Sermon: On the other side of repentance (Dec. 6, 3015)

Advent 2C

December 6, 2015

Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79, Luke 3:1-6

Grace to you and peace from the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. Amen.

            In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Andrew Cuomo was governor of New York, and Kirsten Gillebrand and Charles Schumer were the US Senators from New York, during when Elizabeth Eaton was presiding bishop of the ELCA and John Macholz was bishop of pstate New York Synod, the word of God came to Bethlehem/St. Martin Lutheran Church in the country/suburbs.

            What is that word of God? Well, hate to tell you, but despite the Christmas decorations, it isn’t about the sleeping babe of Bethlehem, at least not just yet. Today, on this second Sunday in Advent, we get to talk about John the Baptist, and with that, we get to talk about sin.

            “Sin?!” you ask. “But when do we get to the Christmas-y stuff?” Well, we may not want to talk about sin during this season, but John sure does! You remember John, Jesus’ wild and crazy cousin, son of Elizabeth and Zechariah. When he wasn’t eating locusts and wild honey, John was all about talking about sin – from the very beginning! His dad even prophesied about it when he was born! You may have noticed our Psalm today wasn’t a Psalm at all, but rather from Luke; it was the Benedictus, which was spoken by John’s father, Zechariah. Let’s do a little refresher course on how all of this hangs together:

            Zechariah was a priest, and one day he gets elected to enter the sanctuary of the Lord in the synagogue and offer incense. While he’s in there, lo and behold the angel Gabriel appears and tells him, “Hey, guess what? Your wife [who is, by the way, getting on in years] is pregnant! This child’s name will be John, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and lead many people to God, and prepare the way of the Lord.” Zechariah is understandably shocked by this, and because of his

disbelief (because let’s face it, it’s pretty unbelievable!), the angel makes him unable to speak for the next nine months. Fast-forward now to John’s birth and subsequent dedication, and they name the kid John, despite no one in the family having that name. And as Zechariah writes that on a tablet (because remember, he couldn’t speak), his mouth was opened and his tongue freed and he begins to speak, and what are the first words out of his mouth? These words that we read a moment ago for the Psalm. And in this prophecy, Zechariah lays out what will be the purpose of his little son, John: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;” he says, “for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.”

            So there you have it, the role of John the Baptist: to give knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. And to address our earlier question about what sin has got to do with Christmas… Well, what could be more Christmas-y than the forgiveness of sins? After all, our sin is the reason Jesus had to be born at all. Plus, Zechariah tells us that it is by the forgiveness of sins that we will come to have knowledge of salvation.

            During Advent, we talk a lot about preparing ourselves and our hearts for Christ’s coming, and in our Gospel today, John tells us precisely how we are to do that: repent. “He went into all the region around the Jordan,” Luke tells us, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” I think there’s some baggage around the word, “repent,” maybe because it is often associated with fundamentalist street corner preachers telling us we need to repent or we’ll burn for eternity. I don’t know about all that, but I do know that repenting is not such a bad thing.

I like the way our reading today from Malachi describes it. He describes repentance as being like refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap. In both of these images, a substance is washed, scrubbed, beaten

down, burned – it goes through an assortment of strenuous, high impact treatment in order to get rid of all the gunk and come out with something precious, pristine, stronger and more valuable than before. Repentance can be like that! It sure isn’t easy, having to reflect on the grime and grub on our hearts, to name it, to deal with it in a healthy manner. But once we do, do we not come out stronger, shinier, and more beautiful than before?

            I don’t know, do you really believe that? If we really believed that, would we not be more ready, even more eager to participate in this repentance that John the Baptist and Malachi both proclaim? So then what keeps us from doing it? Why is repentance so hard for us? Maybe it’s because we think we’re not so bad, that there’s not so much gunk on our hearts that needs to get off, and so why go through the trouble? I’m ready enough, prepared enough for Jesus. Bring it on.

            Or maybe, we are worried that there is so much gunk in our lives that after it’s gone, after the fuller has scrubbed it away and the refiner has purified it… that there won’t be anything left. Sort of like when I told Michael I was going to clean our 20-year-old washing machine with hot water and vinegar, and he worried the old thing would fall apart, that 20 years of grime was all that was holding it together! Don’t worry, it didn’t. But we’ve grown so accustomed, you see, to the false truths that guide our lives, that if we get rid of all that, everything we have known, what will we have to rely on anymore? How can we be sure that what is on the other side of repentance will feel as safe and comfortable as it does on this side?

            Perhaps you have seen the TV show, Lost, about a group of people whose airplane crashes on a strange island. One of the best parts of the show, I think, is learning the back-stories of the characters. In one episode, we learn about Sayid, an Iraqi man who served in the Republican Guard

as an interrogator and torturer – a time of his life he deeply regrets. By chance, he ends up in the hands of the husband of one of the women he tortured, who insists that Sayid confess to what he did. Terrified of what this man might do to him, Sayid repeatedly denies having touched her. Finally, Sayid is left alone with the woman, and, having shared with him her story, she asks him again to confess. Finally, through tears, he does, apologizing profusely for what he has done to her and others, baring and risking his soul to her. Through the intensity of his sobbing, she says, “I forgive you.” Sayid looks at her in astonishment, the look of a man who has felt the utter fear of repentance, and the shocking relief of forgiveness. How could he know before she said those words what would happen if he admitted to what he’d done? But having felt that relief, how could he ever go back?

            It is hard to face our demons, the things in our lives that fester inside us and draw our attention from God. It is hard to give up our false “yeses,” our reliance on things that ultimately hurt us and keep us from feeling peace. The work is difficult, and we fear we cannot be sure of what lies on the other side. We would rather stay where at least we know what to expect, even if that means our relationship with God suffers.

            But is this not why Jesus comes to earth? To bring us back into a right relationship with a God who loves us so much? John the Baptist is right: Christ’s coming is about forgiveness. It’s about getting past those demons – the ones that haunt our past and the ones that plague our present, but the ones that need not persist in our future. In Christ, we are forgiven of our sins, our demons, our dirty thoughts, our less-than-cheery moments, the ways we hurt ourselves and our neighbors. Every last one of them: forgiven. And in that forgiveness, we are not left the nothingness we may have feared. Rather, we are left with the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. We are left with a Christ to stake our lives on. We are left with a closer relationship with the God who made us and loves us no matter what.

            Let us pray. Blessed are you, O Lord our God. We have so many things that are heavy on our hearts, so many things for which we need forgiveness. Grant us the courage to repent, so our hearts would be ready for the coming of your Son, and all the love and joy that comes with him. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.