"Thunder In The Desert"

By Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn

(Luke 3:1-6)

[1] 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, [2] during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. [3] He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, [4] 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. [5] 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; [6] and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' "

(NRSV)

INTRODUCTION:

There's an advertisement in one of the church supply magazines that we get. It's an ad for children's activity bulletins like we use. It has a picture of a little girl looking up at her mother with eyes wide in concern as she asks: "Mommy, why does the preacher keep looking at us like that?"

That may have been the question of the crowds as they heard John's message. His message roared across Israel like thunder in the desert and stirred up a storm of interest.

I remember going to visit a young couple who had just had their second child. They were fairly active in church and their older daughter was just beginning to recognize me outside of the church. I knocked on the door and she answered. She recognized me and then turned and yelled: "Mommy, Daddy, that man's here again."

We could say the same thing about John the Baptist. He's here again. Every Christmas he shows up like some embarrassing relative who nobody really wants to claim and who just won't go away. Why does John always intrude into our quiet Christmas celebrations? Why does he always have to thunder into our lives with this nerve jangling, in your face message of repentance?

I. JOHN:

John is the most unlikely Christmas character of all. We travel thirty years into the future to hear his harangue. And then we find him out in the wilderness. Just look at him standing there with his Kramer hair; a Don Johnson Miami Vice scraggly beard; dressed in his camel's hair coat. Mind you it's not Eddie Bauer or Tommy Hilfinger camel's hair. It's more Good Will and Salvation Army reject than anything else. And look at his diet. It's not something you'd get at the local McDonald's. Locusts and wild honey? What kind of a McNugget meal would that make? You almost expect to hear the clerk ask, "Would you like flies with that?"

John just doesn't seem to fit into the general mold of Christmas, yet every year he shows up. He shows up to remind us that sometimes God speaks to us in the silence. And sometimes God speaks to us in the thunder. Through John, God uses the thunder to get our attention. John stands at the outskirts of Christmas, in the wilderness of our faith and thunders out his message of repentance to remind us of the true purpose and nature of Christmas.

II. HIS MESSAGE:

A. John intrudes to remind us that Christmas is not all lights and tinsel, trees, presents and parties. Christmas has a purpose and that purpose is to bring new life and salvation.

Just like there can't be salvation without judgment, there can't be forgiveness without repentance. So, John's message is very important. Without repentance no one is fit to approach God.

The other day in the comics there was a cartoon that showed one of those placard prophets. You know the kind, the modern John the Baptists with their long robes, even longer beard and the sign that says: "Repent." Well in this cartoon, Ziggy is standing next to the placard prophet and says: "But I haven't even pented, yet!"

Sometimes we feel like that, too. We just don't have anything to repent. But the truth is that we all need to come to God. We all have things that keep us separated from a full relationship with God.

Part of our reluctance to repent is fear. Repentance takes courage, because it requires us to admit that our past attitudes and our past behaviors were wrong. Both in God's eyes and now in ours. That's hard to admit. It is horribly difficult to face a friend and say "I was wrong, forgive me." Or to look at your life and say: "I was wrong, forgive me." It takes courage and faith to hold nothing back and confess our sins to God.

B. Confession and repentance always lead to new life.

Max Lucado tells the story of a man who had been a closet slob most of his life. He just couldn't comprehend the logic of neatness. Why make up a bed if you're going to sleep in it again tonight? Why put the lid on the toothpaste tube if you're going to take it off again in the morning? He admitted to being compulsive about being messy.

Then he got married. His wife was patient. She said she didn't mind his habits . . . if he didn't mind sleeping on the couch. Since he did mind, he began to change. He said he enrolled in a 12-step program for slobs. A physical therapist helped him rediscover the muscles used for hanging up shirts and placing toilet paper on the holder. His nose was reintroduced to the smell of Pine Sol. By the time his in-laws arrived for a visit, he was a new man.

But then came that moment of truth. His wife went out of town for a week. At first he reverted to the old man. He figured he could be a slob for six days and clean up on the seventh. But something strange happened. He could no longer relax with dirty dishes in the sink or towels flung around the bathroom or clothes on the floor or sheets piled up like a mountain on the bed.

What happened? Simple. He had been exposed to a higher standard of living. (1)

That's what confession and repentance do for us. That's what Jesus does for us.

CONCLUSION:

What we need to see is that the call repentance is Good News. Without it there can be no forgiveness. But with repentance, not only is there forgiveness but there's new life as well.

John's call to repentance isn't a call to feel guilty. NO! Guilt is meant to be redeemed. John's call is a call to hear the Good News through the one who is to come. John's thunder in the desert call is a call to bulldoze down all those things that could and would and do get in the way of our coming to Christ. John's call is to build a highway so that we can come straight through as fast as we can to the manger, the place where new life offers new life.

When we kneel before this little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, we'll eventually have to stand and turn around. That's what repentance means. Turning around. Going from our direction to God's direction. Turning away from our past patterns of life and adopting new ones in God. Nobody will kid you, old habits and old ways are hard to break. But just remember what Jesus said in Matthew 19:26, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

Listen to the thunder in the desert. Hear the Good News. Come to the manger and receive the new life offered there. "Prepare the way of the Lord" Repent and you "shall see the salvation of God."

1. Max Lucado, In the Grip of Grace (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), 116-117.