Written by Rev’d. Dr. Neil Mancor

                                                 Matthew 3:1-12

Introduction

As we light the second candle of Advent, we step into the wilderness with John the Baptist in Matthew 3, hearing his urgent call to prepare the way of the Lord, to open ourselves to the coming Christ who will not only wash us with water, but baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. We are perhaps not prepared to hear the message of John: You brood of vipers!

I am not saying we are a brood of vipers! But the preaching of John the Baptist clearly struck a chord with his audience: many from all over the countryside and Jerusalem came to hear him and receive his baptism.

1. A Call to Prepare
   1. Famous, Advent words: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
      ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
          make his paths straight.’”
   2. John appears in the wilderness, not in the Temple, not in the centre of power. God’s new thing begins on the margins, in a place that feels empty, exposed, and uncomfortable. The wilderness is where Israel learned to trust God in the past, and it is where God calls his people again through John’s voice. Like a herald announcing the coming of a king. But what kind of herald is this? A wild man who must have made highly uncomfortable company. His clothes were rough, his diet unappetizing, his personality terrifying. Yet everyone was going to him to be baptized with his baptism of repentance. His messaged touched their hearts because he told them what they truly needed.
   3. He didn’t put on the best show in all the best places. But as a prophet he pointed to the sky say: get ready; someone is coming; the Lord is coming. So make his paths straight. Get your life in order.
   4. Jesus will pick up this message when he begins his ministry: repent, pay attention. The Kingdom of God is HERE!
   5. There is this in-coming we need to prepare ourselves for, That is what Advent is for. It's not about Advent calendars with chocolate figurines: it is to prepare ourselves as it were again for the most momentous coming – the coming of Almighty God into this world and into our human being. That is utterly stunning.
   6. We are in frantic mode right now in our house getting ready for Christmas and I am looking forward to celebrating with my very loud family. As we hear John crying out in the wilderness, we remember that Advent is not only about decorating our homes. It is about letting God clear a road in the wilderness of our hearts and in the life of this church, so that when Christ comes, he finds not a barricade, but a straight path. The call to prepare.

2. A Message of Repentance
   1. I was looking for a reindeer or something for my lawn. The pressure to conform to my neighbours – or to be better than them, is immense!
   2. But John’s message is different: Turn around. Open your eyes to see. God is here. Bear fruit worthy of repentance – don’t just go through the ritual, show you’ve really changed.
   3. John says and Jesus will repeat this: every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
   4. I don’t plan to preach on this at Christmas…Judgement is coming – so repent! Yet, Christmas is about a coming that is so powerful, For Holy God is coming towards human being and that demands a response.
   5. Repentance, for John, is not a mood or a moment. It is a change of direction that shows up in how we live, how we spend our time and money, how we speak of others, how we treat the weak and the stranger. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance”: do not just say you are sorry. Let God change you so that something different begins to grow.
   6. For us on this Second Sunday of Advent, this presses a hard but necessary question. If someone looked only at the fruit of our lives, what would they see? Would they see the fruit of repentance?
   7. A deeper concern for those on the margins. A more attentive love for God in prayer.
   8. Advent calls us to more than a beautiful liturgy and familiar carols. John’s words echo across the centuries. Do not come to the water only with pious feelings. Come with a willingness to be changed.
   9. This is his message of repentance.

3. A Christmas Gift: The Holy Spirit
   1. There is much discussion about what Christmas gifts to get in my house! My wife reminded me not to get her anymore warm slippers.
   2. But what is the great gift of Christmas? As Jesus is born as the King comes – what is the essence of this gift? Is it peace on earth, joy, and seasonal cheer? Its something much more sizzling than that
   3. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[d]the Holy Spirit and fire. 
   4. This is not a cuddly toy or a bottle of whiskey for Christmas. The point is not the strength of our repentance but the power of the one who comes. He will be far and away greater than John the Baptist. His message is: look to the one who will come! He is coming get ready, prepare your hearts. Don’t just stop at the messenger, the preacher, the ritual, the tradition: focus on the One who will come.
   5. Fire, refining fire. He comes to cleanse us from our sins, make us holy. The Spirit: he will baptize us with the Holy Spirit. Fill us with the Spirit. John can only make you clean on the outside with water; the one who will come will purify you on the inside. This is a powerful biblical image for purification; the fire burns away all that is not holy. This is what always happens when God’s sizzling holiness meets our human being.
   6. For Jesus is not just God coming to us, he comes with the gift of the Holy Spirit who is God in us. The presence of the Living God taking up residence in our very souls, bringing the Gift is the purification of our very souls.
   7. So this baptism with the Spirit and fire is not about a bit of religious excitement. It is about God taking hold of a life and making it new from the inside out.

In Advent we do not simply count the days to Christmas. We stand with John in the wilderness and listen as he points away from himself to the One who is coming. John can wash us with water and call us to repent. Only Jesus can baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

So as we light the second candle of Advent, we are not just softening the darkness for a few weeks in December. We are asking Christ to come to his Church in a new way. We are asking him to purify what has grown dull, to rekindle what has grown cold, to set alight again the love and courage he first poured into us.

Let us open our hearts and our parish to the gift John promised, and pray very simply:

Lord Jesus, who came once in humility and will come again in glory, come to us now. Baptize us afresh with your Holy Spirit and with your holy fire, so that our lives and this church may burn with your light in the darkness of our world. Amen.