Love Invites Repentance
December 10th, 2006
Gary Harder
Text:
Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 3:1-6
Introduction
Ah, the baby grew up – and who could have known what the adult version would look like. The cute baby became a – well, a desert hermit breathing thunder and telling people off, calling them a brood of vipers.
His parents were really too old to have a baby, and because his father just didn’t believe the angels message that his wife would conceive, he lost his power of speech. Couldn’t say a word. But the two of them were absolutely thrilled, ecstatic, when Elizabeth became pregnant. Though Zechariah still couldn’t utter a sound. Absolutely mute. Not even a peep will come out of his mouth.
When their son was born everyone in the village was celebrating – celebrating the miracle of it all, celebrating the beautiful baby the parents brought to the synagogue on the eighth day to circumcise him and to name him. Sort of like we did last Sunday when we blessed and dedicated three babies and their parents. Well, not the circumcising thing, but surely the blessing. And then there was the naming of this new baby. The name? No mystery here. No wondering what the baby’s name is going to be. Of course he will be Zechariah, named after his daddy.
But his mother says, “Hold it, we’ve decided on the name John”. And now everyone else is dumbfounded (pardon the pun). “But what’s wrong with the name Zechariah”, they all shout at once. There isn’t a John to be found in the whole family tree. Better check with the father again just to make sure. So the father, Zechariah, still voiceless, takes a writing tablet and writes on it the name of his son. John. His name will be John. And suddenly Zechariah regains his speech, and bursts out with a long, poetic vision speech about what this son will one day become. And there is already a hint in that speech about what his son, as a thirty year old, will be doing.
“And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us…” (Luke 1:76-78.
This cute kid grows up to become – well, almost a desert hermit. Mark describes him in this way. “Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6). I kind of picture him with unkempt hair, straggly beard, fiery eyes, and a total inability to make small talk. What does he talk about? “He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3:3).
How jarring. How rude. People are going about their ordinary lives, coping as best they can, trying to live decently, going to the synagogue occasionally, even sometimes giving alms to the poor, and saying their morning prayers, and rasing their children as best they can, and not fighting with their neighbours, and they hear about this prophetic kind of character out in the wilderness and go check him out – and get a broadside right between the eyes.
“You brood of vipers”, John yells at them. Repent of your sins. Be baptized as a sign that you have repented and found forgiveness.
And we too are just nicely into Advent – big into joy and love and peace and hope, and into buying Christmas gifts for our kids, and singing Christmas carols, even German ones, and volunteering at Harbourfront, and planning family Christmas, and just generally trying to cope with the busyness of December life, and doing mostly okay, when we hear this jarring text from Luke 3. A text about needing to repent. A text about finding forgiveness for sins. How disconcerting.
John & Isaiah
Luke, in telling John’s story and message, links him to Isaiah. Isaiah is trying to offer comfort to exiles stranded in Babylon, exiles hopelessly giving in to despair because salvation seems impossible.
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40: 1-5)
And now Luke quotes Isaiah 40 in describing how John, by now called John the Baptizer, will be that voice crying in the wilderness, will be the way preparer for Jesus, straightening out paths and levelling valleys and lowering mountains.
But let’s stay with Isaiah just a bit longer before we get back to John and to sin and to repentance.
Persepolis
I digress a bit with a story. Six years ago now Lydia and I spent several weeks in Iran, sent there to represent Mennonite Central Committee. Along with many official duties and meetings, we also got to be tourists for awhile. Mr Hagani, a Muslim cleric became guide and friend. One of the most amazing tourist destinations for me was Persepolis. Persepolis is the site of the ancient capital of Persia, located some 500 kilometers south of Tehran.
You may remember the names of some of the Persian kings who are mentioned in the Old Testament. The story of Daniel, for example talks about King Darius (522-486 BC). We hear also about his son Xerxes. The story of Ezra has to do with King Cyrus and then King Artaxerxes. Persepolis is the site where these kings built their palaces and where their tombs are dug into the hills. There are now almost no tourists around. Only a few Japanese tourists, and a few Iraneans, wander through the ruins of magnificent palaces and statues and carved lions and historical walls engraved with the stories, in pictures, of great kings. There is even a fine relief of the Israelites bringing tribute to Persia.
I have long enjoyed that history, and these names, and was t
hrilled to take a whole leisurely morning wandering through these ruins with a very knowledgeable guide.
In 333 BC Alexander the Great defeated the Persian army and totally destroyed this capital. He burned what could be burnt, and massacred the entire Persian army. And this was very unlike Alexander the Great. Usually he preserved palaces and capitals and often incorporated defeated armies into his own army.
Why then this out of character bloodletting and destruction? Why then destroy this grand complex? Apparently for revenge. Several generations earlier the Persians had destroyed Greek armies and cities mercilessly. The Persian army was absolutely ruthless. That story burned in Greek memory and in Alexander the Great’s soul. And now he had his chance to avenge an ancient grievance. And he does exert a terrible revenge.
Why do I tell this story?
Because only two centuries before Alexander came onto the scene these same Persians – these same cruel, ruthless, power mad Persians, who had unleashed such terror and destruction on the Greeks, these same Persians let the people of Israel go free, and that with their blessing yet. It is totally incomprehensible. Yet it is what Isaiah said would happen. And Chronicles described what happened.
“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom, and also in a written edict declared:
‘Thus says the King Cyrus of Persia: the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of those among you who are of his people – may their God be with them – are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord the God of Israel.’” (2 Chronicles 36:22-23).
This is the same Persian king who proclaimed himself to be “king of the world, great king, legitimate king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akhad, king of the four rims of the earth, great king, king of a family which always exercised kingship, great king (Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, volume 1, p.755).
This is the same king who massacred the Greeks and burned revenge into Alexander’s soul. Why did Cyrus, tyrant king, let the people of Israel go back home – with his blessing and with his finances? Only miracle can explain it, according to the prophets. “God did it”.
Isaiah
Isaiah becomes an ecstatic poet in picturing this release from captivity. God will make a highway through the desert, will fill every valley and level every mountain that stands in the way. All of this is figurative language, symbolic language, not literal description. God will do it. God will remove every obstacle preventing the return of the exiles. And the obstacles are overwhelming. 70 years of exile slavery. The Persians are ruthless. The Israelites are helpless. They have no army, no power, not even any hopes or dreams left.
And incredibly King Cyrus says, “You can all go home. Your God wants you back in Jerusalem. Here, I’ll help pay for the restoration of your temple.”
John the Baptist
Fast forward 450 years. Jesus is now about 30 years old. His cousin John is about 30 years old. And now all four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, use the poetry and vision of Isaiah to describe what John the Baptist is doing. He is the way preparer for Jesus. He is straightening out and levelling every obstacle to bring to people an awareness of who this Jesus is. One might think that the primary obstacle is the Romans who occupy Palestine. The Romans are the high mountains, the rough places, the valleys, the crocked paths.
But no. It’s the people themselves. It is their sinfulness. “John came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” That strikes too close to home. John should name the Romans as the biggest obstacle to the kingdom of God. Or John should name the religious power structures and political infighting within the people of Israel as the huge problem to be overcome. But he points rather to the hearts of the ordinary people. They have given in to disillusionment and despair. They have become a part of the culture of pessimism and hopelessness, looking meekly for some political or military messiah who will save them from their many problems. They have become exiles – spiritual exiles.
But now God is doing a new thing. In Jesus God’s Kingdom is coming alive in a whole new way. He will free you from your exile – your exile of despair and lost hope, your exile of sinfulness and not knowing God – and bring you back to your true home, your spiritual home, embraced by God’s love.
God is doing this powerful new thing through this Jesus, levelling every obstacle, making a straight path to the heart of God. Everyone can see the signs. People are being healed, freed, forgiven, transformed by the love of God. All flesh can see the salvation of God.
