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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many of us have been blessed by the fruit of Carl and Gayle’s land. For example, even if you have not received a supply of figs individually, we have had opportunities together at congregational meals to enjoy their abundance of the sweet, pear-shaped fruit, in both their larger and smaller sizes. Such fruit may seem a bit exotic to us, but figs were one of the more common fruits in the land of the Bible, and so they may well have been in mind when the Bible uses fruit as a figure of speech for the deeds that express one’s type of life, either good or bad. John the Baptizer uses fruit as such a figure of speech in today’s Third Reading, when he calls for crowds to “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance”. And, on this Second Sunday in Advent in the third year of our cycle of readings, when we hear that call as recorded by St. Luke, we hear John the Baptizer give additional details about the kind of fruits that are in keeping with repentance: his command to “bear” such fruit is followed by commands to “share” clothing, “do likewise” with food, not “collect” more than authorized, and to “be content” with wages. With those unique details in mind, the title and theme for this message is “Fruits in keeping with repentance”.
By Divine inspiration, St. Luke early in his Gospel account gives a unique summary of John the Baptizer’s work. With his expressed intent to write an orderly account, St. Luke uniquely ties John’s work to chronological markers in both the secular and sacred worlds. St. Luke uniquely quotes more from Isaiah’s prophecy of John’s work than the other Gospel accounts, and, as I mentioned, St. Luke uniquely includes the details about the nature of the fruits or deeds in one’s life that give evidence of the repentance in one’s heart. The other accounts, however, help us understand something less-clear in St. Luke’s account: why John the Baptizer seems to criticize the crowds that came out to him.
Apparently the crowds that came out to be baptized by him included some leaders of the Jews who were not genuinely repenting. Perhaps they were not receiving John’s baptism at all. Perhaps they were not confessing their sins in connection with his baptism. Perhaps they were counting on their descent from Abraham to save them, or perhaps they were in some other way not bearing “fruits in keeping with repentance”. John the Baptizer goes so far as to call them a “brood of vipers”, offspring, as it were, of that ancient serpent, the devil himself. Snakes flee before a brush fire, and so John asks the Jewish leaders who warned them “to flee” from the coming wrath (wrath like that described in today’s First Reading [Malachi 3:1-7b]). Certainly the Jewish leaders were not heeding John’s warning, or they would be bearing “fruits in keeping with repentance”.
How well do you and I bear “fruits in keeping with repentance”? Probably all of us have been baptized. Probably all of us regularly confess our sins, at least with the church, if not privately to a pastor. Probably all of us could not count on Jewish descent to save us, but probably all of us still in some other way are not bearing “fruits in keeping with repentance” as we should. Perhaps we do not share clothing and food as we should. Perhaps we do not honor the ethics of our professions as we should. Or, perhaps we repeatedly commit and confess the same sin over and over without at least desiring to do better as we should. By nature we are all sinners who deserve nothing but death now and for eternity. John the Baptizer’s timely warning still applies: “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.” Every tree not bearing good fruit is being cut down and thrown into the fire. John the Baptizer’s timely warning calls us to repent.
In St. Luke’s Gospel account, John the Baptizer’s command for us to bear “fruit in keeping with repentance” itself follows the quotation of the voice in the wilderness commanding its hearers to “prepare” the way of the Lord, to “make” His paths straight. The Hebrew words used there can also refer to moral failures. Repentance, both turning from sin and guilt and believing God will forgive that sin and guilt, are clearly in view here, as they are in all of John’s preaching and baptizing. St. Luke uniquely goes on to quote the voice from Isaiah at greater length: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways.” Filling valleys, making mountains and hills low, straightening the crooked, and leveling the rough places—they are hardly things we ourselves can do—whether they refer to improving a literal road for a coming king or whether they refer to preparing the way to our hearts for the Lord—they are hardly things we ourselves can do. Thank God that He Himself both prepares the way to our hearts and came to travel the road to Jerusalem to save us.
