Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord Jesus and savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson just read, especially these words, "Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
Dear friends in Christ. Advent is upon us. Only a few more weeks until Christmas is here. We have snow on the ground, the LYF is going carol singing next week. In our home, we have been playing our favorite Christmas albums, with Nat King Cole and the Carpenters singing our favorite Christmas songs. We are finally getting in the mood for Christmas, and so what a better text to have than the one in our text today, with its (Speak slowly) wonderful Christmas time greeting - "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
Well, maybe that isn't the Christmastime greeting we have heard in the shopping malls. Maybe that is the exact opposite of what we want to hear. We would rather be faced with "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" But that is nowhere to be found in our text today. Instead we have "You brood of vipers!" and calls that we may "Repent! For the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!" And contained within these words, is the purpose and meaning of the season of Advent. Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!
In our text today, we see the coming of St. John the Baptist. We just finished singing a hymn about St. John the Baptist, On Jordan's banks the Baptist cries. And with the coming of John, we prepare for the coming of Jesus. As our text says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'" That's what Advent is about, preparing for Jesus, waiting for Jesus to come. And so St. John prepares us for Jesus.
And what is St. John's message? It isn't a happy Christmas greeting, it isn't a message of hope or of peace with angels singing. Instead St. John says "Repent you brood of Vipers! Repent, you sinners!"
And that is what we need to hear. That we cannot do it on our own. That we are guilty, and being guilty that we deserve death. Our text says, "Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the tree." Or in other words, even now God is ready to cut us down because of our sin. He is ready to cut us down and throw us into the eternal fire of hell.
God will not allow us to stand in our idolatry, turning the almighty dollar into a God that is ten times more important to us than Jesus is. He will not allow us to be ruled by our greed for the biggest and best toys we can find, be that a car, or a boat, or a tractor, or even the fanciest gadget we can buy. And so he says "You Brood of Vipers!!"
God will not allow us to be ruled either by our addictions, our addictions to alcohol, where we always need another drink, or addictions to pornography, or lust or of infidelity. Instead, God wants us to live "holy lives according to his word." But so often instead, we turn to those addictions, because they give us release from this demanding world. But in the end, these addictions become our gods, and they rule our lives, rather than God. St. John cries to those afflicted by addictions, "Repent and flee from the wrath that is to come!"
And that is not all! Repent, for no longer can you live as the world lives. As we read in the first epistle of St. John, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-- comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."
And so we in our love of the world and all the things in the world are really truly a brood of vipers, children of our worldly father, Satan, that first serpent who tempted our father Adam to sin in the Garden of Eden. We are slaves to him and to the sin that he tempts us to every day. We really are a family of sinful slimy dirty sinners. We are a brood of Vipers.
And so what is our hope, for we hear in our text that God's "winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." And so in our sin, he will burn us in unquenchable fire, fire that we deserve in sin. Fire that is reserved for that first Serpent satan, and all who follow and love him more than the true God. And so we despair, because we know we are lost. We despair because we deserve eternal punishment. We despair because we are an idolatrous people, addicted to our own sinful desires, and we cannot change no matter how hard we try.
But to the sinner, John's message also has hope! "Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand!" For it is only having learned of your sin, it is only having learned that you are incurably sick that you realize you need a doctor and savior. It is only as you know your own sin, that you are ready to hear about the coming Kingdom of heaven, the kingdom brought about by the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. John must come and point you first to your sin, so that you might welcome the savior who is coming into the world. You Brood of Vipers, Jesus still loves you, and will take your sin!
For Jesus is God's own Son, born completely free from sin, born to rescue sinners like you and like me. In a few short weeks we will celebrate the birth of Jesus, born in a stable and laid in a manger. He would lead life headed towards the cross. The baby who is born in the stable will one day be the man who dies on a cross for the sins of the whole world. For God so loves that brood of vipers, poor sinful people like us that he gave his only son that who ever believes in him shall not die, but have eternal life.
And in Jesus' death, satan is destroyed. That old serpent, satan, no longer has his power over the world. He no longer has the power of death, of sin or of any addictions. Instead there shall be peace. As our Old Testament lesson says, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them." The little child from Bethlehem, Jesus.
The text continues "The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den." Jesus has destroyed the serpent, and taken us, so that in him, we are no longer a brood of vipers, but instead we are a "a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter)
How has Jesus called you to be his people? Through baptism, where as our Gospel lesson says, he has baptized you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The fire is not the fire of judgment, for all that has fallen on Jesus, instead, the fire is the fire that purifies, as gold is refined in fire. It is the fire poured out in Jesus blood that washes all your sin away. For in this blood, all your sins are taken away, in this blood, you no longer are a brood of vipers.
In Jesus you have rescue from sin. In Jesus, you have life, because you have been ushered into the kingdom of heaven, that is at hand. In Jesus, you have repented, and entered into eternity. You Brood of Vipers, you are now God's people. Amen.
Matthew 3:1-12
3:1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
'Prepare [1] the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.'"
'Prepare [1] the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.'"
4 Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
