ONEFamily
Outreach exists to "Connect
Kids to Community and Communities to Kids." Have you considered having a
mission week for your church? This
is one of my favorite "in-depth" ways of reaching out with the Great News of
Jesus Christ. Activities can include:
Interactive and participative praise concerts for children,
youth, and families;
Morning staff studies on "Authentic Leadership"
and "Building a Culture of Intentional Courtesy"
Brown-Bag Luncheon Studies for your community
focusing on our scriptural call to justice;
In-service for your volunteers or teachers on reaching
today's youth and families with the vibrant, living, message of Jesus
Christ;
Evening parent seminars based upon two of
Jerry's recent books: "Significant Conversations: Helping Young People
Live Meaningful Lives," and "The Deepest Longing of Young People; Loving
Without Conditions."
Local networking with other area groups (secular
or faith-based) regarding prevention and intervention strategies for
high-risk and incarcerated youth;
Humorous and thought-provoking school assemblies
(secular or religious, elementary through high school).
ONEFamily
Outreach is primarily
supported by your donations and by trainings, workshops, retreats and concerts.
1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’”
4 Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; 6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 “Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 “And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Matthew 3:1
1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’”
The imposing presence of John the Baptist
John the Baptist; what an imposing portrait he paints across time. The man with no earthly desires has no earthly fears – and that summarizes the preaching of John. He had literally stripped his needs down to what it took to survive in the tough Judean wilderness. Living out of a cave or under the stars, wearing the prophetic cloth of a camel, eating locusts and honey (locusts were actually a delicacy of the time and archeologists have found that they were a favorite food of Babylonian royalty). John the Baptist owed “nothing to nobody” – God alone was his master and God alone dictated his actions.
With every breath, every word, and every action he pointed towards the Messiah. He was what we are called to be – living signposts for our coming Savior.
His message? Repent [3340, Metanoeo]; Change completely! It literally means; “Make your left hand your right and your right hand your left.” Of course, we can only do this if we turn around 180 degrees. Metanoia also means “greater knowing” or more appropriately a “deeper intimacy” (“to know” in the Hebrew language was a term for intimacy – not education). John tells us that this deeper intimacy was the way to “prepare the way for the Lord.” Intimacy with God was to be found by serving others instead of ourselves, a perspective that seems completely against human nature. We are to worship a God who sides with the poor, who admonishes the powerful when they use their power to undermine the alienated – all of which seems to chaff against the cultural schema; today’s “knowing.” We have, John reveals, a God who counts compassion as perfection; not piety, not self-righteousness or Judaic lineage – this was completely unheard of at the time!
Was it any wonder that John drew the attention of the rich, the religious, the powerful and the “least of these?”
Do our lives resemble the signpost that John the Baptist became? Are we a calling to a deeper intimacy, a larger perspective, and a greater knowing than this culture has to offer? Can we say that our portrait, presence, and preaching are so clear? Is our message of alertness and preparation for the coming of the Lord is so concise? Can we look at the controversy our lives are creating and see the fingerprints of John the Baptist there? I have to ask myself, is my life marked by coziness or controversy? Is my life a voice in the wilderness or a dust devil in the desert?
Get ready!
Many suspected that John was really Isaiah returned from the dead to prepare the people for the Messiah to come. It was believed by many that Isaiah’s return would precede the Lord and John’s message clearly reflected the message of Isaiah.
Compare the two messages; first from Isaiah.
Isaiah 57:14
[14] And it shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove {every} obstacle out of the way of My people.” (NAS)
Then, John:
Matthew 3:3
3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’” (NAS)
“Make ready the way,” he would cry. This was not just a theological message – it was a very political one as well. This message and the crowds that John attracted were undoubtedly what turned Herod and the Pharisee’s spies upon him. John’s message was clear; a new king was coming with a new agenda. Even John had problems understanding what the new king’s agenda was going to be. Like most of Israel, John waited for a conqueror to take back the Nation from foreign rule and systemic injustice from within (see Matthew 11:2-11).
Yet, why was John’s, “Make ready the way,” statement so politically charged? When the King was ready to go somewhere in his kingdom – he was not supposed to ride around curves, climb mountains or descend into valleys. These geographical features would provide perfect opportunities to attack or assassinate the king. In addition, it was beneath the king’s dignity to travel in anything but a straight path. All of these hindrances were supposed to be leveled and smoothed out before the King ever readied his entourage for his trip.
