Advent 3
Mt
11:2-10
12/14/25
“What did you go out into the
wilderness to see?” That’s the question that Jesus addresses to crowds in our
text this morning. John the Baptist was
in prison, and he had just sent to disciples to Jesus with a question. After
Jesus had sent a response to John and they had departed, Jesus said to the
crowd about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”
People certainly had gone out into
the wilderness to see John the Baptist. Matthew tells us that John the Baptist
came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. John was a striking figure as
he wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. His
food was locusts and wild honey. He had a clear message as he
proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John called all people to repent of their sin
because the kingdom of heaven – the reign of God – was about to arrive. God was
about to act in a powerful way, and in preparation for this people needed to
turn away from sin and towards God in faith.
The location of John’s ministry
stood out. His ministry was in the
wilderness of Judea. The wilderness called to mind how God had acted with
Israel before bringing them into the promised land. It generated the
expectation that God was doing something powerful in the wilderness once again
that would bring deliverance to Israel which languished under Roman rule.
And John carried out an activity
that made him the object of interest: he baptized people. We are so used to
hearing the name “John the Baptist” that we fail to realize why he received it.
John was called the “Baptizer,” because that is what he was doing – baptizing
people in the Jordan River. But he was identified in this way because he was
doing something that no one else had ever done. There were all kinds of
ritual washings in first century Judaism. But in all of them, the individual
applied the washing to himself. In contrast to this, John’s baptism was something
he applied to others. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.
All of this made John the Baptist a
celebrity. Matthew tells us, “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region
about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the
river Jordan, confessing their sins.” And it’s not just the Gospel writers
who say that John was a big deal. Writing some sixty years later, the Jewish
historian Josephus reports about the great popularity that John the Baptist’s
ministry generated.
John called people to repent. He
didn’t hold back, and it didn’t matter who they were. When he saw many
of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to
them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the
wrath to come?
Bear
fruit in keeping with repentance.”
John announced that the reign of God was coming, and it was clear that
he meant God’s end time action.
John declared that God was going to send a figure more powerful
than he and said about the coming one, “I baptize you with water for
repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose
sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his
threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he
will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John warned that all people needed to repent and turn in faith
toward God. It was not enough simply to assert
that you were part of God’s people because of your background. He said, “And do
not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I
tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even
now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that
does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
John the Baptist called everyone to repent – and that
included King Herod Antipas. Herod was married, but he desired Herodias, the
wife of his brother Philip. So Herod divorced his wife, and Herodias left
Philip to marry Herod. John condemned
Herod for this. And then Herod showed John who was king by having John thrown
into prison.
We hear about John the Baptist during Advent for two reasons.
First, John prepared the way for Christ and so we hear about John as we prepare
to celebrate how the Son of God came into the world. And second, John called all people to
repentance. We are preparing to
celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. But in order to do so, we must be clear
about why the Son of God entered into our world in the incarnation. He did so because of our sin – sin for which
we must repent.
We repent as we confess our sin.
We call it what it is – sin against God, for that is the nature of every
sin. We give far more time, attention, and money to our hobbies, sports, and
entertainment than we do to Christ and his Means of Grace. We harbor anger in
our hearts, and ignore opportunities to help others. We covet the success and wealth of others,
while taking for granted the many blessings God has given to us.
John teaches us to confess sin as we turn in faith to Jesus Christ
for forgiveness. But he also says, “Bear
fruit in keeping with repentance.”
He reminds us that forgiveness is not the end of things. Instead, as
those who have been baptized into Christ – as those who are in Christ – we then
turn away from sin. We don’t willingly just keep doing it. Instead, we make
changes so that more and more we live in God’s ways instead of those of the
devil, the world, and our own sinful nature.
In our text Jesus says, “What did you go out into the
wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?” John was a powerful figure who declared God’s
word and confronted sin. He was no reed shaking in the wind. Our Lord asked, “What
then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those
who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.” People had not gone out to see
just another king who was part of this broken world.
Then Jesus asked, “What then did you go out to see? A
prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it
is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will
prepare your way before you.’” Jesus said, that yes, John was a prophet.
However, he was more than just another prophet. He was instead the fulfillment
of God’s word as the Lord came to his people.
