Signs and Stories

By now, we’re into the story. Week two in the season of Advent feels right. Week one is a shock, to be honest. We’re not ready, even though the call is to get ready, to be ready. So, we come into the season with confession. We’re not ready; we haven’t been ready. We’ve been caught up in our own stories, getting by, getting ahead. But now it’s week two, and we’ve gotten our Advent bearings; we’ve remembered our Advent legs as we walk the journey into a promised future.

Or maybe not. John comes alongside to tell us we aren’t ready. We haven’t yet claimed the story as our story. We aren’t yet living and dying by the promise. We haven’t become the story and lived as the sign. Not yet. At least that’s what he says. Doesn’t he?

This is an odd text when you dig into it. It is hard to take the temperature of this event. Something powerful is going on. John has tapped into a felt need; he resonates with a deep longing in the hearts of a nation. He starts with good news: “The kingdom of heaven has come near” (3:2). Wow. Really? Near? We’re almost there? It’s almost here? I know, we get wrapped up in the first word of this news: Repent. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 3:2 NRSV). Suddenly, the good news doesn’t sound so good. Repent! That implies something is wrong or something is broken. Repent means feeling sorry and confessing and multiple mea culpas. Doesn’t it?

What if repenting is something else? Not the groveling admission of our many inadequacies, but a willingness to live by a different story? John might be issuing an invitation rather than a condemnation. “Get on board,” he says, because what you long for is within reach. Make a turn, veer from the path you are on, and follow a new sign, a new hope. It’s right there for the taking, says John, if you’ll just turn—as Moses turned aside at the burning bush. Just say you want to see and want to be a part of this kingdom of heaven thing.

Now, here’s the weird part. After we spend a moment reflecting on the attire of the preacher (still happens today, don’t you think?), we see that the crowds were coming, confessing, turning, wading into the waters of the kingdom of heaven. It’s a wonderful sight. Then Matthew says, “But when he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism.” Notice it doesn’t say “standing on the bank with a condescending look.” It doesn’t say, passing judgment or trying to prevent the crowds from coming forward. It says they were coming forward for baptism. But John shouts at them and calls them baby snakes. Then he says, “Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?” Um, you did. Didn’t you? Isn’t that your thing, John?

Then he adds a new dimension to his invitation. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” He no longer says just repent, but bear fruit worthy of repentance. Show that you have indeed made the turn. Live differently, he asks. It’s not just a matter of thinking differently. The implication is that the Pharisees and Sadducees who show up for baptism need to prove their repentance by changing who they are. As long as they are participating in an oppressive system, John isn’t willing to accept that their repentance is real. The story they are telling with their lives is different from the one they claim to want to join. So, John pushes, digs a little deeper, gets personal. This isn’t an easy ride, he says; it’s not a walk in the park. We’re just getting started. There is more to come.

That is the Advent story even today. There is more to come. And that more is what motivates us, what drives us. It is the vision by which we walk, the story by which we live. More than that, it is the story that we tell with our living every day for justice and peace, for equity and hospitality. We are the sign that this story is the one that shapes our lives, the hope by which we live.