Bear Fruit

I honestly don’t know where to begin today. I went to bed at 1am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after getting home from our trip and unloading the car with 10 days worth of luggage, groceries from Costco, coolers and snack bags so that the van would be empty and somewhat clear for when we got in it next. As I laid in bed thinking about the rest of the week my mind went to a split between how January 6th was both Epiphany, the day the Magi visit Jesus, and the much anticipated certification of the electoral votes.

I went into church Wednesday morning to take down all the Christmas decorations and take care of some other matters. Wednesday was supposed to be an easy day putting things away from the trip and thinking about what the Spirit was leading me to say today. I think we can all agree that Wednesday was not a relaxing day and that the events that unfolded at the Capitol were horrific. For me personally, as I watched the videos from reporters and from cell phone recordings I had a very similar sense of shock and disbelief at what I was seeing unfold before my eyes.

Epiphany is the season of light and it starts with, as I mentioned, the Magi visiting Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, it always includes the baptism of Jesus and always ends with the Transfiguration. Yet what I saw unfold before my eyes had nothing to do with light or with the Christian Gospel. It had nothing to do with peace. It had nothing to do with love. It had nothing to do with making disciples and teaching those disciples all about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who is love and out of love teaches us to care for one another especially the least of these in our world.

So on this day that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, what do we say? How do we respond in the face of such hatred? What do we take out of this text and apply it to our lives and the world we live in? Those were the words I asked myself as I looked at the baptism of Jesus in light of what happened. Normally my eyes draw quickly to the baptism of Jesus because of it’s significance and the fact that that is the holy day we celebrate today, but today my eyes linger on John.

What I find both funny and telling about this text is that there were crowds that came out to be baptized by him. In Matthew’s sharing of this story it emphasizes, in my opinion, the size of the crowd, because it talks about poeple coming from Jerusalem, Judea, and all the countryside around to the Jordan River. So I always imagine a large amount of people flocking to be baptized by John and yet when the crowds came to him this day the first thing he does is he calls them a brood of vipers. They want to be baptized and are coming to him for this and he insults them when they show up. Then he continues to say to them what he feels is important for them to know.

When John was calling on people to be baptized earlier he tells them that they need to receive a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The CEB translates that to say that John wanted them to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. So when John calls them children of vipers and then continues to scold them and then instruct them, he follows it up with the call to produce fruit, to live lives that show that they have repented. To get a little deeper into this idea of repentance and bearing fruit to show it, I need to share some Greek with you. The verb ‘bear’ or ‘produce’ in the Greek is in its aorist form. The aorist form of a verb in Greek says to us that it is something that is in the past and has an ongoing effect indefinitely. So when John says that you need to repent, you need to change your hearts and lives when you are baptized then he is saying that you aren’t being baptized to forgive yourself of all your past sins and you’re done and free. When you repent it is an ongoing life. It is a change from the old to the new. That change needs to be ongoing.

Which is why it is hard for us to always live out our baptismal life because it is a change that is ongoing and change isn’t always easy, especially if we don’t work at it.

In light of the events of this week. In light of all the terrible things that have happened in 2020, we need to take seriously the words of John the Baptist. We need to turn away from the old habits and the easy habits of separating ourselves and segregating ourselves with labels of how different we are and how instead focus on the one thing that matters, we are all children of God. It is not enough to say we have Abraham as our ancestor if we don’t live lives that show that we have Abraham as our ancestor. It is not enough to say that we have Jesus as our Savior if we don’t live lives that show the world that we have Jesus as our Savior. We need to share our coats, we need to be fair in our dealings with people, we need to speak truth in love.

If Jesus, who John said he wasn’t worthy to untie the thong of his sandals, who in Matthew’s Gosopel says that he shouldn’t baptize Jesus but that Jesus should baptize him, who really didn’t NEED to be baptized because he was the only one who has ever lived without sin, received a baptism by John, then how much more do we need to receive a baptism, and ever more importantly live out that baptism in every moment of our lives?

We are forgiven children. We have been cleansed by the waters of baptism and by the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing that can take that away from us. It is the gift of love. It is a gift of grace, It is the very definition of grace. Our world needs more of it. Our world needs more of all of it: grace, love, forgiveness, repentance. In the words of Paul to the Philippians: may we all live lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27-30). For when we live out our lives that are full of grace, truth and love, and it is extended to anyone and everyone then it will be evidence of both the end of evil and the power of salvation. Salvation that is offered to everyone by the one and only God who created each and every person on this earth. May we embrace and accept that love and grace given to us in baptism and lived out our whole lives so that we bear fruit from now until forever. Fruit that shows we have been forever changed by a loving and forgiving God. Amen.