Preached at St Mary’s, Potterne
Philippians 4. 4-7; Luke 3. 7-18
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Saint John the Baptist Preaching by Luca Giordano (1695). Hangs in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Are you a viper? Have you, in the course of this year, exhibited any snake-like characteristics? You don’t have to answer that question out loud. But if the answer is yes, then you’re in the right place: because you need to repent, and church should be a place of repentance.
There is some contrast, isn’t there, between our two readings this morning. The crowds flock out through the Jerusalem Desert to be baptised by St John the Baptist, and he does the exact opposite of what a good PR man would tell someone to do today if they found themselves an accidental celebrity. The smart thing to do if you want to maximise your return on your fifteen minutes of fame is to make your biggest fans feel valued and loved in return for their loyalty—not to call them a den of snakes, and warn them that, “Even now, the axe is lying at the root of the trees”.
St Paul, in contrast, tells those reading his letter in the far off city of Philippi, “Do not worry about anything” for, “The Lord is near.” Rejoice therefore, he tells them, be full of peace and open gentleness.
Let me tease out this contrast between our two letters by repeating the question I started with: are you a viper?
If so, it’s time to repent.
‘Repent’ is a loaded word; many of us associate it with a rather self-satisfied form of Christianity that looks down on anyone it disagrees with, inside or outside the Church, as ‘unsaved’. But these associations of the word come long after John the Baptist and Jesus. To ‘repent’ just means to ‘turn’ – turn away from the bad things we had been doing towards living a good life. John the Baptist warns people that they needn’t think they could flee God’s wrath just by getting a holy man to dunk them in some water—if they wanted to be better than vipers, they would actually have to change the way they lived.
The crowds asked John the Baptist how they needed to change their lives, and his answers could be summed up like this: live honestly; don’t cheat; don’t bully and threaten people; give to the most needy and alleviate their suffering; try to be content with what you have. None of this is rocket science. It isn’t about turning into one of those saints they make statues of. It’s fundamentally just about being a decent and honest human being—and if you really believe that the Lord is near, then it should be no trouble at all.
John the Baptist’s point is that living a religious life isn’t a substitute for doing good. If you really are faithfully living a Christian life, you will do good as a result of it. But if you carry out all sorts of religious practices and still lead an evil life – and we’ve all met the type – then you’re just washing the outside of yourself, not the depths of your soul. You probably aren’t fooling many people, and you certainly aren’t fooling God, who knows exactly what’s going on the dark recesses of your heart and mine.
That isn’t to say that living a religious life, praying and worshipping and receiving the sacraments, isn’t important. Of course it is. Baptism, which the crowds flock to John the Baptist to receive, is the first and fundamental sacrament of the Christian life. It’s the foundation upon which the rest of our lives in Christ sits. Ask yourself why do we baptise babies? I could give a long talk on this, but to cut it short, we baptise babies because baptism isn’t about what we do to show how holy we are, but because God works in us through the sacrament of baptism and confers Grace upon us.
Grace is another subject I could give a long talk about. But it is enough for this morning to say that grace is God’s favour on us and all humanity, which we do nothing to earn and can do nothing to earn, but is given freely by God because of His love for us. Of course, we can ignore this gift from God, or take it and abuse it, but the right thing to do is to share it with others, and if we do that we can never run out of it. God’s store of favour to us is inexhaustible. Nor is it limited to our mortal lives, for if we trust Jesus Christ and His promises, then we know that if we follow Him, we will indeed follow Him to the Cross – how full of crosses our lives our sometimes! – and then we will be raised like Him, to spend eternity with Him.
The little snippet from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians that was our first reading is all about how we can and should live if we trust in God’s Grace. Again, it’s all very simple and obvious stuff. Live full of gentleness—although some of us find that task easier than others. Always rejoice in Jesus Christ. Be thankful for what God has given, and in that spirit of thanks ask God for what you need, and for what you want. Try not to worry – this to me is the hardest bit, because we all worry about our loved ones and this is a worrying time in the history of the world – but try to remember that God is in charge of the fate of the world and He does know what He is about, even when that seems hard to believe.
Above all, remember that, as Paul reminds us, the Lord Jesus Christ is near. He is near to us in the sacraments, through which He feeds us with His Grace. In a few moments you and I will meet Jesus in bread and wine and feed on Him and His love. He is near to us when we pray, in Church or anywhere else, giving us what we need and not always what we ask for. He is near to us in the suffering of our lives and the way that the suffering of our loved ones and of the world can rend our hearts and souls, for He knows what it is to suffer just as we do. He is near to us in that He knows all our secrets, and when we die, He will be our judge.
He will judge us! Yes, this is a frightening thought, but remember that our judge is the same Jesus Christ who died for us because of love He has for us which we did nothing to earn. Indeed, for many of us, Christ’s judgement will be nothing like as harsh as our judgement of ourselves. If we rest in the Grace of the Father, then we have nothing to fear from the judgement of the Son.
Christ is near to us in that he will come again in glory to rule the Earth. At this time of war and social disintegration it is this, most of all, we should welcome should we be lucky enough to see it. Advent is, after all, the season of waiting for God to break into the world in surprising ways.
Until then rejoice, pray, and try not to worry, for the Lord is near. You should have no fear of facing Him as your judge. Although perhaps you are one of those who might reasonably fear meeting Christ, because you can be a bit of a snake sometimes. If so, I urge you – in peace and in gentleness – to repent.
And now glory be to God for whom we wait, the Father, and the Son whom He sent to judge and to rule us, and the Spirit whom He sent to comfort and to guide us, now and unto eternity. Amen.
Top image: Brazilian Pentecostals being Baptised in the Jordan, © Gerry Lynch, 16 November 2022.
