I was very excited to do an Advent series this year. I had a pretty strong sense of what we might do. However, before I was putting the final touches on my first Advent sermon, we found out that my youngest daughter has a rare and very serious kind of bone cancer. I’ve spent most of the past two weeks sitting by her hospital bed, along with my wife, her siblings, and may friends. I would deeply appreciate your prayers for her.

My friend Wade Jones, who did the Serenity Prayer series for us, called and offered to share his own advent sermons, so that I can be with my family in all the ways I am needed. I am very grateful to Wade for helping us out.

Without further ado, here’s Wade:

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       This morning as I begin this sermon, I feel pretty significantly conflicted. On one hand, I am glad to be back with New Joy Fellowship and the churches in Tom’s network. And I always enjoy preaching during this season of Advent as we engage the coming of Christ (past, present and future). It is such a season of hope and joy and expectation. And at the same time, the reason I am preaching for a few weeks – the serious illness of Tom and Kari’s daughter Elise – is deeply painful. I feel an emotional tension between what I want Advent to be about, and what, this year, Advent is for the Hilpert family and all of us who love them.

       In some ways, this tension is inherent in Advent. Advent is full of God’s promises about what it means for Jesus to come as Messiah, and Advent takes place in the middle of a world in which those promises are not yet fully realized. And that isn’t really the main direction I’m going today, but it is impossible for me to start without acknowledging the truth of the pain that is an important part of our community here right now. So, I’m going to pray for Elise and her family and then move into today’s Advent message.

       Father, You love Elise and her family. You are able to heal. We have seen You heal. And we ask You to heal in ways that show Your Glory to the world and Your love to and for Elise. You tell us to ask You for what we need and desire, and so we ask for her complete healing. And even as we ask this, we also trust You to do what is good and right. Your will, not mine be done. In the name of Jesus our Deliverer, Amen.

       One of the most familiar figures of Advent is John the Baptist. Last of the great prophets of the Old Testament (I know Matthew is in the New Testament, but John really belongs to the stream before Jesus, not the one after). The one whose birth was announced to his priestly father in the temple and the announcement was so surprising that Zechariah’s reaction got him muted for months. The same child who leapt in his mother’s womb in recognition of the Messiah that Mary was carrying in her pregnancy. But all those stories come to us from Luke’s gospel, and we are reading today from Matthew’s. Since the Holy Spirit was at work on purpose in guiding each of those men in how they told the story of Jesus, let’s take a look at how Matthew is setting the stage for John the Baptist. What is he telling us about John’s role in announcing the coming of Jesus, the Advent of the promised Messiah?

       Matthew begins with a genealogy – not of John, of course, but of Jesus. And he tells us more about Joseph than Mary. An angel tells Joseph to stay with his pregnant fiancée. Magicians come from the East to visit and worship the baby after His birth. And then an angel appears again to Joseph warning him to run for Egypt because the local king, Herod, is trying to have the baby killed. Then Joseph has a third angelic dream telling him that Herod is dead, and they can come back home – but since Herod’s son is ruling Judea, they go north to Nazareth in Galilee instead.

Not a word about Zechariah, Elizabeth, or John yet. In fact, if I counted right, the personal name that is mentioned most often in the first two chapters of Matthew is actually Herod. More than Mary, more than Joseph, more than Jesus. I think that’s on purpose. Matthew is setting up the conflict between the heir of King David, the true Messiah, and the kingdom that Herod and those like him rule over. It’s in the middle of this conflict that we come to today’s passage: Matthew 3:1-12. Let’s read that together.

3 1In 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[c] 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.”

Wow! John the Baptist hits the gospel of Matthew like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. He just shows up. And he shows up dressed like Elijah, the Old Testament prophet who wore a garment made of hair and a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8). Now if Elijah is known for anything, it’s probably the conflicts he had with King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel: drought, famine, the epic divine battle with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, the death sentence on Elijah’s head after that, and the confrontation over Naboth’s vineyard. Do you see what Matthew is setting up here? The parallels to John’s life and death? John is coming to denounce the way that God’s people have turned from their loyalty to Him. Oh, they don’t serve crude idols anymore (the exile pretty much broke that), but they are not wholeheartedly devoted to YHWH above all else and exclusive of all other priorities. They have their own agendas and aims. And all that means when God draws near, just as in the days of Elijah and Ahab, it’s going to create real issues for anyone who is trying to make the kingdom of this world work.

“In those days” … well, really, it’s been almost thirty years from chapter 2 to chapter 3. Jesus is now a grown man, although we don’t meet Him in today’s reading. We do hear about Him though. But that isn’t where John begins. And even the famous quote from Isaiah isn’t where John begins. The first words John the Baptist speaks here are these: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” There it is, right out in the open. The things Herod was afraid of when the Magi reported to him: another king is coming, and he is going to take your throne. In fact, the king is already here, although no one recognizes Him yet. Jesus will begin His public ministry in the next chapter. And here are the first words Jesus speaks when He begins to preach: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17) He picks up where John left off when John got arrested.

What does it mean for us to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Let me start by telling what John (and later Jesus) is not saying. He is not saying, “One day you will die, and when you do you will go to either heaven or hell, so you need to say the sinner’s prayer now so that you can go to heaven when you die instead of hell.” John (and Jesus) might agree with all of that, but that is not what either of them are proclaiming in their preaching. No, the coming kingdom that they are proclaiming is not “coming someday, maybe thousands of years from now.” It literally “has come near.” When Jesus shows up, YHWH is beginning to reclaim His rule over all the nations. And John is looking out at the children of Israel and recognizing that yet again, as has happened so many times in their history, the children of Israel are not ready for their God to show up. He is coming, and if Israel does not change, it’s going to be a disaster.

That’s why we get the quote from Isaiah: Prepare the way for the Lord! God is headed this way. His arrival is imminent. And I have just looked at the roads, and they are a mess. Is this really the way you want to welcome your God? N.T. Wright observes that by and large, most of the time we keep our houses relatively clean. But the standard for day-to-day clean that we live in suddenly feels insufficient when you hear a knock on the door and it is the king. (Or maybe your mother or grandmother has come for a surprise visit.) Things that are “good enough” for just us suddenly look like glaring problems in the light of an important and prestigious visitor who we’d really like to impress – and maybe one we’d like to ask for a favor.

That is a part of what John is saying to Israel. You think you are ready for God to show up. Why? Because you’re doing better than the nations around you? Because you Pharisees rigorously keep the Law and honor the Prophets (or at least you try to)? Because you Sadducees are maintaining the Temple and its sacrifices? Yes, do all those things – but you are settling for half-measures. The God who is coming to take up His throne among you is not looking for surface compliance, or trying to do enough to get by, or checking the right boxes. He is asking for – really, He is demanding – all of it! He is coming to rule, not only Israel, but the entire world system that has been in rebellion against Him. And you who should be ready for Him to do that think that what you are offering is good enough to get by! John is telling them that they are sadly mistaken. The God of Israel and of all creation will not be satisfied with anything less than all of it. And they have not given Him all of it.

They need to repent! Now, what are they repenting of? We tend to think of repentance in terms of particular sins. I told this lie. I said this word in anger. I had too much to drink. I took a second look at her because she was hot. I responded judgmentally to an action my neighbor took. John would agree with repenting of all those – but it goes deeper. It’s not the actions themselves. It’s the attitude of rebellion against God that they indicate. Those actions are just symptoms of the real problem. And the real problem often comes down to this: I don’t really want God to be King. At least, I don’t want Him to be King of all of it. And that’s not going to fixed by a plan to “stop cussing in 21 days.” It requires a deeper change; a change of identity.

Look at what John says to the religious leaders (both groups): Don’t count on being children of Abraham to save you from the consequences of your self-centered lives. What you have as Jews is not enough (of course, for pagan Gentiles the gap is even greater, but John is talking to Jews). Is the throne room vacant and ready for God to take His seat, or do you still think that you have a right to determine how and when that will happen? Do you have a God that needs to meet your conditions and satisfy your requirements so that you can let Him be in charge? If that’s where you are, Israel – and it is! – the ax and the fire are coming for you.

I want to take a breath here. Some of you might be hearing me say, “You have to have it all together or when God shows up, you are condemned.” Let me be clear. That’s why we need Jesus. That’s why He came to us through the incarnation, born of the virgin Mary, through a life as God fully in the flesh of a man. That’s why the suffering, the death, the burial, and the resurrection were all needed. Because we were never going to get it right. We had to have God visit us in the person of Jesus Christ to take our humanity and transform it into something that could bear the weight of the presence and the glory of God. And He has done that. What John’s baptism could not accomplish, our baptism into Jesus has. We are saved by grace, through trust in the person of Jesus Christ, not by anything we do or don’t do. And also…

Israel was saved by grace as well. The Exodus was grace. The times of deliverance through the judges were grace. The victory over the Philistines through Saul and David was grace. The return from exile was grace. But grace does demand a response. And the response is to let the Gracious Deliverer be king. To turn our back on Herod in all his forms and live in the kingdom of heaven that is already breaking into our lives.

Israel was about to miss it. Not all Israel. Peter, James, and John got it (eventually). Mary Magdalane and Mary (Jesus’ mother) and Salome got it (maybe a little more quickly). Paul got it, even if he had to be hit over the head with it. But in large part, Israel missed it. And the hellfire of Rome would rain down on them and they would be demolished as a nation and a people in ways that would take hundreds of years or more to recover from. What John saw coming, what Jesus saw coming, came to pass. The kingdom of heaven showed up, and the people of God were not ready for it. God Himself appeared, and His people didn’t recognize Him or respond to Him.

Brothers and sisters, Israel was not unique. And they certainly weren’t uniquely wrong. So now, as those who have been grafted into Israel, how do we respond differently? Certainly, the presence of the Holy Spirit in us helps. But I think we face some of the same challenges as Israel – and we could miss it too. So, what does it look like for us to “repent, because the kingdom of heaven is here.”

The kingdom of Herod (and those like him) is sneaky. Most of us aren’t in danger of falling into the obvious rebellions. But the Pharisees weren’t either. And yet, they could fall into the trap of deciding for God what His reign would look like. For one thing, they knew who belonged and who didn’t. There were “good people” and “bad people,” and God was for the “good people” and against the “bad people.” And then Jesus showed up and hung out with all the wrong people. People who could do nothing for Him. People who were broken, needy, and a mess. And He chose to welcome them into the kingdom while some of the “good people” stayed outside. Am I trying to tell God who does and doesn’t deserve His mercy, His time and attention? Then I need to repent, because the kingdom of heaven is here.

The Sadducees had a different route figured out. They knew how important the Temple worship was, and they were willing to work with the kingdoms of this world to keep things going at the temple. If giving in a little to Herod here and Pilate there meant they kept freedom to worship as God had commanded, wasn’t that a worthwhile trade? A few decades later Christians would face the question of offering a pinch of incense to the emperor to escape death. It seems like a small trade-off, doesn’t it? But God, the King of heaven, wants all of us – not some, or most, but all. Am I willing to give the kings of this world something, even something small, to make it easier for me to live the way I want to live? Where am I willing to collaborate with principalities or powers because “that’s just what you have to do to get by in this world”?

John is not concerned about getting by in this world. And he ends up dead. Jesus was not concerned about getting by in this world. And he ends up dead. Stephen, James, Peter, Polycarp, Justin, and centuries of faithful followers decided that they would live for and in the kingdom of heaven. And they ended up dead. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” isn’t a guarantee that you’ll die for your faith. In our context that seems unlikely at the moment. But I think it does guarantee that we will be uncomfortable. That as we live by the teachings of Jesus, we will seem ridiculous. That our abandonment of common sense for the Word of God will cost us in our jobs, our finances, our relationships. But the thing is, the kingdom of heaven really is here. Jesus really has already begun to reign. And we are called to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven forever, beginning now. May God help us by His Holy Spirit to do just that. Amen.