The church year is an amazing, remarkable thing, don’t you think? These Sundays and seasons, that interpose and impose themselves upon our usual, regular, daily, common calendars—they can grate at times like metal on stone. Sometimes they seem to mix, like fire and water. This church year, with its Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Triduum, Easter, and Pentecost seasons, and this Julian calendar with its months of January, February, March, April, May, June, July—each spinning in their own direction, so that, when they come together, they just sort of grind up against one another. And the friction. The smell of flint and the stinging haze of smoke. That’s how it seems, sometimes—this time of year especially.

Yet, this church year. I don’t have to convince you folks of this, at least not the majority of you, anyway, that the amazing, remarkable, miraculous thing about the Sundays and seasons of this church year is that they are ultimately like anchors, hitching posts, solid moorings that hold us fast, up and against the raging storms, the uncertain and tumultuous times of life.

August, September, October, November, December—they just don’t seem to do it. This parade of months just can’t seem to give people what they truly long for, what they ultimately need, to survive, to find comfort and hope, to provide some sense of certainty, when the situation at hand becomes unsettled and uncertain, when the world around you begins to lose meaning and seems to be falling apart. This time of year especially, when there are more deaths and suicides than any other time.

But this, this—Advent; the Nativity; the Epiphany, Baptism and Transfiguration of our Lord; Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday; the Resurrection; Ascension Day; the Day of Pentecost; Holy Trinity Sunday; Reformation, All Saints, and Christ the King. Now here is something to hold onto, something to hold on to you, no matter what time of year it is, no matter how rough and tough, peaceful or easy the times may be! Now here is something that can help make sense of things, and give purpose and meaning to life. Especially for the kids. For everyone who would consider themselves the children of God.

Like a fire that consumes him, John’s passion for our understanding of this baptism, that it stay clearly focused on and immersed in this One who is to come— this incarnate Christ, this enfleshed Messiah, this Son of God and All Humankind, this Lord of all Creation. John is merely echoing what this One will say, the very words that Jesus will speak in the days following John’s being arrested by King Herod: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!" This water rite, this wet and wild ritual, this baptism that prepares the way for the Lord and makes his paths straight—it’s all about repentance, or it’s about nothing at all!

That’s what really burns John up, when he sees the likes of Sadducees and Pharisees showing up along the sunny slopes of the River Jordan. And in Matthew’s Gospel it’s clear who these Sadducees and Pharisees are meant to be, in the eyes of the early church. The Sadducees and Pharisees, they were sects within ancient Judaism, opposing organizational parties that represented, within Matthew’s Gospel, the extremes to which people will take their religion, both politically and culturally. The Pharisees, they were the liberals. And the Sadducees, they were the conservatives. And John nails them both, calls them both a brood of vipers. Literally, children of vipers. Really literally, sons of snakes! And you can imagine what kind of a connotation that carried. As in these days, if anyone calls you a son-of-a-something— well, let’s just say that it’s not a term of endearment. It’s a blatant insult, leveled at those influential people who, rather than serving to guide and nurture others in the ways of faith, they sting and poison them. That’s what makes John so hot, those who pervert the faith for personal gain, those who see this baptism as serving self-centered purposes, forgetting that it’s all about seeing Jesus, in the water.

Just like we learned it last summer, at vacation Bible school, and our theme, "Take the Plunge!" Just like we remembered it at our recent 3rd-6th grade overnighter: Who’s in the water? Jesus in the water! Who’s in the water? Jesus in the water! Remembering who’s in the water, with us—who’s coming to be in the water, with us. Constantly called to remember this, and in the event that we may forget, then we place ourselves in the position so that we can and always will repent. Repentance is what believing in this baptism is all about. Repentance is what paves the way for the Christ who is on the way. Repentance is what keeps the doors open, that which turns us around so we can see who’s coming, so we can see who’s already here.

Keeping ourselves in the position of repentance—that’s why you’re here, right? That’s why you get yourself to church, and get active in the daily mission and ministry of this faithful community, right? What the Third Article of the Creed is all about? The church! The place to be, where the people exist for no other purpose than to keep the Spirit of repentance alive! Remember? "Daily in this Christian church!" as Luther exclaims it in the Small Catechism. This is how God’s holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and abundantly forgives us, by turning us toward the One who’s in the water! It’s Advent everyday, for us, here in the light of our baptism! What it signifies, says Luther, "is that the old creature in us, with all sins and evil desires, is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand, that daily a new person is to come forth, and rise up, to live before God in righteousness and purity forever!" Now how great is that? Martin, the Lutheran, he was cut from the same camel skins as John, the Baptist. God’s rite of baptism—for the sole purpose of keeping you repentant, constantly working on you, to turn you around so you can see who and where your God might be. Always moving, always changing—constantly keeping you turning toward the Christ who is always and constantly coming to you.

And in the coming to us, in the bringing of this kingdom of heaven to us, we remember what our repentant relationship to this One we claim as Christ is all about. Said best from the Gospel of John, which can also be heard on Bert’s answering machine, the heart and soul of our Advent season: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become the children of God, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God."

In his book "Touched by the Spirit", Richard Jensen, a Lutheran pastor, speaks of repentance in a way that has caused me to repent of all my previous notions of repentance, and maybe will for you as well. I’ll let Pastor Jensen explain.

"The daily baptismal experience has many names," Jensen says, "It may be called repentance. Unfortunately, repentance is often understood as an I can experience. ‘I am sorry for my sins. I can do better. I can please you, God.’ So often we interpret repentance as our way of turning to God. That cannot be. Christianity is not about an individual turning to God. Christianity is about God turning to us! In repenting, therefore, we ask the God who has turned towards us, buried us in baptism and raised us up to new life, to continue his work of putting us to death. Repentance is an I can’t experience. To repent is to volunteer for death. Repentance asks that the ‘death of self’ which God began to work in us in baptism continue to this day. The repentant person comes before God saying, ‘I can’t do it myself, God. Kill me and give me new life! You buried me in baptism. Bury me again today and raise me to new life.’ That is the language of repentance."

The daily experience of repentance that renews our baptism, heals our spirits, forever gives us hope and keeps us as the children of God. I can’t. But praise God, that God can, and God does! A repentant prayer if ever there was one. "I can’t. But God, you can!" Praise God for the Sundays and season of Advent, where someone like John the Baptist is always welcome to come and straighten us out, whether we like it or not, and point us to Christ. I can’t. We can’t. But God, you can! Amen.

Tim Leaf, Pastor

soli deo gloria