Indeed, friends, the time has come in our Advent journey to brace ourselves once again for John the Baptist. Many of you who have walked with the church calendar for some time will know that every year, at this time, the lectionary gives us John. Clothed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey, he doesn’t exactly make it onto many Christmas cards. He’s no friendly Santa or wise man carrying gifts.
John comes with a message of repentance—a message that things must change, that we must change. He’s not comfortable, but every year the church invites us to wrestle with him as part of our preparation for Christ’s coming amongst us.
Let us pray. Your Word, living God, challenges and discomforts us, yet we pray that this Advent you would open our hearts anew to it. Awaken us to your presence, and ready us for the coming of Christ in all his fullness. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Like last week’s reading on Christ second coming, John the Baptist stands, rather stubbornly, out of sync with the world’s Christmas preparations that have been reduced to gaudy decorations, cheery holiday music, and gazing at an abundance of material goods for the buying, all of which we hope will evoke a sense of magical childlike wonder and goodwill but actually often leave us feeling anxious and empty.
Like the junk food that is so prevalent at this time, this all feels good at the time of consumption, but it does not actually nourish us.
The message of John the Baptist on the other hand, does not feel that good. Really who wants to be called a brood of vipers and told,
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance… the axe 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.”?
And yet, while John’s message may sting, it is ultimately an invitation to a life far more satisfying and far more joyful than the short-lived dopamine hit of a new Christmas purchase—many of which are in the Op Shop by January.
John leads us into a story far more magical and wondrous than any Christmas movie we binge-watch this season.
It is a message of repentance—metanoia—a change of life, a turning toward the Kingdom of God. It is not merely feeling sorry (though that is often the first step); it is learning to see the world, and ourselves, differently.
As is written in the words of Isaiah John the Baptist came as “voice calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
He came to announce the time when, “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.”
This of course echoes the words of Jesus mother Mary whose song of praise declared that,
The Lord has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones, and lifting up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.
The truth is preparing the way for the coming of the Lord is not going to be easy for many of us. Those of us who live on the mountaintops and quite enjoy the view might not want to be made low. As Fleming Rutledge says,
Human nature being what it is, means a lot of our enjoyment comes from having things others do not. Part of the fun of travelling first class I assume, is that curtain that separates you from the lower orders in the back of the plane. But. One of the themes of the Bible, of Advent, is that God is going to tear down that curtain and flatten the hills.
Repentance, preparing the way of the Lord means opening ourselves to God’s great leveling—being ready to relinquish our advantages for the sake of those who are different from us.
John continues:
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one more powerful than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand.”
Confronting words. But as we reflected last week and over the year, God takes sin and evil seriously. We may not like those words, but God knows—and we can all see—that something has gone terribly wrong in the world and in our own hearts.
We live in a world where the richest 1% hold nearly half the world’s wealth while the poorest half have less than 1%.
Where those suffering most from climate disaster are those who contributed least to it (such as those in Sri Lanka right now trying to rebuild after monstrous floods).
Where powerful men exploit women and children for their own lurid desires.
Where war, starvation, and slavery persist.
God knows that this needs to be reckoned with, that those who have suffered great wrong demand justice and that forgiveness and reconciliation are costly. And because they are costly someone will eventually bear that cost. It probably should be humanity that caused these problems.
But what if the winnowing fork in Jesus’ hand was the cross?
On the cross, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—bore the cost of reconciliation. There, God gathered the wheat, God’s beloved creation, to himself. And there defeated the powers that enslave us: sin, death, and evil. He burns them up. The cross is God’s victory over everything that dehumanises and destroys.
This does not mean evil has vanished that will not happen until the full coming of God’s kingdom, but it means it does not have the final word in our lives.
And the cross does not sweep sin under the carpet. The horror of it is God’s judgment on everything that harms his creation. When we behold the cross, we must confront the ways we wound one another, the world, and God—and repent.
So this Advent I am asking myself: What is wheat in my life, and what is chaff? What sins keep me from being fully alive fully connected to others and living fully in the Kingdom of God?
My greed? My pride? My envy?
My distractions?
My habits of spending that harm the planet and clutter my home, when I could be more generous?
My patterns of wasting time that leave me apathetic rather than joyful?
And I am asking God—without fear—to bring his winnowing fork to these things. Because, as Fleming Rutledge reminds us,
“Judgment against sin is preceded, accompanied, and followed by God’s mercy. There was never a time when God was against us. Even in his wrath, he is for us. Yet he wills to destroy all that is hostile to perfecting his world.”
The message at the heart of Advent is God has come, God is here and God is coming to judge the world, not to condemn it, but to heal it and to make it new. John calls us to prepare the way for this —not through frantic activity, but through repentance. Through waiting and longing.
And so this Advent may we welcome the God who levels mountains and lifts valleys. May we let him sort wheat from chaff within us. And may this open us to the true joy that Christ brings.
