A friend of mine—interestingly, he’s a pastor now—used
to drive around our hometown during high school in a
maroon pickup truck with a bumper sticker you could
read from two lanes over. All caps. Big block letters. No
subtlety. “JESUS IS COMING. LOOK BUSY.”
And we do. We walk fast enough to suggest purpose
and avoid interruption. We sprint through December like
servers in a crowded restaurant, with our arms full and
our minds spinning and a smile painted over the hum of
“just let me get through this.”
It is a kind of liturgy, isn’t it? Find the tree. Buy the gifts.
Take the pic. Send the card. We have middle school
band concert and basketball practice the same night?
Oh, that’s just our schedule. In our house, we talk about
dividing and conquering. And above all, just keep
moving. Seventeen days left.
But here’s the thing about liturgies. They shape us.
With or without our permission, we are being formed
by the practices we practice. And somewhere in the
flurry of activity are the questions we can’t quite outrun.
Busy doing what? Or perhaps more to the point, busy
becoming what?
That’s when John the Baptist shows up. A bull in the
Christmas ornament shop. Refusing to play along. No
one ever accused John of subtlety. He speaks in all caps.
Big block letters. He crashes our carefully arranged
Christmas preparations and shouts his own version of a
greeting, “Merry Christmas — you brood of vipers!”
You won’t find that on a bumper sticker, but having
earned our attention, John wastes no time. And here is
his message: The old world is dying, collapsing under
its own weight. The axe is already sharp, waiting
at the root of the tree. One swing and it all comes
crashing down. This is your final warning. If you need
to change, you better do it now. Don’t just look busy.
Bear fruit worthy of repentance. That is, the kind of
fruit you can see, smell, taste, and touch. The kind of
fruit that costs you something.
Luke’s story does not begin with starlight and
shepherds, but with a roll call of the most powerful
men in the world. “In the fifteenth year of the reign
of Emperor Tiberius...” And he goes on to name them
all. The emperor. The governor. The tetrarch. The
high priests.
Luke might have been a history buff, but this isn’t just
context. It is an indictment. It had a name. The Pax
Romana. The peace of Rome. It was no peace at all. It
was order. Order maintained by force of occupation.
Order maintained by crushing taxes. Order maintained
by the swift violence for any who threaten the status
quo. Tiberius ruled from afar, but Pilate kept his orders
with crosses and blood. Herod played politics while
the poor starved. Religious leaders made peace with
empire and called it pragmatism. Their bumper sticker
read: Rome rules. Better stay close to power.
He names them all, and then Luke shifts the camera
from the palace gates to a river running through the
wilderness. The Jordan. He pulls us from the places
of power and pushes us to the edge of the map. Luke
is clear. Salvation will not start at the center. It takes
root on the margins. Into Rome’s carefully constructed
and dutifully maintained world comes a wild man. And
Luke says it was to this wild man, not to the emperor
or the governor or the high priest, that the Word of
God came. John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness,
looking and sounding like he came straight out of the
Old Testament.
He preaches, and the word spreads. Crowds begin to
pour into the wilderness. John does not disappoint them.
Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? You
brood of vipers! John called them vipers not because
they are monsters, but because they are hiding from a
truth that would require them to change.
His voice draws them out from under their rocks,
and it’s hard to understand why. John offers them no
comfort, no affirmation, no easy path. All John offers is
the truth. And it is as if they have been starving for what
he is serving.
They listen. They’re baptized. They’re transformed by
a simple, devastating realization: life cannot remain as
it is. This order enforced by Rome is only an illusion.
Change is possible. Jesus is coming.
Luke names Tiberius and Pilate. We could name our
own rulers, our own governors, our own structures,
our own Pax Romana, the gap between the world God
created and the one we’ve learned to tolerate. But I
must tell you, John the Baptist does not address the
rulers. He sets his eyes on everyone who made peace
with that old order. Everyone who looked busy to avoid
interruption. People like me. People like us, who come
to church on Sunday, and light our Advent candles, and
sing about peace on earth, and walk back into the world
without blinking at all. Who participate and benefit and
stay silent.
