“What Kind of Fruit can a Brood of Vipers Bear?”
Luke 3:7-18
12/17/06
The last words of today’s Gospel text read,
“And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached
the good news to them.” My question is, “What good
news?!” Apart from his mention of Jesus baptizing with the
Holy Spirit and with fire (where even fire is a reference to
God’s judgment), there doesn’t seem to be much good news in
John’s preaching at all. He begins his sermon by saying to
the crowds, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee
from the coming wrath?” He then proceeds to tell them, whom
he has just called a bunch of snakes, to produce fruit in keeping with
repentance. He tells them that they can’t rely on their
pedigree, as if being offspring of Abraham could help them. He
warns them that God’s judgment is coming and that like one
getting ready to chop down an unfruitful tree with an axe, so
God’s going to get rid of all those who aren’t producing
the fruits of repentance and throw them in the fire. The people
are so terrified at this prospect that they ask John, “What do we
do?” But instead of telling them something like,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,” he tells
them to do good things for their neighbor. To the crowds in
general he tells them to share their clothing with those in need.
To the tax-collectors he tells them not to collect more taxes than
they’re supposed to. And to the soldiers he tells them not
to take money away from people by force, not to accuse anyone falsely,
and to be content with their wages. Then, when he finally does
start talking about Jesus, he doesn’t mention His work of
redemption. Unlike what he says in the Gospel of John, that Jesus
is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, here John
focuses on the final judgment and how Jesus is going to save the
“wheat” (whoever that is) but burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.
So, where’s the Gospel in all of this??
I hear very few words of comfort here. In fact, I hear more words
of comfort from both the O.T. and Epistle lessons for today than I do
from this portion of the Gospel. If we were given this text
alone, if all we had of the Bible were these words, I’d venture
to say that most of us would become a bunch of legalistic pietists,
depending upon our good works and behavior to save us from God’s
wrath.
But look at how impossible this would be. John
calls us a brood of vipers. Essentially, he’s calling us
children of the devil. We are bunch of snakes, children of the
devil, because we’re sinners and enemies of God from birth.
Now, if that is what we are by nature, how can we possibly produce the
fruit of repentance? Note the other metaphor - the fruitless
tree. If a fruit tree doesn’t bear fruit, there’s
gotta be something wrong with it. Maybe it should just try
harder. Will it produce fruit if you yell at it and threaten it
enough? No! We are forced to conclude that sick trees
either produce bad fruit or no fruit at all, and that poisonous snakes
produce only more poisonous snakes. The only way things could be
otherwise is if these poisonous snakes and sick trees were to be
changed into something else, something that they’re not. So
you too cannot begin to produce the fruit of repentance, unless you are
changed and become something other than you are.
And here’s where we finally discover some
Gospel in this text. It is precisely this changing of one thing
into something else that John makes mention of when he talks about
God’s ability to make children of Abraham out of stones.
Now, the Jews considered themselves children of Abraham. After
all, they were his physical descendants. Hearing John refer to
them as a brood of vipers, they would have taken great offense.
But John does not see mere physical descendants of Abraham as
Abraham’s true children. Ishmael, after all, was a physical
descendant of Abraham - his first-born son, and yet he wasn’t
heir of God’s promises that God would bless the whole world
through him. Isaac was the one God chose from whom the Messiah
would come, in whom all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. And so, the true children of Abraham were always
children by faith in God’s promises. Even Isaac was a true
child of Abraham only by faith in these promises. Had he not
believed God, he would not have been declared righteous as his father
had been. And the Apostle Paul drives this home in his letter to
the Roman Christians where he writes that “not all who are
descended from Israel are Israel,” and “He is not a Jew who
is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the
flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is
that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his
praise is not from men but from God.”
