The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
December 9, 2001

A Voice from the Wilderness
Matthew 3:1-12 

In this Sunday’s Gospel reading we meet the Saint of Advent, John the Baptist. John is about as wild and wooly as saints come, being roughly as warm and welcoming as a Brillo pad. John is a wild man on the margins of society who refuses to be tamed. He seems rough and undisciplined, shouting harsh words of impending judgement. 

It’s an improbable image. John, who would only later become known as the Baptist, exploded on to the public consciousness of First Century Palestine by shouting stern words of judgment in the midst of a barren wasteland. Matthew briefly describes John’s clothing and diet saying he “wore camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locust and wild honey.” Or as those of you who took part in our Kids in the Kingdom week know, “He ate bugs for lunch, yuck, yuck, yuck.” 

John must have come to the right time and place, because his techniques wouldn’t work today. Somebody dressed like a wild man, shouting words of God’s coming judgment to anyone who would listen, would land themselves in a mental hospital if not a jail these days. Who would take him seriously? We can entertain reading about John the Baptist or hearing a sermon on John the Baptist, because his story made it into the Good Book. But if wasn’t for his place in the Bible, a man like John the Baptist wouldn’t get much attention today. 

The days of a voice crying in the wilderness seem to have come and gone. It did have a good run while it lasted. We read in scripture of the amazing, godly things that happened in wild, uninhabited wilderness. Great Biblical figures like Moses and Elijah came staggering out of the wilderness so deeply changed by encountering God that whole nations took notice. Jonah washed up on a lonely beach stinking of fish guts and saw all Nineveh repent when he proclaimed God’s coming judgment.  

It seems almost preposterous to think that the actions of a single person could make even the slightest difference in the great sweep of human history. But if we pause to think about it for a moment, it seems as if a single person making the right stand at the right time has done more to change history than all the mobs that have ever taken to the streets.  

Bypassing Biblical stories and ancient history, there are examples closer at hand. We can see the affect of a single person’s actions in this past century’s struggles for human rights. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus. Mahatma Ghandi leading by non-violent example when all India seemed ready to erupt in a blood bath. And, on the edge of Tienamen Square a lone Chinese dissident halted a column of tanks by sheer will and personal courage. 

The words of a single person can sometimes galvanize a nation. There is the dark side of this when Hitler and Mussolini used their powers of persuasion to enshroud all Europe in the dark grip of dictatorship. We have also seen how one person’s words have affected human history for the better. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Archbishop Desmond Tutu having to shout words of peace to an angry mob in a South African township.  

There are many more examples. While it may seem absurd to think that one person can do much to change the way of the world, it is practically the only thing that ever has. The lone person whose words and actions resonate deep inside the heart of nation can affect dramatic change. John the Baptist was just such a person, but with one important distinction. John knew that he was not the One.  

John knew that there was another to come who would be greater. His job was like an opening act at a concert. Get the crowd ready. Get everyone actively listening and ready for what is coming next. John’s job wasn’t to change human history. John’s job was to prepare the way for the one who would change human history. That’s why John the Baptist is known in the Eastern Churches, such as the Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Churches as John the Forerunner. John was running on ahead of the Messiah to prepare the way. 

John lived in the wilderness. It was nothing like the desert of our imagination. Say the word desert and what first comes to mind is sand dunes in the Sahara. John lived in a rocky, mountainous wasteland that could not support most people for very long. The temperature would get searing hot each day only to plummet at night as a chill crept through the rocky valleys. The vegetation was almost non-existent and the wildlife was rare and often hostile, snakes, wolves, and the occasional lion. Most of us would do well to last three days, barely surviving. John called this inhospitable waste home and lived off the land for years.  

John the Baptist did not stumble out of this wasteland to proclaim deliverance, salvation, or anything else. John was no Moses, Elijah or even Jonah. John remained in the wilderness and called others out to him. John’s life was so extreme that it gave his words a powerful authenticity. How do I know this? Because they came. People wandered out into the wilderness to hear the wild man and came back transformed, soggy behind the ears and ready to live life differently. 

The Jewish Historian Josephus gives us an account of John the Baptist that both agrees with and fills out the picture we get in the four Gospels and Acts. Josephus describes John as a good man who exhorted the Jews to live righteous lives. Josephus says John taught the Jews to “practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God and in so doing to join in baptism.” In this John was no innovator. The message was essentially the same “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” written in the Old Testament and destined to be preached by Jesus and his disciples. 

But, John the Baptist was no softy and the message had an edge when proclaimed boldly by this wild haired prophet on the edge of an uninhabitable wilderness. People came out to John and had a profound experience of God. Disciples gathered around this holy man and helped with his ministry.  

Even as he developed a bit of a following, John’s message remained as coarse as his clothes. John had long before made his break with regular society. He did not care what any person thought of him. John was completely sold out to God. Because of that, John had the courage to say what no one else would say. Look in our reading for today how the Pharisees and Sadducees, two brands of religious leadership within the Jewish faith came out to John. He could have greeted them warmly, thankful that some of the religious movers and shakers of the day were seeing things his way. Instead, John blasted them with words more scorching than the desert sun. 

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” 

What a great way to build a following. Perhaps we should try that at King of Peace. Invite your friends and family and when they come, I’ll scream at them for having the nerve to show up in church at all. I wouldn’t try that method, but it worked for John. People lined the banks of the Jordan for John to baptize them, anyway.  

However, John was clearly not interested in the cleansing power of the muddy waters of the Jordan River. There was no sense in wading out into the waters if you had no desire to change your life, making love of God and loving your neighbor as yourself as your top priorites. John was very concerned that the people he baptized lived their lives differently after the baptism than before.  

In our Gospel reading for this morning he says, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Repentance means saying that you are sorry for the things you have been doing wrong, the sins in your life. But repentance also means stopping doing the things you know are wrong and starting to do the things you know are right. To bear fruit worthy of that repentance meant to act like someone who had changed. If you left the banks of the Jordan soaking wet, but unchanged then John would say that his baptism had been for nothing. John knew that a more lasting, more affecting baptism was coming with the Messiah, but in the meantime, John was counting on real life change on the part of those he baptized. 

In one sense, John is still out there in the wilderness. Christianity never did tame John the forerunner. In fact, the Bible is unashamed to note that John did point out Jesus as the Messiah, but John the Baptist never became a disciple of Jesus himself. John remained a wild man in an untamed land. His ability to sway a crowd brought him to the attention of King Herod, who in time had John killed. So maybe the society of his own day was no more prepared for John than we would be.  

John’s message of radical life change in response to God is still a voice from the wilderness. In the sermon next Sunday, we will continue a two-week look at John the Baptist to see some critical differences between John’s proclamation and Jesus’ ministry. But for this Sunday, we are left on the banks of the Jordan. In our readings for this week, the Messiah is not yet here. Jesus is not yet baptized. After all, Advent is a time of anticipation and preparation. John’s words should haunt us as they haunted the people who were driven out in the desert to hear him for themselves.  

“Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” 

No, we can not earn our way to heaven by mending our ways. No you do not have to get your act together before returning to church. But, yes John’s message is still true.  

If we want to avoid the scorching heat of his blast against the Pharisees and Sadducees as a Brood of Vipers then we should ponder if our lives are changed in any way because we are Christians. Do we live any differently because we believe? What would fruit worthy of repentance look like in our time? In our lives?  

He may not be the easiest evangelist on the ears, but John is still proclaiming the Gospel from an uninhabitable wasteland. If we want to prepare the way for the Lord to come into our hearts anew this Christmas, then we will have to pause long enough to listen.

Amen.