Matthew 3:1-12
Over the course of the last couple of weeks, the eyes of
the world have been fixed on the two Koreas. Fifty years ago, the people,
divided by ideology, and supported by opposing super-powers went to war. That
war saw no decisive victor, but saw a people divided. South Korea moved along a path of industrial
development and capitalism. North Korea has remained sternly, and
uncompromisingly communist. North Korea is supported by China, but is very much
isolated from the rest of the world. Two weeks ago, North Korea’s threatening
potential manifested as hostile action—action which is doubly ominous when talk
about nuclear potential abounds. When we hear this, we know that the threat
which hung over the world for more than forty years, and defined the Cold War,
has not disappeared. In some ways, the fear is greater, because there has been
a lot of talk about terrorist organizations and rogue states like North Korea
and Iran harnessing nuclear potential.
The threat of war remains.
But
then again, the threat of war has always been around. Peace between people has
been transient. And this fact has
led at least one philosopher to comment that war is humanity’s normal state of
being, and that peace is the exception.
Peace
has been a rare, exceptional commodity for the world. But the world is not at
peace. Human hearts are not at peace. Somewhere there is war. Somewhere there
is violence. Somewhere a threat looms over the innocent.
Where
is lasting peace to be found? It is to be found in one place—in the
promise which God has made to
humanity.
The
story told by the Bible, the biblical narrative, is a story of God’s promise to
humanity. God’s promise is not some vague word of hope—some fanciful idea.
God’s promise is a concrete Word, which has played out through history, which
is rooted in the unfolding of time. It involves God making unlikely and unexpected choices.
The story
began in a land we now call the near east, or middle east, in a country we now
call Iraq, many many generations ago, there lived a desert nomad. His name was Abraham. There was nothing exceptional or heroic
about Abraham. But Abraham
would be a very special person because God made him a promise, an everlasting
covenant. God made a promise that He would be Abraham’s God, and the God of
Abraham’s descendents, and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed
through his descendents. What does that mean? What does it mean for nations to live in a state of
blessedness? Well, it means exactly what you think it would mean.It means the
end of warfare; it means the end
of sin; it means the end of death; it means the end of separation between God
and humanity.
This
universal promise would play out in the particular. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, gave
birth to a son named Isaac, Isaac’s wife, Rebekah, gave birth to Jacob and
Essau, and through Leah and Racheal, Jacob would father twelve sons. Ten of Jacob’s sons, and two of his grandsons, would be the
patriarchs of twelve tribes. Collectively, these tribes would be known as Israel. Israel
were the people who were called to carry out God’s promise to the world. Israel
was held in captivity, in bondage, in Egypt, but would be delivered by God who
appointed Moses to liberate God’s chosen people. They would be delivered, and
would settle in the land of Canaan. And it would not be long before they
settled in the people began to cry out for a king. And they were given a
king. Saul was the first King of
Israel, and not a very good one. But it would not be from his line that the
true King of Israel would emerge. The true King didn’t come from a royal line,
but from a humble ordinary man, named Jesse. The King’s name was David. David was a great King, but there was
much trouble in his house brought on by his own sinfulness. God’s great promise to humanity made through Abraham would not be
fulfilled by David—nor by his successor, Solomon. Solomon was great king,
constructed a great temple, but his was also a flawed kingship. Idolatry reared
its ugly head, and peace would not be realized. Soon the kingdom of Israel was
divided. Ten tribes would constitute the northern kingdom, and two tribes,
Judah, and Benjamin, the southern kingdom. In 700 B.C, the Assyrians attacked and conquered the
Northern Kingdom, and the ten tribes would never be heard from again.
Within
a few generations the southern kingdom would also be attacked by the
Babylonians, and its people brought into captivity.
It
was in this time that the great prophet Isaiah, spoke. He spoke to a people, a
people in captivity, whose hearts ached and questioned: Where is the promise?
Where will God be present for us? Where is peace to be found? For it would not
have seemed to any of them living in exile that God’s promise had or ever would
be fulfilled. And so it is to many people today. Looking out across the landscape,
it doesn’t seem likely that there will ever be lasting peace, that violence and
inequality will always be a part of our reality.
But in those difficult and
dark days when the Jewish people sat in captivity, Isaiah spoke. He spoke God’s
word of promise. From the dead stump of Jesse, David’s Royal line, the
deliverer would come. This would be the Messiah who would make all things new.
Through the Messiah a New Age would dawn in which even the violence and death
which defines the natural order will be
transformed into the peaceable kingdom. All nations will be blessed in a
new order of things in which suffering and oppression will be things of the
past. Through this king, God’s promise to Abraham would be fulfilled and all
the nations of the earth would be blessed.
This
was the Messianic promise, and in the years to come the Jewish people would
hold this promise tight in their hearts. The Babylonian captivity ended and
they returned to their homeland. But a few hundred years later they would be
occupied by another imperial force—the Romans. The Romans held the Jewish
people captivity and imposed upon them a king of Rome’s choosing—Herod. Many
Jews hungered and longed for the Messiah to arrive.
In
today’s Gospel lesson we read of a man who not only anticipated the arrival of
the Messiah, but boldly declared that his arrival was immanent. John the Baptist was the voice crying
out of the wilderness: “ Prepare the Way of the Lord”. The Messiah was coming
and it was time to be ready. This
was a sudden, startling, assertion. The Jewish people had for a long time gone
without hearing the voice of a prophet. Now the voice of the prophet split the air, and shattered the
complacency which had settled in to Jewish life and culture. But like the voice
of the prophets which had come before him, John’s message was not a
sugar-coated cliché that made heats feel warm and fuzzy. John denounced evil
wherever it set in, and he did so without hesitation. No one or any institution
was immune form his bold denunciation—not the everyday person, not the king,
not the religious elite. John proclaimed a coming wrath that would be like a
purifying fire which would sweep across the desert landscape. And the creatures
who heard this word were sent scurrying for the shelter of Baptismal water.
This included members of the religious elite—the Pharisees and Sadducces—who
had arrogantly assumed that because Abraham was their ancestor, they would be
spared the wrath to come. The Lord was coming, and things were going to change.
The Lord was coming to rescue the poor and crush the oppressor. The Lord was
coming to create reality anew. John was a true prophet because his prophecy was
fulfilled. Jesus Christ came into the world, and he has established his
kingdom—a kingdom which, by faith, you are made a part. The peaceable kingdom
of Christ stands in the world today as testimony of God’s promise, God’s
promise made to Abraham and fulfilled in Jesus. But we await the final act. It
is easy to look upon the events of the world through the eyes of despair. But
Christ will come again, will come again to rule for eternity. Let us be ready
for that. Let us not be complacent, but ready. Let us be ready for that great
day when God’s kingdom in all its fullness will be established on earth, and
God’s promise, the promise he had first made to Abraham, that humble desert
nomad, will be fulfilled. Now, may the peace which surpasses all understanding
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
