In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
(Luke 3:1-9)
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He’s one of the more intriguing characters in the Bible. John the Baptist. A messenger. The new Elijah, as Jesus called him. And a fascinating figure. He was a relative of Jesus - a cousin, apparently, and six months older than Jesus (according to Luke’s Gospel) - but we don’t really know if they had spent any of their boyhoods together, although they may have known of each other. As Jesus grew in wisdom, John the Baptist felt a calling to be a messenger to God’s people - bringing a message of repentance and forgiveness through baptism. John’s relationship with Jesus was a complex one. When Jesus appeared at the Jordan, John recognized him as Messiah - “behold - the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” - and he claimed to be unworthy not only to baptize Jesus, but to even untie his sandals. On the other hand, a little later, John began to have doubts. He sent his own disciples to Jesus to ask “are you the one? Or is someone else coming?” It was a complicated, somewhat cautious relationship, characterized on John’s part by both great faith and nagging doubt. Doesn’t that make John the Baptist just a little bit like the rest of us? We’re similar in other ways too. Just like John the Baptist, we’re called to be messengers for God, preparing the way for whatever work it is that God will choose to do, even though we may not fully understand what that is! So John the Baptist is an example for us. How do we bring the message God gives us to the world?
The strange thing is that if you were to meet John the Baptist on the street today, you probably wouldn’t expect him to be God’s messenger. We have so tamed God’s message that any messenger who seems out of the ordinary is probably summarily dismissed. We’d dismiss John the Baptist. We wouldn’t give him a second thought. The Gospel of Luke doesn’t really do John the Baptist justice. To get the full picture you have to dive into Mark’s Gospel. Mark tells us that John wore a coat of camel hair. Camel hair is hard and sharp and tough. A shirt made of camel hair wouldn’t just be uncomfortable to wear - it would be downright painful! Mark tells us that John had a rather unusual diet - among other things, he ate locusts. Now I know that insects are supposed to be almost all protein and that incorporating insects into your diet (as many cultures do) isn’t actually a bad thing - but, still, I’ll pass. John the Baptist dressed differently and ate differently. He preached differently, too. As he spoke to the crowds in today’s passage, the first words out of his mouth were, “You brood of vipers!” Preachers don’t usually begin their sermons by comparing their congregations to a bunch of snakes! And yet, in spite of the fact that John the Baptist wore strange clothes and ate strange food and insulted those who came to hear him preach - the crowds did, in fact, come. Did they come for the show? Was he a first century version of Donald Trump? Somebody that no one took especially seriously but who everyone was strangely drawn to? Well, many people accepted his baptism, so they must have taken him seriously. How do we explain this strange phenomenon? And I wonder - if John the Baptist were to appear in our midst today, how would we react to him? If John the Baptist had turned up outside the church this morning wearing a camel hair shirt, eating locusts and calling all of us snakes as we walked inside - we’d think he was crazy, and we might call the police, no matter how much he talked about God. But we would notice him. We couldn’t ignore him. And people noticed John the Baptist. They didn’t ignore him.
People kept coming to him. It’s fascinating. When God needed a messenger, God didn’t choose a powerbroker or a king or a millionaire or a political leader. God sent John the Baptist, who was about as far removed from society’s elite as you could possibly get. And let’s face it - a person who just blends in wouldn’t make a very good messenger for God. Whatever else you might say about him - John the Baptist did not blend in. You might agree or disagree with his message about repentance - and you might even think he was crazy - but you couldn’t ignore him. Maybe the most important thing John the Baptist teaches us is that we should be prepared to hear the word of God coming from the most unexpected people. And the word of God (according to John the Baptist) began with “you brood of vipers!”
I don’t think John was talking specifically about the people who were gathered around him. I think he was talking about the entire society of which they were a part. John was attacking the moral and ethical decay that the world around him was suffering from. He was attacking the religious practices of his day, which had become so formalized that they had long since ceased to have any real meaning in the lives of most of the people who took part in them. Do moral decadence and religious emptiness sound suspiciously familiar? Our world is very different from that of John the Baptist, but are we really any more moral? We may be more moralistic, but that’s not the same thing. Our religion is very different from that of John’s time, but is it really any more vibrant and alive and passionate, or have we allowed religious duty to become more important than a deeply felt spirituality and a transforming relationship with God? To be blunt, I’m not sure that John’s message to us would be much different than his message to those gathered on the banks of the Jordan River so long ago. Having John the Baptist preach to us might actually be a good thing. He would certainly awaken us from our slumber and jar us out of our respectable religious practices and moralistic sensibilities into something new and different - into a new and vibrant and living relationship with God.
God has given us a message to share: that this time of year is about more than shopping, shopping, and more shopping. It’s not about glitter; it’s not about who has the biggest light display or the tallest Christmas tree. It’s about being humble, and serving others. Followers of Jesus should be challenging the orgy of consumerism that breaks out every December. Perhaps we’re not called to wear camel hair shirts or to eat locusts - but we are called to stand up and to stand out; to hold up a vision that most people would probably resist at this time of year - obsessed as they are with getting just the right gift. That may not make us popular - but it just might get us noticed.
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