First Reading: Isaiah 11:1-10
1There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 6The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples — of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
Psalm 72:1-7
1Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the King’s Son; 2That he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice; 3That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, and the little hills bring righteousness. 4He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor. 5He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another. 6He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth. 7In his time shall the righteous flourish; there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.
Second Reading: Romans 15:4-13
4Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. 8For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” 10And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” 11And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” 12And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” 13May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12
1In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” 4Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Time
Time. Time is something we seem to either have too much, or not enough of. Take catching a flight for example. If you follow the suggested guidelines of being at the airport 2 hours early, it can seem like forever that you sit at your gate before boarding. However, when you need to make a connection in a different terminal, that same group of minutes seems like it’s never enough. Or consider sitting in traffic. A difference of just 5 minutes leaving the house can change being early in getting to your destination, or, can mean an eternity sitting in traffic. It leaves us to ask, can we really say, a second is a second is a second?
Take a football game. There are 4 15-minute quarters. Yet the last 2 minutes of the game can seem like it takes forever. In those last 2 minutes, suddenly the scoreboard screams those seconds in fractions. The clock moves maddeningly fast if you’re behind and agonizingly slow if you’re ahead. This can partially be attributed to digital technology. However, time wasn’t always measured in 100ths of a second.
Sundials, or solar clocks, in the time of Jesus, measured time slowly, imperceptibly, even majestically. Complicating things further, the hours weren’t the same length all year round. The first hour was sunrise and the last hour was sunset. Noon was midday. That meant the hours were much shorter in late December, and much longer in late June. Centuries went by and the idea of the way time moves didn’t change.
When you and I picture a clock dial, we think of a hand for hours, minutes, and seconds. Yet according to a scholar named Helen Hackett: “…the standard type of clock, [in the 14th century], was one-handed, and the dial hand would rotate slowly, moving round only one-twelfth or one-twenty-fourth of the circumference of the dial in each hour. The notion of the dial hand is therefore not, as modern readers might assume, an image of time racing on, but an image of steady slowness, of progress which is inexorable, yet barely perceptible…” If we want to think of time in a biblical sense, first, we need to slow down. We need to go back, back to the beginning, in Genesis.
On the first day God created light, but it wasn’t until the fourth day that God created the sun and moon to measure time. God set the sun and moon in the heavens so they might serve “for signs and for seasons and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14-19). God created the heavens setting the earth in rotation so that we have the rising and the setting of the sun to mark days, while the phases of the moon correspond to months. The solar year is 365 ¼ days, sort of, while the lunar year is just 354 days, kind of, with an extra month added in to make up for the spare change of the days missed, to make the lunar year keep time with the seasons.
While we think of time as something that can be measured precisely, sliced and diced to the tiniest fractions, for Jesus and His contemporaries, time was a quality defined by light and darkness, the seasons, and the position of the sun and the stars. There was a quality to which God’s people found themselves, waiting for a Messiah, descended from King David, to bring deliverance. When would God do this? Hard to say. After all, as it says in scripture, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Nowadays, we try to be precise.
We pick a day, March 21, or the 20th or the 22nd, depending on when exactly the earth reaches a certain point in its orbit around the sun in a particular year, and we call that the first day of spring. But really, spring can catch us by surprise, arriving early, allowing the columbine and daffodils to emerge with startling speed! Or the grey of winter can drag into April. Then, suddenly, we realize we’re surrounded by God’s created glory. Despite what the calendar says, you really can’t tell when a season begins. But we know it when it arrives.
Then God did something even more astounding with time in that first chapter of Genesis. As I mentioned a moment ago, days, months, and years can be inferred from the creation God gave us. But on the seventh day God rested, and in commanding us to follow that example, God created the week. The week is a totally arbitrary unit of time wrapped in mystery that isn’t related to the solar year — there’s a remainder of one day if you divide 365 days by 7. It’s not related to the lunar month, which is 29 ½ days and isn’t divisible equally by 7 either. Over the centuries, there have been calendar reformers who have insisted we need to ignore the week and create a logical calendar.
After the French Revolution there was a move to create a logical ten-day week. Reformers tried to get us to create a 365-day calendar, where January 1 would fall on a Sunday every year, January 2 on a Monday, and so on, then throw in an extra day every year or an extra two days in leap year that are not attached to any day of the week, but people resisted. Don’t mess with the Sabbath. We live by God’s time.
Because we live by the week, we live by God’s time. God is the timekeeper. God’s viewpoint, whether a day is like a thousand years or vice versa, is the one that counts. When God was about to set His people free from Egypt, He told Moses that “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year (Exodus 12:2). When, in Matthew’s gospel, John the Baptist burst upon the scene “in this day” to tell us it was time to make straight a path through the desert because the Lord’s anointing was coming, he was right on time. God’s time. Time was not to be measured. Time was urgency. We only have today. We can only live in the moment. We can remember the past, but we can’t get back to it. We can look toward the future but only hazily, and we have no guarantee of anything but today.
A thousand years ago and more, another people felt the same urgency to make straight the paths in the wilderness, and to do so without the usual tools we associate with surveying. The ancestral Pueblo people who lived in what we now call the southwest United States lived a hardscrabble life in the deserts, planting and growing corn in every spot where precious rain might fall and crops might grow, hunting the animals that shared their habitat, and living lives that were brief by our standards, 25 – 35 years, judging from the evidence that remains. But in the sun, moon, and stars they saw the measurement of the divine.
These indigenous people built great buildings, not to live in, but for ceremonial purposes, aligning doors, windows, and walls with the days of the solstices and equinoxes, the measure of the seasons. They made roads in the desert, straight and true, for ceremonial processions that led to the place we now call Chaco Canyon, located in northern New Mexico, which was the center of the universe for many of them. Though their lives were short, they knew they were a part of something greater.
