Matthew 3:1-12
You brood of vipers! It seems a little cruel, maybe even a little extreme. Is John trying to scare his audience away? Evidently he hasn't heard about numbers and appeal. He didn't go to the same school Paul or Isaiah did as they are both promoting peace and unity today. But is it really disunity that John is promoting or is he just being honest and transparent?
Tonight I went and watched a Radio Show of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. In it, well you know, you know Ebenezer Scrooge, you know how mean he is when it starts and you see him transformed slowly from the person he is to the person he was meant to be. If John met him he would have probably told him to repent, he probably would be a viper. Why? Because Scrooge doesn't believe in any kindness or compassion. Scrooge believes in money, money for himself, money he can store up for himself and no one else.
By the end of the play Scrooge, because of his encounters with the three ghosts, changes. He is kinder, gentler, more fun. He has truly repented and totally changed himself into someone new. Paul says in Romans that we must not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It's a tall order to think of transformation yet it is something we are called to do. Something we are called to do today. Repent says John, actually turn around, face another direction, be transformed.
See transformation involves our hearts. It involves us being willing to surrender our own selves. This is what the Pharisees and Saducees do not want to do. They want to go through the motions, put on the show of checking out this phenomena in the wilderness dressed in camel's hair and eating locusts and wild honey. They don't really want their hearts, or their very self affected by what they are doing. They are not willing to let go of the way things have always been done or what they believe. Neither does Scrooge at first, with each visit he becomes more and more attuned to the way he is living is a way to death. These are the very glimpses the last visitor gives him.
It would be hard to face our own death, it is hard to see where the new life may be and yet somehow Scrooge finds it in a total change of heart and character. Jesus asks us to follow this way. This is the way John shows us. A way in which the rough places are made plain, a way in which one crying out against the many is heard, a way in which we surrender ourselves to be made anew.
It is hard, it is even scary, yet this is what the journey of Advent leads us on. If we want the visions of unity to ring true we must turn around and give our full heart to Jesus. It shouldn't be so hard. We just have to show up to the simple places, a stable that smells of animals, in front of a babe where all we have to offer is our heart, our very selves. Mary and Joseph did before he was even here, before they knew what it would all entail.
Repent you brood of vipers. Don't flee from the way which will transform your very soul. Yes, you may lose it all, all you had planned. There is another way to start though. Come join the way of love.
You brood of vipers! It seems a little cruel, maybe even a little extreme. Is John trying to scare his audience away? Evidently he hasn't heard about numbers and appeal. He didn't go to the same school Paul or Isaiah did as they are both promoting peace and unity today. But is it really disunity that John is promoting or is he just being honest and transparent?
Tonight I went and watched a Radio Show of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. In it, well you know, you know Ebenezer Scrooge, you know how mean he is when it starts and you see him transformed slowly from the person he is to the person he was meant to be. If John met him he would have probably told him to repent, he probably would be a viper. Why? Because Scrooge doesn't believe in any kindness or compassion. Scrooge believes in money, money for himself, money he can store up for himself and no one else.
By the end of the play Scrooge, because of his encounters with the three ghosts, changes. He is kinder, gentler, more fun. He has truly repented and totally changed himself into someone new. Paul says in Romans that we must not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It's a tall order to think of transformation yet it is something we are called to do. Something we are called to do today. Repent says John, actually turn around, face another direction, be transformed.
See transformation involves our hearts. It involves us being willing to surrender our own selves. This is what the Pharisees and Saducees do not want to do. They want to go through the motions, put on the show of checking out this phenomena in the wilderness dressed in camel's hair and eating locusts and wild honey. They don't really want their hearts, or their very self affected by what they are doing. They are not willing to let go of the way things have always been done or what they believe. Neither does Scrooge at first, with each visit he becomes more and more attuned to the way he is living is a way to death. These are the very glimpses the last visitor gives him.
It would be hard to face our own death, it is hard to see where the new life may be and yet somehow Scrooge finds it in a total change of heart and character. Jesus asks us to follow this way. This is the way John shows us. A way in which the rough places are made plain, a way in which one crying out against the many is heard, a way in which we surrender ourselves to be made anew.
It is hard, it is even scary, yet this is what the journey of Advent leads us on. If we want the visions of unity to ring true we must turn around and give our full heart to Jesus. It shouldn't be so hard. We just have to show up to the simple places, a stable that smells of animals, in front of a babe where all we have to offer is our heart, our very selves. Mary and Joseph did before he was even here, before they knew what it would all entail.
Repent you brood of vipers. Don't flee from the way which will transform your very soul. Yes, you may lose it all, all you had planned. There is another way to start though. Come join the way of love.
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