Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful 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, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John the Baptist was a reformer. And from most accounts, he happened to be a reformer who yelled a lot. His methodology seems to have been to scare people toward the proverbial straight-and-narrow path. “Repent, you brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee? Beware lest you get cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Not all of us respond well to yelling, threats, and intimidation . . . a message many in society have yet to hear. Some people live continuously in a scorched-earth world.
But when you unknowingly ride your bicycle into oncoming traffic, a calm, well-considered warning gently spoken will not do.
When by inattentiveness you have wandered your Chevy pickup perilously close to the overlook’s guardrail, a calm and rational discussion is not in order.
When the house is on fire, a jolting wake-up call is needed.
Sometimes we all need a shout, a jolt, an attention-grabbing moment from which we can begin to travel in a different direction. We need John the Baptist standing at cliff’s edge shouting, “Watch out!” Often, life’s most difficult, and sometimes most tragic, moments provide just that jolt, that summons to rearrange life.
Those moments are John the Baptist moments . . . harsh, unyielding, in-your-face. They are not my personal style, nor yours perhaps. Still, often God has had to use John the Baptist moments to get my attention, to wake me up, to stir me to life, when I would not wake up any other way. I’m guessing that is true for all of us.
• Reflect on a couple of “John the Baptist moments” from your past . . . times when God got your attention in a blunt, jolting way. When did that happen? What were the circumstances? How did life shift for you after that John the Baptist moment?
• Is there is a John the Baptist voice now in your life which you are ignoring?
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