A new preacher with the same old message

Sermon for Advent 4

Philippians 4:4-7  +  John 1:19-28

We made it to the fourth candle again this year. There was no guarantee; Christ could have come back before it was lit. Instead, God the Father has chosen to give this world just a little bit longer to get ready for Christ’s second advent. What does the world need in order to be ready? A new word from God? A new revelation? A new message? A new method of delivering the message, perhaps? No, I tell you. What the world needs, and what Christians need, too, is the same old message—the same message that John the Baptist delivered to the people of Israel at Christ’s first advent.

This week, our Gospel takes us back to the early days of John’s ministry there by the Jordan River, in Bethabara, on the eastern side of the river, toward its southern end. He had shown up on the scene out of nowhere, probably some six months earlier, with his strange lifestyle, living out in the wilderness by himself, with long hair that had never been cut, with his strange camel skin garment, and his strange diet of locusts and wild honey and never a drop of wine, and with this strange new sacred act called “Baptism” connected to his preaching. John himself was an anomaly, something new.

Now, in our day and age and place, we’re used to the idea of a person going out and claiming to be a preacher sent from God, performing whatever ritual he comes up with. But that wasn’t so common at the beginning of the first century in Israel, and it certainly wasn’t as acceptable. There was an established priesthood, which God Himself had set up, and His word didn’t allow anyone to take on the priesthood for himself; he had to be born into the right tribe and then chosen for it, called to it through the proper channels.

As it turns out, John was from a priestly family. But no one in the priesthood had appointed him to preach or to administer this sacrament of Baptism. And yet he was doing it, and huge numbers of Israelites were going out to hear him preach and to receive Baptism from him. So the Pharisees, the religious and cultural leaders at that time, had good reason to sent messengers out to John to ask him who he was, or who he thought he was, that he should just get up and preach and baptize.

Who are you? they asked. Now, from their questions, we can tell that, in the Jews’ minds, the only ones outside of the regular priesthood who had the right to do the things John was doing was someone who was directly called by God, and as far as they understood, the Old Testament Scriptures only left three options for who that could be: it had to be either the Christ Himself, or the prophet Elijah, or “the Prophet.” But their questions show how poorly they understood their own Scriptures.

Let me qualify that. There were some Jews at the time who understood the Scriptures very well. Elizabeth and Zacharias, John the Baptist’s parents. Simeon and Anna, whom we’ll meet in the temple shortly after Jesus was born. Gentiles, too—the Magi or wise men. They understood the Scriptures quite well. But the Pharisees and priests had hardened their hearts to the words of the Holy Spirit.

They were not expecting the right things from the coming Christ at all. They certainly weren’t expecting Him to be the Son of God, or to suffer and die, or to make atonement for their sins. But they were waiting for the Christ to come, the promised “Anointed One,” the Son of David who would reign over Israel and over all nations. They could understand it if the Christ stood up and started preaching and baptizing. But John immediately and emphatically denied being the Christ.

Or, they thought, it would be understandable if Elijah stood up and started preaching and baptizing. They thought that Elijah, the man who ascended up into heaven in a whirlwind and a chariot of fire, was coming back. That’s how they interpreted the prophet Malachi’s prophecy in chapter 4: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. That’s a good example of the Jews’ faulty, literalistic interpretation of many Old Testament passages. Just as many prophecies about Israel’s future glory were to be understand figuratively, about the “Israel” of the Christian Church, so the prophecy about Elijah was to be taken figuratively about a man who would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. According to Jesus, that man was, in fact, John the Baptist. But John wasn’t the literal prophet Elijah who ascended into heaven. So when they asked if he was Elijah, he said, “No.”

Or, they thought, he could be the Prophet whose coming was prophesied by Moses in Deut. 18: The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. You shall listen to Him! The Jews understood that prophecy to be about a special prophet who would come before the Christ came. But in reality, that prophecy was about the Christ Himself. And so, again, John denied being “the Prophet” that they had in mind.

But there was another prophet whose coming the Old Testament foretold, a prophet who would be sent directly by God and so authorized to preach and even to baptize. It was the prophet foretold by the prophet Isaiah, the one who would be the forerunner of the Christ. That’s who John claimed to be. Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself? He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

So, in reality, the Old Testament Scriptures (rightly interpreted) only predicted the coming of two important individuals: the forerunner of the Christ (who was also the Elijah Malachi referred to), and the Christ Himself (who was also the Prophet Moses referred to). John was claiming to be that forerunner. That was something new! And the arrival of the Christ, which John was announcing, that was something new!

But John’s message that prepared the people of Israel for the coming of Christ wasn’t really new at all. Make straight the way of the Lord! How were they to do that? Well, it was the summarized in the very first word John began his preaching with: Repent!

Repent! That wasn’t a new command from God. It was the same command all the prophets issued. Repent! It’s the same old message all the prophets had preached, as the prophet Jeremiah said to the people of Israel. The LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, ‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings…Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands.’ John’s message was the message of all the prophets: God has given you His commandments, and you have not obeyed them. He has explained to you in His holy Word what it means to love Him above all things and to love your neighbor as yourself, from the heart, and you have not done it. So repent! In other words, be afraid that you have committed high treason against the God of creation to whom you owe unquestioned obedience. And change how you think! Instead of viewing your actions as acceptable, recognize them as sinful. Instead of viewing sin as no big deal, understand that it has angered God and that He will punish sin, wherever He finds it. Instead of putting off repentance until some future date when you feel like dealing with your sin, do it now! Or you will perish in it!

John may have been a new preacher, but his message was the same old message. And yet, instead of taking to heart John’s message and his claim to be the very forerunner of the Christ, the Jewish envoys thought nothing of it: Why do you baptize, then, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet? They were stuck in their faulty understand of Scripture and indifferent to his message. But John warns them how urgent it is that they listen: I baptize with water. But there stands among you one whom you do not know. It is he who comes after me, who is already ahead of me, whose sandal straps I am not worthy to untie. What does he mean by that?

He means, I’m not the one you have to worry about. I baptize with water for the forgiveness of sins. My Baptism won’t hurt you. I’m not the one who has the power to kill you or to make alive, to send you to hell or to let you into heaven. Those things belong to the One coming after me, who, by the way, is also the One who sent me. Those things belong to the Christ. And His coming is not far off in the distance, so that you can put off preparing for Him. He is near, right at the door.

And that right there is the same old message of every Christian preacher since. Repent, for Christ is near! He is coming soon! He already came once to make atonement for sins by His death on the cross. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So repent now and put your faith in Him. Be baptized in His name for the forgiveness of sins. And then remember your Baptism and rededicate yourself each day to live in it, as those who have been washed clean of sins, not as those who would keep on living in it in impenitence. Christ is coming! And once He is here, standing among you, it will be too late. There will be no preacher then to tell you to repent, only the judgment. So repent now! Trust in Christ now! Then you will be ready to meet Him when He comes! That’s the same old message—the saving message—this world still needs to hear. Amen.