John the Baptist came out of the desert, out of the wilderness, to call the people away from the political intrigues of his time, and the frantic necessity of carving out a livelihood in tumultuous times. He came to remember Isaiah’s call to make straight the roads in the wilderness, to recognize something magnificent was happening, and to prepare the way for the Lord. In Isaiah’s time that road was meant to lead people back from exile to the ruins of Jerusalem and the Temple that they might rebuild and restore. In John’s time, the people were to recognize that, in the midst of their short lives, something greater was going on, and they were a part of it. They were preparing to receive the great Messiah, promised in times past, and eagerly anticipated in their time. Great crowds answered the call.
As we read in our Gospel text, both rich and poor, the occupied and the military occupiers, the tax collectors and the overtaxed, religious leaders and those who felt marginalized by their faith, all came to the Jordan to hear John’s message. They didn’t get a text: “Baptismal Service, River Jordan, 10:30.” They heard John shout met-an-o-eh’-o: Repent!, which literally means, turn your mind around, think differently, look at the world in a different way, start walking in a different direction. It’s true —repenting isn’t an action that happens in a moment, repentance requires resolve, but with a change of orientation comes a journey in a totally different direction than before. The kingdom was near — near in the sense that it was rushing closer and closer, but also in the sense that it was already in their midst.
Like many who preach the good news, John started out with the bad news. “You brood of vipers!” he said. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7). But if you could take this strong medicine and listen further — there was hope. John concluded his message by pointing to the One even greater who was coming, the One he was not worthy to carry His sandals for, the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. This is the One for whom we wait in this Advent season. The One who came to take our sins to the cross, and the One who will return to establish His kingdom with His people.
When we gather each Sunday, we try to come on time: we try to start on time. Diane is instrumental in making that happen. The hymns, the prayers, the offerings, the sermon, usually time out pretty close to what we expect each week. Oftentimes, people have dinner in the oven that is timed so that it doesn’t overcook or burn. And much to the pastors’ chagrin, there’s a game on in the afternoon that people are intent on watching. And for many, the timing of the service is critical to beating the Baptists to the buffets. We are creatures too often controlled by our clocks and calendars. Time seems to rule our every waking hour.
Our struggle is that if we’re not careful, we end up being ruled by time, instead of responding to the time and recognizing this is more than the season for baking cookies and sending Christmas cards. Advent is a time to reflect, to repent, and to restore our commitment to Jesus and His coming kingdom. And when you stop and think about it, this is good news! Our King is coming!
The King of all creation came to us to be with us, to show us the Father, and to save us from our sins. When He came, He told His disciple to “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’ (Luke 10:9). The word near means two things. It’s not quite here, but it’s rushing toward us. And it’s not only near, it’s here! It’s so close we need to start living by the rules of the kingdom.
This is the good news that we’re called to share with the world, however, is that the message that the world is hearing from us? We must ask ourselves, what message about this season are we sharing? Are we sharing and showing the message of consumerism, or of compassion, of mercy, or are we manically running from here to there. Is the season about parties or about the joy of Jesus coming to us in a manger. Is it about living for the moment or living for the return of our Lord and King? People need to hear and see the Good News of this season in and from us. To do this we need to live differently.
When John the Baptizer called the people to repent, he said the time was at hand and they needed to prepare. Preparing for Jesus’ coming involves repenting, it involves turning from the things that entrap us, the things that prevent us from placing God first in our lives, it involves recognizing and eliminating those things in our lives that cause us to sin. It’s about contrition, about feeling remorseful and having a desire to live differently. As one of the pastors is fond of saying, we Lutherans are great at confession, the problem is, we refuse to honestly and truly repent. Next, John tells us to bear fruit worthy of repentance.
What does John mean by bearing fruit worthy of repentance? We can think of this statement by asking, what do people see? What is the fruit that people see in us now? Are our words and actions the same as everyone else around us? Or do people see something different in us. If our desire is to serve God with our whole heart, then what people hear and see should be the same things they would see if Jesus were here. If the Holy Spirit truly dwells in us, then our lives should reflect this. Our whole lives should reflect the light of Christ, the compassion of Christ, and yes, the commands of Christ. If Christ is in us, we cannot pick and choose what parts of the Bible we want to follow. We cannot pick and choose which teachings and commands to obey. The Bible is God’s word. The fruit of repentance is to be obedient servants, even when our obedience runs counter to what the world is embracing.
In this season of Advent, John’s message is our message, “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The time is short, and we must be prepared to welcome the King of creation when He returns. When Jesus came, He ushered in God’s kingdom and when He ascended, He entrusted His kingdom in this world into our hands. The time is short for His return, what will He find when He comes back?
Have we been faithfully anticipating His return and bearing fruit for the kingdom, or simply going through the motions? Have we been focused more on ourselves and less on our neighbors? St. Peter reminds us that when the day of the Lord comes, the day of accountability and judgment, it will be like a thief in the night! This is a reference to what Jesus said about the day of the Lord! It’s coming. There’s no telling when. So we should be living like the day of the Lord is upon us, and about to burst into history.
John’s message to the people was to change your mind. Change your perspective. Change your thinking. Change your words and deeds. And why, the time is up. But as faithful followers, we don’t worry about time. Our call is to bear fruit worthy of God’s amazing grace, to serving our neighbor, love our neighbor, and live obedient lives to the glory of God. If this is how we live our lives, then we have no fear of Christ’s return. When we live for the Lord, His return is our source of hope, comfort, and peace. And this peace isn’t a peace as the world gives. The peace of Christ is a peace that assures us of the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
Amen.