“The Proclamation of Repentance, No Mere Curiosity”
Matthew 11:2-15
12/16/07
You’ve all no doubt found yourselves in one of
those situations on the freeway where there’s an accident on the
road, and everyone just has to slow down to see it. And
it’s so infuriating, especially when the accident is on the other
side of the road, because then there’s absolutely no reason why
traffic on your side should slow down. The only reason it does is
because people are curious. And for the most part it’s not
because they’re concerned; they simply want to know what’s
going on. We’re like that when we watch the news.
There we hear of wars, murders, kidnappings, and natural catastrophes
all the time, and we might shake our heads and offer up a prayer once
in a while, but most of the time it doesn’t even phase us.
We’re rarely moved to action. I don’t know about you,
but I just keep on eating my dinner as I watch one piece of bad news
being reported after another. Even the newscasters don’t
seem to really care about what they’re reporting, as they can be
telling us about some school shooting one minute and then with big
smiles on their faces the next minute be talking about the latest
Christmas gift ideas or ball game scores.
People in Jesus’ day were no different.
For them, John the Baptist was a source of curiosity. Think of
how you might respond if he were around today, baptizing and preaching
down at the beach. He would certainly gather around him a number
of looky-loos, who would come simply because they were curious to know
what he was doing. He might even make the local news, which
we’d watch while sitting in our easy chairs, and we’d say
to ourselves, “What an idiot! Who is this religious
fanatic? Another homeless nut who ought to be put in a
shelter!” The people who did come out to see John came to
see him for various reasons: some came because they thought John
was some unstable fanatic, an itinerant televangelist-type preacher, a
reed shaken by the wind, and this aroused their curiosity; others came
because they were curious about the lifestyle of this
televangelist-type preacher, thinking he’d be dressed in soft
clothing and living like a king. Such is the image that many
televangelists today try to pass off as a Christian’s right, as
if we’re supposed to be healthy, wealthy, and successful.
Maybe John might help us achieve that kind of lifestyle with whatever
10-step program he might be preaching. Still others came because
they thought John was a prophet. He was acting like one, after
all, and the prophets of old used to put on some good shows - calling
down fire from heaven, predicting droughts, famines, and other
catastrophes, as well as performing miraculous signs and wonders.
What might John do?
No, we’re not all that different from the
people of John’s day. Had we been around then, we would
have been curious about John, too, and gone out to see him just to find
out for ourselves what he was all about. It’s like what
happens when a congregation calls a new pastor. All kinds of
people who normally never come to church come to hear him preach for
the first time, just because they’re curious about him. But
then when their curiosity is satisfied they stay away once more, never
darkening the door of the church again until another new pastor comes
along.
But Jesus will not allow us to remain
looky-loos. John is not simply a source of curiosity, but he is
the forerunner and ambassador of Christ, the messenger prophesied by
Malachi in the O.T. who would prepare the way of the Lord by leading
people to repentance. John is not some entertainer that you can
sit and watch at a distance, comfortably seated in your easy
chair. He brings you an urgent message: Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Your King came to you humble and
riding on a donkey to give His life for you on the cross; He comes to
you today through His Word and Sacraments to deliver His salvation to
you; but He’s also coming to gather the wheat into His barn and
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, and the only way to be
prepared for that coming is to live in repentance, confessing your
sins, receiving the forgiveness He won for you on the cross, and
producing the fruit of repentance - faith towards God and love towards
your neighbor - by the power of the Holy Spirit.
You can’t sit on the fence. God’s
messengers today, His called and ordained servants of His Word, call
you to the same thing that John called the people of his day, saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Going
to church is no spectator sport. People come to church for many
reasons, most of which have nothing to do with why they ought to be
coming. They come for entertainment; perhaps they like the music,
the choir, the band, or the organist. They come because they like
the pastor’s personality. They come because they like the
social interaction and being around people. They come because
they like the various programs the church offers. Or they come
because they feel like they have to come. But few of them come
anymore to confess their sins and receive God’s forgiveness for
Christ’s sake. Few of them come to be prepared to meet Him
who comes to them in the Name of the Lord. And yet that is what
the ministry of the pastor is all about - proclaiming repentance and
faith in Jesus, in order to prepare you to receive Him when He comes,
so that you might not fall under His fiery wrath, but be gathered into
the safe haven of His heavenly barn.