“And you”, John the Baptist says to the people who come in droves to hear him,”you need to repent”. Repent. Which means literally to change direction. You are going in one direction and you need to turn around and go in the other direction. You need to turn around to face God, to go to your true home. Change your lives. See the new thing which God is doing in his son Jesus. Let go of your helplessness, and your hopelessness and your cynicism and your despair and your blaming everyone but yourself for your spiritual exile. And that is a shock to them as it is to us. This Jesus isn’t going to overthrow the Romans. He isn’t going to destroy the religious establishment, though the leaders of the religious establishment will feel threatened to the core by this Jesus who bypasses them and goes directly to the people. He is going to change the hearts of the people, and who knows what else will change then too..
Repentance and forgiveness
And maybe, if we think deeply enough about it, that begins to sound like good news – to those first hearers and to us too. It begins to sound like good news of salvation. We were so put off for a while by hearing that we needed to repent, to change. We were put off by hearing that we needed to find forgiveness for our sins. We were put off by being reminded that we too were living in a kind of spiritual exile. And surely we were put off by hearing that we were a brood of vipers.
But deep down we know that we struggle with embracing our culture – our culture of celebrating materialism, of celebrating violence, of celebrating instant gratification – held before us in such s
tark contrast again this Advent season. And we know deep down that it is easy to give in to the gods of despair and hopelessness, and cynicism, and to look for messiahs in all the wrong places.
We know, deep down, that we, as part of our culture, often miss the mark. Missing the mark is a basic definition of sin in the Bible. Missing the mark of what we could be and could do and could say. Missing the mark of our full potential and our full loving and our full visioning and full hoping. Missing the mark by following lesser gods and lesser dreams and lesser daily activities. Who of us doesn’t miss the mark of our true selves and our true callings at least some of the time, if not a lot of the time?
And we know that we, as a part of our culture, struggle with many of our relationships, including our relationship with God. And that is a second basic understanding of sin in the Bible. Breaking relationships. Breaking covenants. Breaking our word. We sometimes hurt our loved ones. We mess up important relationships, maybe inadvertently, maybe because we are too tired, maybe because of our pride and stubbornness. And then we don’t have the courage or the will or the ability to fix things, and important relationships stay unfixed, broken, messed up.
And we know deep down, as a part of our culture, that we are sometimes simply lost. Lost. Don’t know were home is. And that is another basic understanding of sin, especially in the New Testament, especially in the words of Jesus. The lost sheep, the lost coin the lost son. We’ve wandered into some exile or another. Can’t really find our way back home anymore. Discouraged, maybe even despairing.
And if we are aware, deep down, that we still sometimes miss the mark, sometimes still mess up our relationships, sometimes still get lost, why then the words of Isaiah, and of John the Baptist come as good news to us. “He came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” We are invited, by this Jesus who most fully embodies God’s love, to change – to change direction, to embrace God’s kingdom and God’s way of life anew. We are invited, but his Jesus, to ask for and receive forgiveness for our missing the mark, for our broken relationships, for our getting lost and wandering away from our true home.
“The voice of one crying out 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 make low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’”.
Conclusion
God is doing it. God’s kingdom is very near – is at hand. God is at work in this Jesus bringing and offering salvation – freedom, newness, hope, peace, love, joy.
This Jesus will show us most clearly what God is like, and what God expects and wants from us. Jesus will show that God is an astoundingly loving, compassionate, forgiving God. Jesus will show us a God who gently invites us to heal our broken-ness, to realize that we do need God’s love and help in our lives. Jesus will show us the target and then lead us to it. He will show us where home is and will invite us to “follow him on that path”. Jesus will demonstrate, by his life and by his death and by his Resurrection, that love and forgiveness is more powerful than violence and revenge. Jesus will hold little children in his arms to bless them and warn anyone from abusing them. He will walk with and advocate for the poor. He will eat with social outcasts. In him God’s Kingdom is made visible.
And that sounds like powerful Advent good news. Even if, maybe especially if, we are invited to repent and find forgiveness for our sin.