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Sermon for Sunday, December 13, 2009

 

Last week Jennifer Dockum introduced us to John the Baptizer (he was not the first Baptist) as the one who was preaching a “preparing the way” sermon for the coming of the Messiah. The word over and over again is to be prepared.  Through Jesus, John says, God is going to do some marvelous works. These words are certainly much harsher than we often want the Christmas story to be. His words are tough, judgmental, demanding. He calls people snakes and you know it was not a term of endearment!  It would be a whole lot more fun to get to the manger without having to stumble over John.  Jennifer put it all in a historical context last week. Let’s add another piece to this. John is the cousin of Jesus or at least his mother, Elizabeth, was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Unlike Mary, Elizabeth, was in her senior years when John was born. Sharp contrasts but both births were preparations that would change the world. 

Well, he certainly did not preach in a comfortable, beautiful church building like ours, but then of course, if you heard him preach, you probably wouldn’t want him to preach in your church. John was a desert preacher. He was the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.”  If you wanted to hear John preaching, you had to go to the desert. The word of God came to the unknown, un credentialed, untrained and unauthorized “John, son of Zechariah,” living off locusts and wild honey in the wilderness.

When I was in school in Louisville one of the courses I had taken required us to visit other churches that were different from what we were use to attending. We went to a store front church, tent revivals, big churches and little churches. In one of the store front churches we quickly realized that this was not like home. It was loud, casual before casual was cool. The worshippers shouted when the preacher shouted. They would wave their hands when the music played. They got the Spirit and they showed it!

At the church most of us attended, it didn’t work like that. We were formal, correct and well dressed. To get a preacher who shouted and whooped and to be in a crowd that shouted and whooped back, you had to go to the other side of town to a tent or store front. You had to go where folks seemed poorer and maybe dispossessed. Some of them were the people whose lives were owned by those in the city church, those who sat in the comfortable pews with the big organ. If you wanted loud and noisy preaching, go to another part of town. If you wanted hellfire and damnation, you weren’t going to find it at 2800 Frankfort Avenue. You had to go to the edge of town. It was a class requirement. Nobody really wanted to hear preaching like that. It was almost entertaining.

Who wants to hear preaching like that anyway?

Well, as it turns out in the region of Galilee there were lots of people, ‘multitudes” Luke says who headed out for the wilderness to hear that kind of preaching. When John was preaching, people wanted to hear and they left the city for the wilderness. They couldn’t get preaching like that in the city, in the Temple.

And when John preached, he got their attention. He would get mine. He called them snakes. If I called you names, I bet I would get your attention. And when he preached he told them that God wanted more from them than what they were giving and living. They were going to have to do something with their lives. He pushed them toward changed lives, repented lives. Remember repentance, to turn around one’s life. He used words like ax, judge, fire, flood. All are change agents in themselves. An ax clears out a forest. A judge clears evil off the streets. A fire clears out underbrush. A flood washes away. His word was “You better do something with the life you have been given.”

I wonder why in the world anybody would go to the wilderness desert to be blasted by the likes of John? After all, people don’t come to the church to be told the truth. They come to be comforted. They come expecting to have all their prejudices and preconceived notions about life confirmed. They come to get stroked and soothed.  And we certainly need a lot of stroking and soothing because life doesn’t always stroke us and soothe us.  And yet people flocked to hear John preach….the ax, the judge, the flood, the fire. Multitudes came to hear a fire breathing preacher who stood, not in a beautiful, warm sanctuary, but in the muddy Jordan and spoke of axes, judgment, flood, fire, repentance.

We don’t have any full text of John’s sermons, but we know from his images that John preached the death of an old world and the out break of a new.  And there was certainly a response. At least three groups were there and all three groups asked the question, “What shall we do?” Three groups…crowds, tax collectors, soldiers…three very different groups, “what shall we do?”

There were probably some incredibly respectable people in the crowd who got offended at John’s words, but there were the ones who asked the question, “What shall we do?” what can we do to change? What can I do to change for the better?” When you begin to ask that question, it is a sign that God has gotten through to you.

Then He gets specific with His answers.

Do you notice what he told them? He called them to life style changes. Share, give a coat away, food to the hungry, a blanket to one that is cold. Don’t cheat, be fair, be content, no violence, no torture. He told them some very specific things they could do in their lives that would make them a part of the One who was coming into the world.  Does John’s answer to the question touch anything in you?

