"Have you made yourself a lunch?"
"Yes, Mum," called out the first.
"Have you got good walking shoes?"
"Yes, Mum," called the second.
"Have you got your togs?"
"Yes, Mum," called the third as they disappeared down the front stairs.
The outing was not so good after all. In fact, they discovered that they only had one lunch between them. Two of them were barefoot, and only one had togs.
"Ready" meant that they were eager to go, not that they were properly prepared!
Over the past week, as final peace negotiations in the Middle East have been attempted and failed, our television screens have shown us troops trained for desert warfare, practice at the new techniques of night fighting, descriptions of the defence against the Exocet missile, Israel calling up extra forces on the assumption that it will be invaded, Jordan closing its borders in anticipation of masses of refugees that it cannot handle...
It is only two days to the January 15th deadline now and there are still widespread hopes for peace. Some are pacifists and believe in principle there shouldn't be war - no matter what. I respect those who hold that position, but do not find it to be the Biblical position. Others have real fears about the modern technology of war. I have a great deal of sympathy with that view.
When Jesus spoke about "turning the other cheek", he was not negating the responsibility of those in authority for dealing with evil within a community nor the responsibility of nations for protecting their citizens. And the Scriptures speak rather strongly about turning our back when someone else is unjustly or cruelly treated.
In the midst of this complex issue, it is often inferred that non-pacifists "want war". I don't believe that's the case, except for a minority of twisted personalities. I am sure that President Bush and Mr Peres de Queller have sincerely been seeking to be "peace-makers". Nobody wants war, but how else can we deal with aggression in Kuwait and elsewhere?
If you watched the programme on channel 9 last night - "48 hours, Ready for War" - you heard the theme again and again, "We want peace but are prepared for war!"
The Jews, as God's chosen people, all knew. They were expecting the promised Messiah to come. They had been through trying times - exile, persecution, oppression. In contrast to their waywardness in the past, they now seemed to be adopting a rigorous legalism. The Messiah would come all right, and they hoped it would be soon!
Then John the Baptist appeared and began calling them to repent of their sins and to be baptised as a sign of God's forgiveness - "A voice cries out, 'Prepare in the wilderness a road for the Lord! Clear a way in the desert for our God!'" (Is.40.3).
To grasp the impact of what John was saying, we need to realise that, among the Jews, baptism was what was required of non-Jews who had been converted to the faith of Israel. These proselytes, as they were called, had to be circumcised and baptised - a ceremony which symbolised washing away all the contamination of their Gentile past. But here was John calling Jews to be baptised - we can hear their protest, "But we are Abraham's children! We don't need to be baptised!"
And, as if to add insult to injury, he said to the very ones who were responding to his call, "Offspring of vipers, who has taught (shown) you to flee from the coming wrath?" His picture of the coming Messiah was very stern. It seems closely related to judgment. Perhaps this is why, when he was in prison, he sent some of his disciples to Jesus asking, "Are you the coming one or do we wait for another?" (Lk.7.19).
There will be a coming in judgment - that will be the second coming. But John was right - they needed to be ready, prepared for the Messiah who was about to appear.
John was not just calling for repentance in a formal sense. He said they were to "do fruits worthy of repentance" ("Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins" GNB) - to show by the practice of their lives that they truly wanted to obey the will of God.
So as they came with their question, "What are we to do, then?", he gave the very practical answer, "The one having two tunics, let him share with the one not having; and the one having food, let him do in the same way" ("Whoever has two shirts must give to the one who has none, and whoever has food must share it" GNB).
Their rigorous legalism had not made them a caring people. Jesus summed up the second half of the law as "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." In Matthew 23, we find Jesus speaking out against the Pharisees, "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God a tenth even of your seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practise, without neglecting the others.... You snakes and sons of snakes! How will you escape from being condemned to hell?" (Mt.23.2324,33 GNB).
There was undoubtedly a strong contrast between John and Jesus! But we shouldn't make it more than was really there! Jesus, the Messiah, was looking for a people prepared!
Tax-collectors came too, and John told them, "Don't collect more than is legal." We may recall the encounter of Jesus with Zacchaeus the tax-collector, and of Matthew who left his tax-office to follow Him.
And soldiers, wanting to know what was expected of them, were told, "Don't take money from anyone by force or accuse anyone falsely. Be content with your pay."
The words of the old communion service were beautiful and significant - "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith..."
The difficulty is, "How do you repent to order?" Is it possible that we can go through all the right words, as the Jews had done in their rituals, without having the heart of repentance, without showing the fruit of repentance?
Being prepared for the Messiah meant being ready for action. On the one hand this meant repentance - a genuine turning away from every known sin to God for his mercy and forgiveness, and the demonstration of that new direction by how we live. Matthew emphasises that the reason both John and Jesus called for repentance (3.2,17) was "because the Kingdom of heaven is near". In other words, it is not just to give us the comfort of forgiveness but to lead us into a new relationship with God, in which his Rule is acknowledged and expressed in our lives.
Being prepared for the Messiah means being ready for action. In the Sermon on the Mount, we hear Jesus saying, "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do" (Mt.7.21).
John was saying, "I am baptising you with water for repentance, but the coming one is going to gather those who are genuine and destroy those who are false." John graphically alludes to the winnowing process. The sheaves of wheat were spread on the threshing floor and beaten or trampled until the grains were separated from the husks, but they were still mixed up on the floor. Then in the morning or evening when there was a breeze, the farmer took his winnowing fork and tossed the chaff and grain into the air. The heavy grains fell into a pile and the lighter chaff was blown away to fall into a separate pile on one side of the floor. The grains were then collected and stored, later to be turned into flour for baking. The chaff was burnt.
I am baptising with water, he is saying, but someone is following who will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. The wind of God is going to blow through and separate the genuine from the false. The fire of God will come in judgment on what is false.
Of course, the Christian church has seen this baptising in the Holy Spirit as more than God's judgment sweeping through his people and sorting out true from false. We see the Spirit of God sweeping through the community in convicting and converting power. And we need the same Spirit sweeping through our lives - cleansing away our sin and empowering us for action.
The question is not "Are we ready?" The time has come for action.
Back to Sermons