Kalamazoo Mennonite Fellowship
December 6, 2009
Will Fitzgerald
In this season of Advent, the story of John the Baptist is an appropriate one. He is the “forerunner,” as the Orthodox Christians call him, who prepares the way of our Lord. As we are in the season of waiting, John reminds us that waiting doesn’t have to be just a quiet being still, but can be full of activity, expectation, and even fear as large and awesome changes are looming.
John, of course, baptized people. And water from a pond or a well wasn’t good enough: it had to be flowing water; that is, “living” water that reminds of the large change required in our life. We sink beneath the waves, or are laved with rushing water, a picture of death to life, a picture of impurity to purity.
And of course, John preached, warning and urging the crowds that came out to see him in the wilderness that they needed to do something, to make a radical life change. We all have images, I think, of John, standing by the water wearing his animal skins and preaching, preaching, preaching, and baptizing, baptizing, baptizing, with an occasional lunch of honey-covered locusts. We admire his uncompromising stand, speaking up to the religious leaders of whose sincerity he was unsure, and speaking out against wickedness in Herod’s life: something which will eventually cost him his life. And we admire his humility and recognition of Jesus when he comes out to be baptized.
John’s preaching was about God and God’s actions: what God was doing, and what God was going to do. It’s not a comfortable message. John uses several images of how God will move the world towards the Good and away from the Bad, and it doesn’t sound pleasant. God is a farmer with a fruit orchard who will examine the trees. Like a good farmer, God will ruthlessly prune away the non-producing trees, and use the wood for burning. God is a grain farmer, who stands with a winnowing fork in one hand, getting ready to pitch the grain into the wind, letting the wind blow away the lighter, useless chaff; letting the heavier, valuable grain fall into his tarp, ready to be harvested. And just as God burns the non-producing trees, God burns the chaff, which is completely useless.
And John warns us to respond appropriately. We cannot rely on our membership in any group to save us. It’s not enough for us to be children of Abraham (later, of course, Jesus will remind us that if God needed more Jews, God could just make some). It’s not enough for us to have parents who followed God well, or who didn’t follow God well. It’s not enough for us to have the proper label: Mennonite, or evangelical, or Romo-Lutheran, or even “Christian.” It’s not enough for us to be wealthy, or have credibility on the streets, or be living the American Dream. John reminds us that we cannot presume that we come out all right just because we are in the right group. Furthermore, it is not enough to be sorry about the ways we have failed, or rely our our culture and heritage.
What we must do, says John, is to flee from the wrath to come. We don’t have to be dead wood or chaff, or pretend we are good when we are really just poisonous snakes of evil.
What we need to do, says John, is to bear fruit worthy of repentance. That is, we have to start acting the way we want to act, be the people we want to be—or better, the way God wants us to be. Jesus will reveal this Way more fully: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves will be the essence of the fruit we must bear.
But how will we manage this?
But John preaches that another was coming, one who came with a baptism of Spirit and a baptism of Fire, and this is how we will manage it. The Spirit comes and blows away the chaff of all of our unhelpful actions, thoughts and frailties. The Fire comes to burn them away so they will bother us no more.
John preached another was coming, and Jesus did come. He came teaching us the Way to act, a Way that each of us can follow, that doesn’t require us to be in the right group. He came and left his Spirit to give us guidance and life. And, understand, this is not a metaphor: the Holy Spirit is at work in all who believe to help us do the right thing, and fill us with joy and life, and help us to get along with one another. And he comes, and will come, with a fire to burn away the last remaining pieces of chaff and dead wood in our lives.
At Advent and Christmas, we often do special things: light candles, sing and play special music, have parties. But the story of John reminds us that our advent activities should be repentance, belief and action: to turn away from the bad, to believe and rely on God’s Spirit to empower us to do good, and then to do that good. So, this Advent, take some time to ask the Spirit what good you are called to do, and what bad you are called to blow away and burn; and then, simply, do it.