John was asking the people – and is still asking us today – what roadblocks do we have to get rid of in order to be ready for our King? What obstacles stand between our Lord and us? What valley (anger or hatred), mountain (pride) or curves (sexual sin, compulsions or addictions) must we straighten out so that the Lord can be fully established in our hearts? However, John was not just asking what we need to do “personally” to prepare for Christ. He was asking what we need to do as a “people.”
Let’s not make the same mistake as John and the rest of Israel. The Lord is not coming to rule over our political, economic, or religious systems. He is coming to establish a new standard for how we treat each other and – especially – the least of these:
Matthew 11:2-5
Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.”
Word Study
Wilderness [2048, eremos]; the wasteland, the desolation. The desert had special meaning to the Judean mind. It was thought to be where Satan made his earthly home. This was partly because people who ventured into the desert often came back crazy (and, of course, John would seem pretty crazy in his time – and even crazier in ours). The desert was also where Jesus immediately journeyed after his baptism – as if to take the battle to Satan’s backyard rather than wait for Satan to strike first.
Matthew 3:4-6
4 Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; 6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.
Down to the basics
John the ascetic had bared himself to the basics so that he would be solely reliant on God. People were flocking to him in droves – such was the expectation for a Messiah at that time. Not only people from Jerusalem, but from all over the country! Word was rapidly spreading of the man who declared that the Lord was coming.
Chief among John’s role was to cajole his listeners to acknowledge their sinfulness and to change completely – 180 degrees. Those who came to hear John were told to turn their lives utterly around, internally and externally, confessing their sinfulness and embracing the Lord. He encouraged them to begin their new life by making a public statement of commitment – Baptism. Through this action, the people would declare that their lives were utterly lost in sin and that they desired to be reborn into a new life with God at the epicenter of their change.
How odd this message sounds to our individualistic and materialistic culture. We are counseled to think positive, give ourselves warm hugs throughout the day and to repeat ad nauseam, “we deserve a break today.” We are told we have a right to our comforts – that new SUV or Hummer. We have “earned” those new knickknacks and toys.
Yet, as we saw in last week’s Gospel reading – this is exactly why the Lord damned the people of Noah’s time. They lulled themselves into a stupor; they put themselves to spiritual sleep and lived a life that even a hibernating bear would be embarrassed to reveal. They ate, slept and made babies – no more, no less. They had no deeper purpose than the daily fare of a lizard. Yet, they did all this by completely shutting God out from their lives. The Created ignored the Creator until God finally said, “I have no hope for these people,” so he started anew.
Our role is to wake people from their slumber – just like John the Baptist – to call each other to review and renew our lives. We’re missing the mark (sin) John tells us. We’re working our tails off for empty promises. Promises that will vanish the day we are confronted with death.
We need to wake up! We need to turn our lives around 180 degrees and gain a “deeper intimacy” with God – a higher viewpoint. We need radical baptism into a community that will support us and say; “I want to live differently. I want more from life than things and self-centered pursuits.”
Word Study
Baptism [907, Baptizo]; the ceremony around baptism has truly formed three distinct theological partitions in the Christian church. These beliefs are formed around (1) immersion or sprinkling, (2) infant or adult, and (3) sacrament or sign.
Technically, baptism is a re-birth into Christ’s family, a washing away of our sinful nature so that we might be cleansed and welcomed into God’s family. Baptism is communal by nature – it is not an individual celebration. It is a celebration that implies a public statement of a new commitment to a Christ-centered life. That public commitment necessitates a response by a Christ-centered community that also renews itself through the initiate’s baptism. The entire community agrees to walk with the initiate in their faith journey. Taken seriously, the community would recognize that the initiate has just become a new person in Christ and that we are now united more closely in Christ than we were even in our blood families. We are bound to each other by the blood of Christ.
Confessing [1843, Exomologeo]; this term implies more than reciting a list of sins and having our slate wiped clean. This type of confession demands a complete acceptance of personal responsibility for the direction of our lives. We make the choice to sin and – though we may have been tempted by the Evil One – the choice lies with us. In confession, we take full responsibility for our own sin and admit we are not in any position to judge the life of others: We become both forgiven and forgiving.
