Repentance: God’s Gift of Grace
Preacher: Marcia C. Wilkinson

December 10, 2006

Luke 3:1-6

Words are powerful and essential.  What is said, how they are used, and the meaning we give to them.  This is true in every aspect of our lives. For some time now I have been struggling with the word universal and its increasing usage by the Christian church at large.  Universalism in religious vocabulary means that in the end of time everyone will be brought to holiness in God, or saved, regardless of their faith tradition, or even their lack of faith.  Some scholars/theologians believe that at the close of the age, God will redeem everyone.  No holes barred.

In other words, Christ the Son of Man came to seek the lost, and because he saves us today, there is no reason to think that anyone will be excluded from the kingdom, even at the last minute.  It is believed by some scholars that God will not give up one of His own creation, even the most perverse, but will transform them.  There is much throughout Scripture to argue against this universal theology.  However we understand God’s dealing with humanity at the end time, I believe it is inconsistent with Christ’s teaching.  I believe it is cruel to withhold the truth of God’s coming to us in Jesus Christ today because ‘someday’ might be good enough for those who do not know Christ! 

The point of this sermon is not to defend the belief that God will take only his own redeemed to himself when the end comes.  God is in charge and in control of the end times.  Rather, our gospel message rests in the present moment.  God is serious and serious about us.  God has intentionally shown himself to us.  Don’t wait, John cries.  Not a one, for God has a universal purpose for all of us.  The long awaited Messiah has come and is coming again!

Who was John that people should listen to him then and that we should pay him any mind today?  O.T. prophecy set the stage for the foretelling by one prophet crying out from the wilderness.  What did John say of himself?  Basically the same:  “I run, shouting before the Anointed One comes to make ready to receive him.  And, when he comes my work is done!”  Not much for credentials.  Only God’s mouthpiece and messenger.  I guess that is why he is one of my God bearers.

The familiar image we hold of John is on the wild side- a radical, yet austere man whose limited diet consisted of locusts and honey, who wore animal skins, lived like a hermit, received any education alone in the wilderness, and then was driven by the spirit out of the wilderness passionately repeating the words of the prophet Isaiah:  repent and prepare for the Messiah.  And, if we add his next words that followed, “You brood of vipers.” that radical wild image is not only reinforced, but frightening.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “frightening for everyone who has a conscience”.

John was calling out for one purpose only- to arouse the people (Jew and Gentile alike) to a holy fear.  Not a fear of a vindictive God who was ready to strike out against his creation and bring men humbly to his feet.  The appearance and voice of John was to attract people and to instill a proper fear.  Karl Barth captures it with these words:  “When the right fear of the Lord takes possession of our hearts we are both lost in amazement and struck by awe, even terror.  Mysterium tremendem is a famous phrase to define a “tremendous mystery that causes both fascination and recoil, a presence to be reckoned with” (Rudolph Otto).

When such a holy fear holds hands with attraction we discover that since the beginning of time God has not hated nor threatened you and me but has loved, chosen, called us.  Weren’t we fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image?  And, didn’t God say his creation was very good?  Even in disobedience and sin hasn’t God honored his covenant, been our helper and sustainer throughout history?  A holy fear jolts and stirs the heart to remember who we are and why we are.

I believe what we see as a radical, wild man, was a representation of God’s mysterium tremendem.  John was given authority and empowered to speak on behalf of God to a misguided, heart broken, rebellious and sinful, needy world.  It would take such a wilderness man who had abandoned himself to the Lord’s calling and was compelled to be driven under the spirit of a living and holy God.  John, stripped of the world’s sense of proper credentials and power was faithful, because his total self, centered on one thing- to be obedient to stir hearts to know God’s Son.

If we think of John as the frightening prophet only, the picture of him is incomplete.  John’s name means “God is gracious.”  He was God’s gift to his parents, and God’s gift to a troubled world of the first century ruled by unjust emperors.  And, he continues to be God’s gift to us.   God’s message and John’s message are one!  God is gracious so return to God.

The Lord always has a message but the world never seems to want to hear it.  John, grasped by the Spirit, let God’s words flow right through him to challenge, to awaken moribund lives and hearts.  Though you and I have heard these familiar verses over and over, this Advent we need to listen once again.  God is serious about us, and our lives!  We need to see ourselves the way God sees us, get in touch with who we are, and who we can be in God. 

John’s words are strong and penetrating.  They are also gracious!  Why?  Repentance is not threatening judgment.  Repentance is a gift to us to open the soul and to be fed by the divine.  God loves us and wills that we be set free to a different reality offered by Jesus.  God’s salvation, thru Christ connects us with God amidst the difficult things we know and face everyday.  God wills to heal, to clean out hearts of bitterness, debilitating habits, broken spirits that defeat and destroy us personally and those close to us. 

Leo Tolstoy said:
“the Christian ideal changed and reversed everything so that as the gospel puts it, ‘That which was exalted among men has become an abomination in the sight of God.’  The ideal is no longer the greatness of Pharaoh .., not the beauty of a Greek nor the wealth of Phoenicia, but humility, purity, compassion, love.  The hero is no longer Dives, but Lazarus the beggar; nor Mary Magdalene in the day of her beauty, but the day of her repentance.”

Repentance is about returning to the place of God and taking delight in communing with him.  Christ came to earth to offer us an image in the purest sense of the word- a precise reflection of the father.  We might say God went incognito since Jesus showed no beauty, no signs of royalty, no earthly power.  He was not the ideal figure by human standards, certainly not by identifying with those who were not the powerful, beautiful.  Instead he went to the sick, the poor and outsiders.  Yet, in these people, Jesus expressed the exact likeness of God.

Jesus is the only hope for restoration to God and others.  None of us can ever measure up, but thanks be to God we can depend on Jesus to live out his image in us, personally, and as his Body of believers.  So we come full circle.  The word of God is universal for all people, for all times, in every place.  Jesus came to save that which was lost.  Through his own life willingly given, he brings us back to the Father.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness is to awaken our souls to the power of the divine.  The Word of God has spoken then and now.  

Do we believe we need to repent before the Lord? Individually and as a Body of Christ?   Do we believe that communion with God offers a life that is really different?

If life in Christ is different for us, do others take heart from our faith, in our relationships?  And, do we take heart as the body of Christ to spread the good news throughout the world? 

As I look at you, our congregation, I pray this Advent that we will hear God speak to us and our answers will be yes.  We are called, we are chosen, we are beloved, and that makes all the difference. 

Amen.