We are a brood of vipers. Not monstrous, but timorous.
Hiding from a truth that might force us to change.
So, we arrive in the wilderness, where lies dissolve.
Where we cannot hide behind our schedules and our
stability and the comfortable fiction that everything is
fine. And in the wilderness, we tell the truth: I need to
change. We need to change. It all must change.
And so, the crowds ask John the only question that
matters if Jesus is coming: What then should we do?
John doesn’t flinch or hesitate. He’s got three answers.
Three groups. And no one gets off easy.
To the crowds: “If you have two coats, give one away. If
you have food, share with the hungry.”
To the tax collectors—that is, empire’s enforcers, the
ones who skimmed profit from the poor: “Collect only
what is owed.”
To the soldiers—the armed, the powerful, the loyal to
Rome: “No extortion. No threats. No false accusations.”
I hope you heard who showed up. Tax collectors.
Soldiers. Now these folks would have gone a long way
to get to John in the wilderness. They are the ones
with authority to enforce Roman rule. They are the
ones who benefit from the system. They come to the
river, and they ask John the question. And John tells
them the truth. If you have power to help or harm, John
is talking to you.
Stop hiding behind your defensive distractions and
spiritual abstractions. Change is coming. Concrete.
Costly. Visible. And now is the time to bear the fruit
of repentance.
Rome offers the illusion of tranquility. The comfort of
moral distance afforded by affluence. The peace felt
when the suffering of strangers can’t quite touch you.
And John calls this what it is: a lie. In place of Empire’s
pax he offers shalom. The peace that comes when
the hungry are fed. When we stop pretending self-
protection is our highest calling. It’s the Pax Dei. God’s
peace. The truth that our lives are so woven together
that there’s no use trying to separate them. That we
will never be well while our neighbors suffer. That
there is no peace in hiding.
John shifts our eyes from the powerful to the person we
walk right by, averting our gaze to avoid interruption.
Look at them, he cries. The ones without warmth. The
ones crushed by cost. Squeezed out of opportunity.
They are not pawns in your policy debates. They are not
expendable. They belong to God.
Listen. If you want to prepare the way for Jesus, you
must love as he loves. The one who is coming will do
everything John demands, and more. He will share his
coat and his life. He will feed the hungry and be bread
for the world.
Karen Johnson, our Food Pantry coordinator, updated
us a few weeks ago. She wrote that in this economic
climate, need is surging. We’re up to 90 families per
shift, three times a week. There’s a scramble for food
and volunteers.
And then Karen wrote these words. Big block letters.
All caps. “BUT GOD! I have seen more goodness,
kindness, and love than I ever recall seeing from my
brothers and sisters in Christ. It is God’s kingdom up
close and personal.”
So, my friends, in the wilderness, there is one question
that remains. What should we do? John’s answers are
simple but not easy.
Check your closet. If you’ve got two coats, give one
away. Check your pantry. If you have food, share it.
Check your practices. Stop supporting systems that
exploit other people. Check your privilege. Use whatever
influence you have to protect those at greatest risk. This
is not charity. It’s not even generosity. It is peace. The
kind that only comes through repentance.
Last month, deep in the logistics of Advent planning,
our tables were filled with calendars and schedules and
checklists, and in that staff setting, someone at the table
asked a question that changed the room. She said, “If
Jesus is coming, what would you change?”
At first, I thought, “Well the schedule is already set, and
we’re already halfway down the to-do list. We don’t
really have time to change any of this. It’s already on
the calendar.”
But I haven’t been able to shake that question. What
would you change if Jesus is coming? I don’t want you to
shake that question either. Not this season.
If Jesus is coming, what would you change? There’s still
time to answer. Still time to pursue peace. Still time to
prepare the way of the Lord.
If Jesus is coming, what would you change? I think you
know. I think you’ve always known. Well, I’ve got news
this morning. Jesus is coming. Don’t just look busy. Go
do it. Amen.