So, only those Jews who were of the faith of Abraham
were the true children of Abraham. But most Jews thought they
were Abraham’s children simply because they were his
descendants. And while they thought this of themselves, they
considered the Gentiles (or all non-Jews) to be stones - not only
stones, but also things like weeds and wild beasts. But notice
what John says to the Jews: He says, “Don’t begin to
say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for
Abraham.” What stones is he talking about? The
literal stones lying there on the ground? Why not? God
created Adam from the dust of the earth in the beginning. If He
could do that, why couldn’t He raise up children for Abraham
using stones? When the Pharisees told Jesus to rebuke His
disciples for praising Him upon His entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus
answered them by saying, “I tell you, if these become silent, the
stones will cry out!” And if God could raise up children
for Abraham from the stones to sing His praises, then He would have no
trouble raising up children for Abraham from among the Gentiles, which
is exactly what He has done by bringing them to repentance and faith in
His Son, Jesus Christ.
You are those stones which God has raised up to be
the true children of Abraham. You have been transformed from one
thing - a brood of vipers and fruitless trees - to another - children
of God who live under God’s mercy and show that mercy towards
others. This is the work of God on you, not your own, and it was
done to you at your Baptism. There your heart of stone was
removed and you were given a heart of flesh. There you were
sprinkled with the blood of Christ, your sins were removed, and you
were clothed with Christ and His righteousness. There at your
Baptism Jesus baptized you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
With the Holy Spirit given you you are being transformed daily into the
image of Christ, reflecting His mercy towards others, and with the
refining fire of God’s Word your sins are daily being nailed to
the cross of Christ, where they suffer His fiery baptism of death and
subsequent burial, and a new you arises daily with Christ to live
before Him in righteousness and purity now and forever.
Having been brought to baptism and to faith in Jesus
Christ crucified for you, you are now true Israelites, God’s
righteous and holy people. Like Abraham you believe God’s
promises to you in Jesus, and it is credited to you as
righteousness. And as you have now received mercy from God and
are new creatures in Jesus, you can and will produce the fruits of
repentance. What are these fruits of repentance? Faith
towards God and fervent love towards one another. What does this
faith towards God look like? Trust in His Word, confession of His
Word, the reception of the gifts of His Word and Sacraments with praise
and thanksgiving. One who believes God takes hold of the cross of
Christ daily and reminds himself that he is baptized, that he has been
declared righteous, and that he has eternal life in Jesus. The
axe and fire of God’s judgment are not going to fall upon you;
they fell upon Jesus, so that you might be spared.
How, then, will this affect the way you live before
your neighbors? What does fervent love towards one another look
like? As you give yourself over to the Word of God, as the Holy
Spirit works in you through that Word, you will live in mercy towards
others. This is what Jesus wills for His disciples when He tells
them to be merciful as their heavenly Father is merciful. Mercy
is love in action towards others. It sees people in need and
helps them. This includes their need for forgiveness, as you
forgive them their sins against you just as God has forgiven you your
sins against Him. Such was your Lord’s mercy towards
you. God saw you in your stone-dead state and He had compassion
on you. He made you alive in Christ Jesus. He crucified
your old nature with Jesus and raised you up with Him as new creatures
through Baptism, washing away all your sins. Your debt has been
paid in full; all your sins have been forgiven. Now you can be
merciful to others as the Lord has had mercy on you.
Mercy is a sign that we are new creatures in
Christ. It shows that the Lord has brought us to repentance and
faith. When John told the crowds, the tax-collectors, and the
soldiers to produce the fruits of repentance, he was telling this to
stones upon whom God had had mercy and had transformed into children of
Abraham. What resulted was the showing of mercy through acts like
sharing clothing with those in need, not over-taxing people, not taking
money from people by force, not falsely accusing them, and not being
discontent. In fact, acts of mercy look a lot like the works of
the second table of the ten commandments, which serve as a guide for
how to live in mercy towards others.
Stones that have been transformed into children of
Abraham/children of God realize that they have been transformed by
God’s grace in Jesus and that their subsequent acts of mercy and
love towards others are not what make you righteous, but that you do
these works because you are righteous through faith in Jesus.
So, there is good news in John’s sermon after
all, and that is that God has had mercy on you in Jesus, who by
baptizing you with the Holy Spirit and with fire has changed you from
being vipers, stones, and fruitless trees into living children of
God. Live under that mercy and live in mercy towards others, and
you will show yourselves to be His true disciples, wheat that will be
gathered into His barn on the last day. Amen.