The Third Reading’s quotation from Isaiah in some sense sets the structure for all of St. Luke’s Gospel account, as Jesus partway through the account sets His face firmly towards Jerusalem, where He suffered, died, and was buried to save us from our sins. The final line of the Isaiah quotation, that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”, is fulfilled with Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave for you and for me. Not all of the crowds that came out to John the Baptizer were like the Jewish leaders who ignored his message. Some of the crowds, including tax collectors and soldiers, let God’s law show them their sin and let His Gospel show them their Savior from sin, Jesus. They repented and believed and so were forgiven and desired to bear “fruits in keeping with repentance”. You and I similarly let God’s law and Gospel operate in our hearts. When you and I similarly repent and believe, then we are forgiven. And, the forgiveness we receive similarly works in us the desire to bear “fruits in keeping with repentance”.
As the crowds, including the tax collectors and soldiers, received God’s forgiveness in connection with baptism, so we receive God’s forgiveness the ways God gives for us to receive it. St. Luke tells us that “the word of God came to John” and that John baptized those who came to him. God’s Word and Sacraments are the ways He gives for us to receive forgiveness, and they are the means of grace that bring forth from us “fruits in keeping with repentance”. Forgiveness is the purpose and the result of Holy Baptism, where water comprehended in God’s command and connected with the Word works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. There, at the Baptismal Font, our hearts of stone are replaced with hearts of flesh and we are made true children of Abraham and of God the Father, brothers and sisters with Christ. As baptized and absolved children, we desire and so eat the family meal: the Sacrament of the Altar. As John the Baptizer proclaimed and administered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, there, on the altar, Jesus gives bread that is His body and wine that is His blood for the forgiveness of sins. And, where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. In the Sacrament, Jesus Himself is present with us, welcoming us sinners. Through Word and Sacrament God forgives us. In the words of today’s First Reading, He purifies us, and we in response bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord, “fruit in keeping with repentance”. The fruit most in keeping with repentance is being prepared for the Lord when He comes, and such preparation involves listening to the preached Word, turning in repentance, and in faith receiving forgiveness from God’s Means of Grace. Of course, being prepared for the Lord when He comes is not the only “fruit in keeping with repentance”.
We are saved by faith alone, but, the saying goes, faith is never alone! There is an organic relationship between faith and its fruits. Faith in the heart brings forth confession from the lips—such confession from the lips we will hear this day as Tifaney is confirmed in the faith. Such confession is itself “fruits in keeping with repentance”. And, John the Baptizer describes other such fruit: for example, sharing clothing and food with those in need (especially appropriate in John’s wilderness regions where it was cold at night and provisions were scarce). Our congregation’s Titus Fund and its support of Kilgore’s Helping Hands are in keeping with such acts of love of our neighbors, trying to relieve real human need. And, you are always welcome to donate to either. But, there is more that we can do, such as providing transportation to those who lack it. Better that we not ignore the needs of the least of our brothers and sisters in Christ, even at the risk of someone taking advantage of us (which, if it happens, is on them—God will sort out it all out in the end). John’s work in the wilderness for a time drew people away from their ordinary interests and occupations in order to fix their minds on his message and so their spiritual condition. But, John also expected people to go back to their interests and occupations and there bear “fruits in keeping with repentance” according to their vocation, even vocations such as tax collector and soldier that the Jewish leaders considered to be questionable. (You and I might check out the “Table of Duties” in the Small Catechism for descriptions of the “fruits in keeping with repentance” that correspond to some of our vocations.) Each and every vocation has its own temptations and sins, and repentance includes at least the desire to avoid—if not the actual avoiding of—those sins. When we fail to avoid any sin—and so fail to bear “fruits in keeping with repentance”—we nevertheless live each day with repentance and faith that such sin, like all our sin, is forgiven.
God truly has done it all for us. He prepares His own way and comes to us, and, when we let Him, He brings about from us “fruits in keeping with repentance”. Like the abundance of Carl and Gayle’s figs, such fruits are blessings to those around us. With St. Paul praying for the Philippians in today’s Second Reading (1:2-11), we can say:
it is [our] prayer that [our] love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that [we] may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +