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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.
Some heavy rain has fallen in the past few days, and more heavy rain is expected: welcome rain in East Texas where, as of Thursday, some areas are still said to be experiencing moderate or severe or even extreme drought. I know some people who were trying to burn agricultural or other materials before the rain made such burning difficult if not impossible. No amount of rain can prevent the kind of burning we heard about in today’s Gospel Reading, however, the kind of burning connected with God’s judgment. As John the Baptizer preaches still today, what prevents that kind of burning is our being wheat gathered into the Lord’s barn instead of our being chaff burned in hell. So this morning as we consider the Gospel Reading our theme is “Gathered or Burned”.
At least one source apart from the Bible attests to John the Baptizer’s “great popularity” (Albright and Mann, ad loc Mt 3:5, 25), but it is the Bible itself that gives us inspired and therefore inerrant reports about John: his appearing according to Old Testament prophecy, his garments and diet, and his preaching, including John’s speaking to the Jewish leaders (who are examples of not only disbelief but also opposition to Jesus), but especially John’s calling all people to repentance and pointing to the One coming after him, the One Who clears His threshing floor and gathers His wheat into the barn and burns the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Are you and I “wheat to be gathered” or “chaff to be burned”? The commands that we heard John the Baptizer give in the Gospel Reading this morning help us answer the question of whether we are “wheat to be gathered” or “chaff to be burned”. Somewhat mixing his metaphors, John said “repent”, which St. Matthew by Divine inspiration likened to “prepare the way” and “make straight paths”. John said “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” and “do not presume” some other basis of salvation apart from such repentance that is evident by its fruit.
One of the first things that we have to realize is that, apart from God’s enabling call to repent and bear repentance’s fruit, we on our own cannot repent or bear such fruit. By nature we are dead in original and actual sin, our hard-heartedness making us like unto the stones from which John said God could raise up children for Abraham, as in fact God does in the case of all who do repent. God’s enabling call through John the Baptizer brought people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and even other regions about the Jordan River. Yet, not all who came to John’s baptism truly repented. Like the Jewish leaders, we must consider whether we are bearing fruit in keeping with repentance—such as turning in sorrow from our sin and trusting God to forgive our sin and wanting to do better than to keep on sinning—and we must consider whether we are presuming some other basis of salvation—such as longtime church membership or the things we do that are not motivated by our sorrow over sin and trust in God’s forgiveness.
John the Baptizer could already say it in his time, so all the more is it true in our time, that the axe is laid to the root of the tree and that every tree that does not bear good fruit of repentance and faith is cut down and thrown into the fire of hell. God’s righteous wrath over sin—all ungodliness and unrighteousness (Romans 1:18)—and the judgment that wrath brings is clear. Unrepentant sinners are not annihilated in death or quickly burned up in hell, but, as dead wood or chaff from the threshing floor, they will burn forever in unquenchable fire, unless they repent.
With good reason John the Baptizer is sometimes called “the fiery preacher of repentance”, but he would not be preaching true repentance if he were not pointing, as he does, to the One coming after him, mightier than him. Indeed, St. Paul in his preaching recorded in the book of Acts speaks of how John pointed to Jesus (Acts 13:24-25; 19:4). As God in human flesh, Jesus was the Kingdom of Heaven at hand, the reign of God come to earth. John the Baptizer not only pointed to Jesus as the One Who clears His threshing floor, as we heard in the Gospel Reading this morning, but elsewhere in Holy Scripture we hear how John also repeatedly pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 42). Today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 11:1-10) “announces the far-reaching impact” of Jesus’s reversing the effects of sin (Gieschen, CPR 27:1, 20). On the cross, Jesus was sacrificed for your sin and mine, including our failures in regards to repentance, so that, when we repent, for Jesus’s sake, God then forgives all our sin. When we repent, we are those of faith and so true children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7; Romans 4:12), as today’s Introit addressed us (Psalm 105:4-8; antiphon Isaiah 40:3b). When we repent, we are no longer chaff to be burned by the unquenchable fire Jesus brings but wheat to be gathered by the Holy Spirit Whom He gives to us.
Remarkably, some 700 years beforehand, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah about John the Baptizer, and then, after hundreds of years of silence, God spoke through John the Baptizer about Jesus Christ. Such faithful preaching of God’s Word through those whom God sends notably leads those who hear also to receive God’s Word in its Sacramental forms: Holy Baptism, individual Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. Those hearing John were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins, in order for those sins to be forgiven (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). Holy Baptism’s importance is evident in St. Matthew’s Gospel account here at its beginning and also at its end, where it is one of the means of making disciples of all nations, including those who are eight days old, eight years old, and eight decades old.
The Holy Spirit Whom Jesus gives us in Holy Baptism sanctifies (or makes us holy) and keeps us in the true faith. The Holy Spirit leads us to repent daily and so live in God’s forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit leads us privately to confess to our pastor the sins we know and feel in our hearts for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. The Holy Spirit leads us in faith worthily to receive bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. In such ways the Holy Spirit gathers and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith, richly and daily forgiving our sins and the sins of all believers (Small Catechism II:6).
After hearing today’s Gospel Reading, we have appropriately considered whether we are to be “Gathered or Burned”. Generally one does not tell either a fruit tree to bear good fruit or kernels of wheat to be kernels of wheat, but we do hear Holy Scripture, such as today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 15:4-13), which quotes today’s Old Testament Reading, encourage our good works, including our living together in harmony in accord with Christ Jesus. To be sure, we do have a role to play in our own sanctification (our being made holy), at least examining ourselves to see if we are resisting the Holy Spirit. But, as we live with daily sorrow over our sins and trust in God’s forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we thank God the Father both that His Son has died on the cross and done all that is needed for our justification and that His Holy Spirit brings about our sanctification. In the Name of that Triune God, we look forward to His resting place that will be glorious.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +