Matthew 3:1-12
John was a wild man.
He lived wild
He dressed wild.
He preached wild.
He was part of a tradition that went back many years.
He was a prophet - and the prophets were God's shock troops, God’s disrupters.
There was a man in the Old Testament called Saul. He was searching for lost donkeys. But he meets the prophet of Israel, a man called Samuel. Samuel tells him that he is going to become king of Israel. And the Spirit comes on him and ‘he fell into a prophetic frenzy’ (1 Samuel 10:10).
Or there was Elijah. There are strong echoes of Elijah in John the Baptist. He wore hairy clothes and had a leather belt and spent much time in wilderness. He was the one who challenged the 700 or so prophets of Baal to a contest, when fire came down on his water drenched altar.
Or there was Ezekiel - did really weird stuff, He was told to make a model of Jerusalem under siege. And then told to lie on his on his left side for 390 days and his right side 40 days to predict the judgement and punishment on Israel and Judah.
They were wild men (and occasionally women) with a wild message
And John was a wild men, and he went out into the wilderness and he preached the message that they preached
1. The coming Kingdom of God
That was not a wise thing to do. It was dangerous, disruptive language.
Autocratic rulers are not fans of other kingdoms – it is not in a list of their 10 favourite things.
Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus because of this talk of another kingdom.
And John the Baptist was beheaded because he preached to Herod (another Herod) that there are divine rules which we are called to follow, and you can't just do what you want to do - even if you are king and even in the name of love.
The Kingdom that the prophets preached – and that John preached – was the time when God’s king, the Messiah, a son of David, would rule. It would be a place of real freedom: not simply doing what we think we want but becoming who we were created to be. A place of rightness, peace, mercy, love, abundance and joy. A place with no separation, no sin and no death.
But until that Kingdom comes, the prophets called people to live as if it were already here. They were to be its ambassadors. They were to trust the God who had given them the promises. They were to obey him, to live by the laws and ways that he had given, trusting that they were good gifts. And they were to put their faith in his love, his power and his guidance.
But that of course is difficult, because God’s kingdom is very different to the kingdoms of this world. It is not about status, or wealth, or power, or stuff.
That is why many of the prophets were in the wilderness. It was why they did not wear comfortable clothes or wear the latest fashion or get worked up about what they looked like and what people said of them. They were living with their hope set on a different kingdom.
2. The prophets preached judgement and the call to repentance
John came to challenge us to examine ourselves and to look at what it is we put our trust in, what it is we live for.
And I note that people went out to meet him in the wilderness.
So often it is in the wilderness, in the barren edge place or barren edge times that we meet God. It is when we are disrupted, meet with the wild men and women, that our assumptions are challenged and even shaken.
I am struck that many of our revivals began on the edge. One thinks of the Azuza street revival in 1906 which led to the emergence of the Pentecostal movement. It started with some African-American believers meeting for prayer and bible in a former warehouse in Azusa street, LA.
Or here in the UK, revivals didn’t begin in London or Oxford or Cambridge, but in the geographical and social edge places: we think of the Cornish, Welsh, Hebridean and Ulster revivals.
Perhaps North Norfolk?
It is when we are in the wilderness that all the stuff in which we trust is stripped away from us. Money, fashion, status and the social media whirl become less important. It is in the wilderness that we often see more clearly.
One of the desert fathers said, “If you see a young (or for that matter, old) man seeking praise, know that the wilderness has not yet taught him.”
It is in the edge places that we can see the stars at night.
And the prophets and John call us to stop putting our trust in false things.
He challenges the religious professionals. They have put their trust in their racial identity and religious inheritance. ‘Do not presume to say that you are children of Abraham. God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones’.
And, like the prophets before, he warns of judgement.
He speaks of an axe (chainsaw), a winnowing fork, of fire.
We live in a world and a church that has lost the concept of judgement. We walk awkwardly past those street preachers - and even they have changed their message. And yet many of us live with an acute sense of judgement. That is why we are trying to prove ourselves. It is why we conform – at least to the standards of those in our own social group. We fear what others will say or think of us, of whether we are up to the mark. We fear ridicule and exclusion.
We have replaced fear of the judgement of God with fear of the judgement of men.
John the Baptist and the prophets, these wild men, these challengers and disrupters, remembered that they needed to fear the judgement of God before the judgement of men.
3. John preached the coming of the Holy Spirit
‘He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’
It was not just John the Baptist.
Many of the prophets speak of the coming Spirit, especially Joel and Isaiah.
Ezekiel, that weird man, speaks of how God will give us a new Spirit – he will make us new people
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:25-26
It is interesting that John links judgement and repentance with the coming of the Spirit.
It is only when we become conscious of the false things in which we put our trust, it is only when we confess them to God and ask him to help us turn from them, that we can be open to receive the coming Spirit.
John the Baptist and the prophets are the disrupters
They are the ones who challenge us.
If we are prepared to listen, they will show us our need for God.
Abba Poemen said, “If a man will not be troubled, he will not be saved”
It is when we know that we are empty that we can ask God to fill us up with himself, with his Spirit
Abba Anthony says, “If a man has humility and poverty and judgement of himself, the Spirit will rest upon him.”
It is when we are driven to our knees that God can lift us up.
That is what baptism is a picture of: the going down before we can come up.
When Violet was baptised, she was taken down into the water. It is a picture of our utter powerlessness. And yet she was then lifted up, united with Christ, with the promise of the Holy Spirit.
John – like many of the prophets before him - was a wild man. He came to disrupt. He preached the Kingdom that challenges the kingdoms of this world. He preached judgement that brings us to our knees, so that God can lift us up. He preached the coming of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and our lives.
John was a wild man.
 |
The Assembly of the Holy Prophet St John the Baptist, Old Believer Icon, C19th Nevyansk school, Urals. All the people of Jerusalem go out to John to be baptised. Notice the lion, camel, unicorn and deer in the wilderness (on the left). |
He lived wild
He dressed wild.
He preached wild.
He was part of a tradition that went back many years.
He was a prophet - and the prophets were God's shock troops, God’s disrupters.
There was a man in the Old Testament called Saul. He was searching for lost donkeys. But he meets the prophet of Israel, a man called Samuel. Samuel tells him that he is going to become king of Israel. And the Spirit comes on him and ‘he fell into a prophetic frenzy’ (1 Samuel 10:10).
Or there was Elijah. There are strong echoes of Elijah in John the Baptist. He wore hairy clothes and had a leather belt and spent much time in wilderness. He was the one who challenged the 700 or so prophets of Baal to a contest, when fire came down on his water drenched altar.
Or there was Ezekiel - did really weird stuff, He was told to make a model of Jerusalem under siege. And then told to lie on his on his left side for 390 days and his right side 40 days to predict the judgement and punishment on Israel and Judah.
They were wild men (and occasionally women) with a wild message
And John was a wild men, and he went out into the wilderness and he preached the message that they preached
1. The coming Kingdom of God
That was not a wise thing to do. It was dangerous, disruptive language.
Autocratic rulers are not fans of other kingdoms – it is not in a list of their 10 favourite things.
Herod wanted to kill the baby Jesus because of this talk of another kingdom.
And John the Baptist was beheaded because he preached to Herod (another Herod) that there are divine rules which we are called to follow, and you can't just do what you want to do - even if you are king and even in the name of love.
The Kingdom that the prophets preached – and that John preached – was the time when God’s king, the Messiah, a son of David, would rule. It would be a place of real freedom: not simply doing what we think we want but becoming who we were created to be. A place of rightness, peace, mercy, love, abundance and joy. A place with no separation, no sin and no death.
But until that Kingdom comes, the prophets called people to live as if it were already here. They were to be its ambassadors. They were to trust the God who had given them the promises. They were to obey him, to live by the laws and ways that he had given, trusting that they were good gifts. And they were to put their faith in his love, his power and his guidance.
But that of course is difficult, because God’s kingdom is very different to the kingdoms of this world. It is not about status, or wealth, or power, or stuff.
That is why many of the prophets were in the wilderness. It was why they did not wear comfortable clothes or wear the latest fashion or get worked up about what they looked like and what people said of them. They were living with their hope set on a different kingdom.
2. The prophets preached judgement and the call to repentance
John came to challenge us to examine ourselves and to look at what it is we put our trust in, what it is we live for.
And I note that people went out to meet him in the wilderness.
So often it is in the wilderness, in the barren edge place or barren edge times that we meet God. It is when we are disrupted, meet with the wild men and women, that our assumptions are challenged and even shaken.
I am struck that many of our revivals began on the edge. One thinks of the Azuza street revival in 1906 which led to the emergence of the Pentecostal movement. It started with some African-American believers meeting for prayer and bible in a former warehouse in Azusa street, LA.
Or here in the UK, revivals didn’t begin in London or Oxford or Cambridge, but in the geographical and social edge places: we think of the Cornish, Welsh, Hebridean and Ulster revivals.
Perhaps North Norfolk?
It is when we are in the wilderness that all the stuff in which we trust is stripped away from us. Money, fashion, status and the social media whirl become less important. It is in the wilderness that we often see more clearly.
One of the desert fathers said, “If you see a young (or for that matter, old) man seeking praise, know that the wilderness has not yet taught him.”
It is in the edge places that we can see the stars at night.
And the prophets and John call us to stop putting our trust in false things.
He challenges the religious professionals. They have put their trust in their racial identity and religious inheritance. ‘Do not presume to say that you are children of Abraham. God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones’.
And, like the prophets before, he warns of judgement.
He speaks of an axe (chainsaw), a winnowing fork, of fire.
We live in a world and a church that has lost the concept of judgement. We walk awkwardly past those street preachers - and even they have changed their message. And yet many of us live with an acute sense of judgement. That is why we are trying to prove ourselves. It is why we conform – at least to the standards of those in our own social group. We fear what others will say or think of us, of whether we are up to the mark. We fear ridicule and exclusion.
We have replaced fear of the judgement of God with fear of the judgement of men.
John the Baptist and the prophets, these wild men, these challengers and disrupters, remembered that they needed to fear the judgement of God before the judgement of men.
3. John preached the coming of the Holy Spirit
‘He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’
It was not just John the Baptist.
Many of the prophets speak of the coming Spirit, especially Joel and Isaiah.
Ezekiel, that weird man, speaks of how God will give us a new Spirit – he will make us new people
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:25-26
It is interesting that John links judgement and repentance with the coming of the Spirit.
It is only when we become conscious of the false things in which we put our trust, it is only when we confess them to God and ask him to help us turn from them, that we can be open to receive the coming Spirit.
John the Baptist and the prophets are the disrupters
They are the ones who challenge us.
If we are prepared to listen, they will show us our need for God.
Abba Poemen said, “If a man will not be troubled, he will not be saved”
It is when we know that we are empty that we can ask God to fill us up with himself, with his Spirit
Abba Anthony says, “If a man has humility and poverty and judgement of himself, the Spirit will rest upon him.”
It is when we are driven to our knees that God can lift us up.
That is what baptism is a picture of: the going down before we can come up.
When Violet was baptised, she was taken down into the water. It is a picture of our utter powerlessness. And yet she was then lifted up, united with Christ, with the promise of the Holy Spirit.
John – like many of the prophets before him - was a wild man. He came to disrupt. He preached the Kingdom that challenges the kingdoms of this world. He preached judgement that brings us to our knees, so that God can lift us up. He preached the coming of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and our lives.
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