’re successful and other times it takes a long time. We turn a little bit here, and then turn back, or make a little progress here, and then fall back. And it’s hard. God still loves you and through Jesus we are able to fully turn away from what ever these things are.

One of my favorite tv shows is Friends. Monica, one of the characters a little insane when it comes to organization and keeping everything neat. In one episode Chandler, my favorite character, asks Monica what’s behind a random door that always locked. And Monica freaks outs. She freaks out because it’s full of junk. And after finding out, Chandler hugs her and tells her he does’t care that she isn’t as perfect as she tries to make herself look. This is God’s response to us, but he goes further. He already knows what our junk is, yet he loves us anyway, and he’s saying “turn it over to me.” I can and will handle it.

Salvation from our heritage

But John says something interesting in verse 9: “9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” The Pharisees believed because they were Jews who followed the law and who were from the offspring of Abraham, they were good. That’s all they needed. They didn’t need to repent. They didn’t need to live changed lives. But in verse 10 it says: “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” John is very clear here in his warning to the Pharisees: “If you’re not living a life that shows evidence that you’ve repented, then you’re not really saved.”

For us, church is pretty cultural. Most of us have been coming to church since we were in the womb. I grew up in church. Church was a part of life whether you believed in Jesus or not. And for a lot of us we think “I’m here every Sunday, I come sometimes on Saturday, I’m going to winter retreat, my parents are Christian,” we say all of these things and we convince ourselves that we follow Jesus and we’re a part of his kingdom. But honestly, you may not be. And this isn’t what we want to hear during Christmas time. We want to reflect on baby Jesus laying in a manger. But this passage is clear, if you haven’t repented, if you haven’t turned from one way of life to another, towards a life of surrender to Jesus as king, then you don’t know him and you don’t belong to him.

Winter retreat is coming up. And some of y’all have been holding stuff in for months, waiting to let it all out at winter retreat. But what if we did that now? This morning. December 8th, 18 days away from winter retreat? What if right now, and for the next few weeks, we moved into a lifestyle of repentance, turning away from sin and towards Jesus? How different would our lives be? How differently would our encounter with Jesus at retreat be? What new insights might we gain? Let’s try it. Let’s turn toward Jesus, the one who has come down and has established his rule and reign in this Universe. Let’s turn towards him, letting him take control of our lives. To truly encounter Jesus, we need to repent.