Complete forgiveness occurs when we forego the attitude of the Pharisee who said; “I thank Thee that I am not like other people!” Instead we take on the attitude of the tax collector; “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” [Luke 18:10-14]
We must admit that – without the Holy Spirit’s guidance – we are heading in the wrong direction and need help. We must also be willing to admit that no amount of work or goodness on our part will earn our way into heaven. That is the heart of confessing and the first step in growing into a full and complete relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sin [266, Hamartia, 264, Hamartano]; Hamartano is the noun and Hamartia is the verb or the subject – the one who sins. The term means to be off-course, or to miss the archer’s mark and thus lose the prize.
How better to describe the shadow world of sin; wasting away for the wrong type of love, the wrong type of fulfillment, the false hope of worldly gain, money or power. How terrible to spend one’s entire energy on an endeavor that leads to an empty life. How lonely to see the effect of thinking only of oneself. You see, sin is ultimately not an “act” – but a direction!
Sinful actions are the results of a misguided direction, like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, sin is spending out entire life pushing a heavy rock up a steep mountain only to have it uselessly roll down when we near the summit. Sin is seeking the wrong end with our lives. To be without sin does not mean that we don’t err, trip, or slip in the mud. It means that – with all our heart – we strive after pleasing our Creator. Our God is compassionate to those who love Him. He has covered our “slips and falls” through the sacrificial lamb, Jesus Christ. Yet, he will not intercede to make us change our direction. If He did, we would merely be robots, earthworms. He is like a star by which we must choose to set our course every morning and every night.
Matthew 3: 7-10
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8” “Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10’” And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Pharisees and Sadducees
John was not a shadow-boxer. He did not pull punches to reduce a blow. Neither was he a dimmer switch with gradients of prophecy that softened for political correctness. John was a toggle switch; he was either all off or all on. There was no in-between.
The Pharisees were the people’s favorite; they stood up to Rome, but saw themselves as the moral minority; separate and above the rest of the “riffraff.” In fact, the very name Pharisee meant separated one. They were self-righteous but not righteous according to God (the word righteous means to do “right works” and is specifically tied to works of mercy and justice).
The Sadducees were not respected by the people – but they ruled the temple and greased the palms of Rome. They traced their priestly lineage back to Zadok (who anointed Solomon as King) and the Hasemoneans (who ousted the temple priests that allowed the abomination of the temple under Antiochus IV Epiphanes). They lived in luxury and splendor while their people mired about under Roman conscription and misery. Their ceremonial robes were said to cost the equivalent of an average family’s wage for three years.
So, just why were the pious coming to see John? John had become the “in-thing,” like Hollywood elite going to the same personal trainer or hairdresser. To the religious elite, John was a fad in passing; it just looked good to be around him.
John was hardly inebriated by his celebrity status. He accepted the platitudes of the Pharisees and Sadducees for about a negative nanosecond. He words to them as incendiary as using a flame-thrower to light a dinner candle. “Brood of Vipers!” he calls them – a nest of a hundred hatching poisonous snakes. His warning might be translated as; “Who warned you to try and run from the orgy of violence that is about to land squarely in your courts?”
God didn’t send John to negotiate a treaty with the religious and political leaders. He was not God’s diplomat; there were no deals up John’s camel-haired sleeve. God sent him with the sole purpose of saying; “Does it concern you that there is a fuse burning towards your obliteration?”
“Fruit in keeping with repentance…” was another reference to metanoia (see “change” above). In essence, John was stating that their only salvation was to produce fruit that was exactly opposite of what they were currently producing. It was like saying; “You are growing wine for your banquets while the people around you are starving for bread. Wake up to reality; God is on the march!”
This too, is the essence of sin; a farm manager wasting an entire life on a crop that the owner actually abhors. Our “End-Consumer” (God) doesn’t need self-righteousness, He doesn’t need political savvy, He is not interested in being a celebrity. Our God tells us “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a cascading stream [Amos 5:24].”
The Family Tree
The message of John matched the message of the prophet Isaiah which, of course, matched the words of Jesus. Basically, all of them say some version of; “Just because you say, “Lord, Lord,” doesn’t mean you have let God rule your life [see Matt 25].” The Sadducees and the priests were quite fond of claiming their lineage as their passport to the front of the line. Isaiah stated that the new fruit would grow out of the “stump” of Jesse (a tree that God had cut down because it was bearing no fruit). John is saying to us; “It’s not your lineage – but your fruit that God will count as the sign of your covenant relationship.”
Jesus makes the same harsh assessment about his own family when they came to forcibly retrieve him – after his ministry had become a march towards confrontation with the religious. Jesus leaves his earthly mother and brothers standing at the door and says to those around him; “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it [Luke 8:19-21, NASB].”
John tells us that God can make children out of stones – after all He made us out of clay. He certainly transformed Peter in this manner; Peter – whose very name means stone. I know that He continues to do that with me – for my head can be as thick as concrete. In Christ, lineage is not our link to God, instead relationships are the new covenant: A deeper intimacy with our Creator and his people.
Word Study
The wrath to come [3709, Orge]; It is not hard to guess what word we use that originated from this term. Essentially, this word for wrath combines two distinct concepts. The result is like combining air, gas and a spark. The combined concepts are violence and passion. The word was also used for vengeance and wrath – like the mindless, blinding anger that consumes someone in a crime of passion.
Stones [3037, Litho]; It is interesting that, in Matthew’s quote, the word John the Baptist uses for stone is litho. It is also the word used for millstone and stumbling stone. Jesus used these very same words on multiple occasions. He called himself the stumbling stone and the cornerstone. In addition, he told his very apostles – when they tried to make room for the Pharisees by chasing away the children – that it would be much better for them to tie a millstone around their neck and throw themselves into the sea then to chase even the smallest child away from his reach.
Good fruit [2570 Kalos, 2590 Karpos]; this is the term that John uses for “good.” It means to honest and worthy or to have a valuable crop of fruit. What is honest, worthy, and a valuable crop in God’s eyes? In Matthew 7, Jesus equates bad fruit with those who call him Lord but do not act in such a manner: [19] “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] “So then, you will know them by their fruits. [21] “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” [Matt 7:19-21] (NAS)
So, if the judgmental-ism of the Pharisees is bad fruit; then what is good fruit?
John 12:24-26
[24] “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. [25] “He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. [26] “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” (NAS)
Good fruit is laying aside our own need to attend to others. Good fruit is being a servant. Good fruit honors God with compassion for the least of these.
Thrown [906 Ballo]; this is a term one would use for angrily throwing away dung. I’ve never met a person who is excited to displace dung. It was seeking nourishment in the pig’s dung that the son of the Prodigal Father “came to himself.”
Matthew 3:11-12
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 “And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Dynamite Power
John makes his “position in the universe” quite clear. Many were suggesting he was the Messiah and John would have none of that. He could only wash the surface of a man’s body – not the soul; he wasn’t fit to even untie the sandals of the One who was to come. That One, the Holy Messiah, would be incomparably mightier (again the word, Dunamis, is used: Explosive, miraculous power). He would purify our hearts with fire (by the way, “Pur” is the Greek word for fire). This fire will burn away the sin that is in our life, like melting ore to its purest state.
However, there is another fire, John forewarns, that is not meant to purify – it is meant to obliterate. One can imagine that, as John’s focused gaze zeroed in on the leaders who were using their religious and political positions for personal gain, souls must have trembled at the austerity of John’s words that day by the Jordan.
God’s fire has two purposes: To purify or to obliterate. What differentiates the result of God’s fire in our lives is whether we embrace his fire with humility or arrogantly choose the sin of hubris. Humility or humiliation: Which attitude will we choose?
Word Study
Water [5204, Hudor]; it is interesting that while John baptized by total immersion in the Jordan River, the word he uses here is used for “sprinkling” like the rain. It could also be interpreted as saying; “I baptize in a shower of heavenly water.”
Spirit [4151, Pneuma]; this word was used for breath or a breeze. It also emphasized the vitality of life and was also used for the term, ghost. Thus, people sometimes call the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. When Jesus died, the King James translation stated that he “gave up his ghost [pneuma]” (spirit).
Unquenchable [762, Asbestos]; Asbestos means it cannot be extinguished, it cannot be put out, it will burn perpetually.
The New Testament Greek Lexicon based on Thayer’s and
Smith’s Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the
“Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” These files are public domain.
The Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon is Brown, Driver,
Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon; this is keyed to the “Theological Word Book of the Old
Testament.” These files are considered public domain.