Now, around this time of the year many of us have
company over for the holidays. And what do you do when you know
company is coming over? (I know the women here know what to do if
the men don’t!) You put the house in order. You
dust. You clean. You vacuum. You prepare for your
guests’ arrival. But you’ll notice from today’s
text that it’s not the people who did the preparing to receive
their Savior when He came to them. It was John. He was the
one who was sent to prepare the Lord’s way before Him. And
yet, John’s message to the people was, “Prepare the way of
the Lord; make His paths straight.” Now, this sounds like a
contradiction. The people were told to prepare the way of the
Lord, and yet John was sent to prepare the way of the Lord. How
do we understand this? Very simply: It was John’s
command to repent that worked that very repentance in them.
Through John’s preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand,” the Holy Spirit worked repentance in the hearts of
the people. In this way, then, John prepared the way of the
Lord: by calling people to repent and then by baptizing them for
the forgiveness of their sins. And by repenting of their sins and
being baptized, the people prepared the way for the Lord. Since
John is not around today, God prepares the way of the Lord now through
the ministry of pastors. With His Word in the mouths of these
called and ordained servants, God calls you to repentance, working that
repentance in your hearts by His Spirit, then He baptizes you for the
forgiveness of your sins. And as you repent and remember your
Baptism, trusting in the forgiveness of sins that God delivered to you
there, you prepare the way of the Lord. In this way God removes
all hindrances which would keep you from receiving your Savior when He
comes to you.
So, then, when I proclaim to you that you are
infected with the leprosy of sin, and as a result are a poor, blind,
lame, deaf, and dead sinner before God, I’m not just giving you a
bunch of trivial information, something that might make you curious,
but which you dismiss and disregard in the end. Instead,
I’m telling you the truth of what the Word of God says about you,
so that you might believe it and confess, “Yes, the Word of God
is true; I am poor, blind, lame, deaf, and dead before God, infected
with the leprosy of sin, and I cannot help myself.” That is
repentance, when you acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you are
guilty of all sins, even the ones you’re not aware of. But
then when I tell you that you have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who gives
sight to the blind, causes the lame to walk, cleanses lepers, causes
the deaf to hear, raises up the dead, and preaches good news to the
poor, this too is no bit of trivia, but the greatest comfort to you,
because it means that Jesus has taken care of your sins on the cross,
that He has raised you up and washed you clean in the healing waters of
your Baptism, and that now you live under God’s mercy and
forgiveness. And you can believe this Word also, because
it’s God’s promise to you in Jesus, who kept God’s
commandments for you, lived in perfect obedience to His Father for you,
gave His life on the cross to atone for your sins with His blood, and
rose again from the dead to bring you who were far away near to
God. Like John, Jesus, too, is no mere source of curiosity, but
the Christ, the Son of the living God, the King of the Jews, and the
Savior of the Gentiles as well.
Having been brought to repentance and faith by the
Holy Spirit, you are now prepared to receive your Lord when He comes to
you. He comes to you today through His Word, through your
Baptism, through the Gospel of the forgiveness of your sins, and
through His Holy Supper. Here in these things the kingdom of
heaven comes among us and we are brought under our Lord’s
gracious rule. He does not come to us today to pour out His
wrath, but to pour out His mercy upon us and to deliver the salvation
to us that He won for us on the cross. In His kingdom we are kept
safe from God’s judgment which will be poured out on the Last
Day, so that when He comes for us on that day, we will not have to fear
being the chaff that He will burn with unquenchable fire, but through
faith in Jesus we can know right now that we are the wheat that will be
gathered into His barn. And the fruits of repentance which the
Holy Spirit produces in our lives (that is, our faith towards God and
our love towards one another) are evidence of the fact that we are the
Lord’s wheat, evidence of the fact that we do belong to Him.
And so, the Baptist’s call to repentance is
not to be taken lightly. It’s not a matter of indifference,
like so many of the curiosities of life that attract our attention one
minute, but are dismissed and disregarded the next. The call to
repentance is the call to confess our sins, to acknowledge that we are
poor helpless sinners before God who deserve nothing but His judgment
and wrath. But it is also a call to confess that we have a Savior
who has done everything necessary to achieve our salvation. Jesus
became the poor helpless sinner in your place on the cross, suffering
God’s wrath upon Himself, purchasing you with His blood,
“so that you might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and
serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness,
just as He is risen from the dead, and lives and reigns for all
eternity.” It is His way that John the Baptist prepared and
that pastors prepare today as they proclaim repentance and forgiveness
of sins in His Name to all nations. And as you repent of your
sins and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, you too will
prepare His way, both as He comes to you today to deliver His salvation
to you and also when He comes for you on the Last Day to deliver you
from the unquenchable fire of God’s wrath and to take you to live
with Him in His kingdom of glory forever. Amen.