You see, anytime the Spirit of God goes to work on you and gets inside of you, you begin to ask the question, “what can I do? What can we do?” God may move inside of you during a film clip, a paragraph in a book, or two minute conversation standing in line and when God gets inside of you and me, we ask, “What can I do? What can I do to change to make it better?

A pastor tells the story of men’s breakfast he attended and men were having a conversation about Christmas. Some were complaining, ‘christmas costs too much.” Bills show up in January. We’re too materialistic and on and on. To all of this muttering and blubbering, one man suggested, “A trip of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Almost miraculously the conversation change and the men began talking about the first step in their path to generosity. One man told about caring for his elderly grandmother. Another talked about working with young men at the juvenile court. Still another told of caring for handicapped person. Finally, some one looked at Floyd, good old Floyd Leinenger, mid eighties, wearing a red bow tie, using a walker, sagging skin on his face. One knowing man asked, “Tell us your story, Floyd.”  Floyd, in his high pitched voice, quietly said, “My wife and I were married thirty years. We couldn’t have children so we raised seventy two foster children.” Silence. Stone silence. And then the miracle happened. All the men began clapping and clapping and clapping. Just for a moment God walked into the hearts of men.  They were clapping and began to think, “What can I do to be more like Floyd?  To be more generous, more giving? And even more, “what can I do to change? To be more like Christ?”

When we ask the question, God gets specific. That is the way God is.  He got specific through John. That is the way God is, God always gets specific with our lives.

This morning I want to be specific. When you ask the question, “what can I do? What can I do to live a more holy life?” If you have elderly parents, help take care of them. Adopt a person for this season who needs what you can give. Visit the nursing home. More than 60% of the people living in nursing homes never have a personal visitor.  Wrap your arms and heart around a hurting person.  Work in CARITAS. Come by and meet these men. Pick up someone for Sunday School and worship.

A long time ago, the Baptist, the Baptizer was preaching. He was powerful, so powerful that multitudes came tramping through the briars and dust to hear his kind of sermons.  And some of them heard God’s word of redemption from John. Maybe it was just a word, a paragraph, but God got inside of them and started to change their hearts and they wondered what they could do because of a changed heart. Perhaps it is one of the most important questions of life.

At our best, sometimes each of us has a moment of truth when we are forced to admit that we are not the redeemed that God created us to be. Somebody like John holds up a mirror to us and we see our faces as we are. And then we go to our knees and ask for God to take an ax and cut us down, or kindle a fire and purge us, asking for rebirth, cleansing, purifying, change, redemption. John promised the possibility of such a turn around.

Get ready. God is coming. Through the gift of a baby born in a manger in a little no nothing town, God came and tells us that nobody is beyond the reach of a gracious forgiving God, who comes to us so that we might come to him.

John preached that. For those of us here, we still need to know that one of presents from the Presence is the gift of redemption. We might have to meet in the wilderness of our lives like those early multitudes did. Pay attention. Be willing to change the direction in which you are headed, and turn into another direction. You already have all you need in order to follow Jesus, right here, right now.

Maybe that is why John’s sermon, harsh sounding as it is, is called by Luke “good news” (3:18). Gospel. To all of you who live in some out of the way place, who live ordinary lives, engaged on rather ordinary, everyday affairs, there is good news. God’s Great Gift is coming and he is coming to you. He calls you and me where we are to follow Him and in the process, be redeemed. No wonder it is called Good News.

Prayer

Lord, you were born among us. You took up residence in our world. You came to say You love us. You stooped out to us and reached out to us so that we can reach out to You. We lift before you the needs of our world, injustice, those who lives amid wars and rumors of wars, the suffering, the sad.

And we lift up ourselves. Come to us in our need. What we need is newness, change, birth, redemption. What we need is only what you can give. We don’t need just some minor moral tinkering. We need new selves. You gave us the gift of our lives. Now help us to be bold to pray for new lives.  Come to us, Lord Jesus.  We need you. Amen.

Contact Us

Address
First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

Phone
(804) 798-9014

Fax
(804) 798-9043

E-mail
fbcashland@verizon.net

Sunday Worship

  8:30 a.m. -  Worship Service
  9:45 a.m. -  Sunday School
11:00 a.m. -  Worship Service