Last Sunday our Old Testament lesson was from Malachi chapter four
which began with the words, “For behold, the day is coming, burning
like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be
stubble.” Malachi spoke of God’s end time action. In the previous chapter he
said, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way
before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple;
and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is
coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
Yahweh referred to “my messenger” who would “prepare the way before
me.” Now Jesus quotes Malachi using the words, “who will prepare your way
before you.” The pronoun “you” in the
quotation refers to Jesus, because John has gone before Christ. But Malachi had
said the messenger prepares the way for Yahweh. And in this we see that Jesus is
Yahweh coming to his people.
Jesus declares that John has fulfilled God’s word – he is the
prophesied prophet of the end times. He is the fulfillment as God comes to his
people. He is the unique figure through
whom God has acted. He has played a role
in God’s plan of salvation that had never occurred before. And so Jesus says, “Truly,
I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than
John the Baptist.”
But John was also only the one who prepared the way for Christ. And
in Christ the kingdom of God – the reign of God – had come upon the world.
God’s end time action was present and at work. Something new was here –
something different from what John or any of the prophets before him had
experienced. And so Jesus said, “Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he.” This was a difference determined not by the
individual, but by Jesus Christ who was here in the world bringing God’s reign.
Jesus says that John the Baptist marks a great transition. He
declares, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you
are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.” In last week’s Old
Testament reading God said through Malachi, “Behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord
comes.” Jesus identifies that John as the Elijah figure promised by God.
But it is at this point that some confusion may arise. God had said through Malachi, “Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of
the Lord comes.” However, now, John
the Baptist was in prison. John had
prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus the Christ was here, and yet the Last Day
that John had announced seemed nowhere to be seen. The wheat wasn’t being
gathered into the barn, and the chaff was not being burned up.
And in fact Jesus says just after our text, “From the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the
violent take it by force.” Christ uses
John and his imprisonment as an example of something that sounds like the
opposite of the Day of the Lord. He
says that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by
force.
In these words, the Lord describes the surprising character of how
God works. Jesus Christ is Yahweh who
has come to his people – he is God in the flesh as the One who is true God and
true man. His presence means that the
end time action of God is occurring. But
the Son of God did not enter into the world in order to act in overwhelming
might and power.
At Christmas we will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We will
celebrate a baby lying in a manger. There is nothing impressive about this. This
humility will continue in Jesus’ ministry as he experiences opposition from the
religious leaders. They will resist him. In the next chapter we learn, “But the
Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”
Jesus brings God’s reign as the violent take him by force. The Son of God permits himself to be
arrested, tortured, and crucified. He does so, not because he is powerless, but
because this is the will of the Father. The Father sent the sinless Son of God
as the sacrifice for our sin. The just
God justly judged your sin as Jesus died on the cross. As Paul said, “By
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for
sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.”
It did not look like God’s reign – his kingdom – when Jesus Christ
died on the cross. But on Easter God raised Jesus from the dead. He vindicated
Christ as the faithful Son who had carried out the Father’s saving will. The
resurrection revealed that the crucifixion had been far more than it appeared
to be. It was in fact the most powerful action by God to free us from sin. And
in the resurrection, God has defeated death in the resurrected body of Christ.
John the Baptist was in prison for speaking the truth of God’s
Word. Soon, he would be executed. Jesus says, “From the days of
John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered
violence, and the violent take it by force. He who has ears to
hear, let him hear.” Our Lord says “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”
because the appearance and the reality seem to contradict one another.
The kingdom of God – the reign of God – is now present in Christ’s
Church. The saving work of the Spirit takes place through the Word and the
Sacraments. But the kingdom of heaven
suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. In places like
Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria this happens literally. Christians are
seized and killed because of faith in Christ.
In our country we are thankfully spared physical harm. But we know how
our culture often mocks the Christian faith. To be a faithful Christian on a
college campus today is to live in a setting that is antagonistic. Many
Christians find themselves in work settings where they are not allowed to be
open about their profession of Christ.
These things seem discouraging. But our Lord says, “He who has ears
to hear, let him hear.” He signals to us that his kingdom is present and at
work in the midst of this situation. We
know this because he is the Lord who died on the cross and rose from the dead. In the risen and ascended Lord we find
strength and confidence to walk each day in faith.
We do so each day because we know this will come to an end on the
Last Day – the Day of the Lord. John
said that One more powerful than he was coming who would gather the wheat into
the barn, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. He expected the One who would bring the final
judgment. John did not understand the timing – that Christ came first to suffer
and die. But he was exactly right. The ascended Lord will return in glory on
the Last Day. He will vindicate his people before all who mocked and opposed
them. He will judge and condemn all who act against his Church. And he will welcome us to the marriage feast
that has no end.
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