Today I want to share a word about a vision of a new beginning as I comment on Luke 3: 1-20. We will begin by reading verses 1-3:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Introduction:
Sometimes in life, we just need to start over. I remember a time when that happened in my childhood. It was painful at the time, but I learned from it.
I was in upper elementary school when I had an assignment to write what I thought was a very long paper. It probably wasn’t that long, and I don’t remember the subject. However, I do remember how long it took me to get that paper about 90% complete using pen and paper.
I have always been a slow writer and that evening it took me until nearly bedtime to get as far as I had. Then disaster struck!
My mom gave me a glass of milk as a snack to help me finish strong. I promptly tipped it over onto my paper. The paper was soaked, the ink ran, and all my efforts were ruined.
I began crying. I was literally crying over spilled milk!
I wanted to give up and go to bed, but my mother would not let me. Lovingly but forcefully, she told me to buckle down and start over.
I don’t remember if she said it on this occasion, but in similar circumstances she often told me to, “Straighten up and fly right.”
So, I dried my tears and got back to business. In the end, in a fraction of the time that I took during my previous efforts, I produced a better product.
In the same way, at the beginning of the 1st Century, God’s people needed a new beginning. They had made a mess of their relationship with God, they had neglected their mission from God, and they needed some forceful love from God.
Our scriptures for today show us John the Baptist introducing this new beginning to the people of Jerusalem and Judea.
A Vision of the Present:
To be able to move forward in life, we must know where we are in the present.
On February 29, 1966, NASA astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett flew from Houston to St. Louis to undergo simulator training for their upcoming Gemini space mission. Lambert Field was experiencing clouds, rain, and fog. During the instrument landing, they became disoriented and started their approach from the wrong place. When they emerged from the clouds, they saw they were to the left of the runway and they tried to adjust, but crashed into a building and they both were killed.
If you start from the wrong place, it is very hard to end at the right place. This is why we reconcile our bank accounts, and why businesses take periodic inventories. You must know where you are and what you have before you move forward.
At this time, God’s people were in a messy situation. Rome was in control, but that control was exercised in different ways in different places.
Jerusalem and Judea were ruled directly by Rome through Pontius Pilate. He was only concerned with collecting taxes for Rome and keeping the peace, often with a heavy hand.
Herod the Tetrarch, also known as Herod Antipas, was ruler in Galilee. He was the son of Herod the Great, and he was no more righteous or ethical than his father was. He had stolen his brother’s wife from him, and he imprisoned John when confronted with his sin. Later, when Antipas had the chance to free Jesus on the night He was betrayed, he just sent Him back to Pilate. From that moment he and Pilate became friends of like mind.
The Jews were divided into the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Worship took place in the synagogues as well as in the temple. Annas was the high priest by right, but he had been deposed by Pilate and replaced by his son-in-law, Caiaphas, who was officially the high priest, but Annas was still very influential.
In the middle of all of this turmoil, the Jewish faith had degenerated into liberalism and fundamentalism, and neither branch was interested in God’s mission for Israel.
If this is where Israel was in the 1st Century, where are we today? We live in an increasingly secular society, in which people are increasingly frustrated and equally vocal about their frustrations. We are increasingly polarized in many areas of life, including politically, economically, and socially.
Where are we personally? Are we committed to God’s mission for us? Or, are we engaged in self-centeredness and pride? John saw the clear need for Israel to repent. What about us, today?
Before we can have a new beginning, we must realize where we are. We must also realize from where we have come.
Let’s continue by reading verses 4-6:
As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
A Vision of the Past:
One issue we have today in our churches and in our society is that our leaders often act as if history began when they took office. Our past is the foundation upon which we have built today, and today is the foundation upon which we build the future.
The New Testament was built upon the Old Testament. The New Covenant makes no sense to us without understanding the Old Covenant. The New Testament writers quote the Old Testament over 280 times, and this is what Luke was doing in our passage for today.
Like me in elementary school, Luke was writing a research paper. He had researched the Gospel story, and his books of Luke and Acts are his report of it to Theophilus. My report was spoiled, and I needed a new beginning. Luke’s report was that people had spoiled the Old Covenant and that they needed a new one.
The main thing to note is that the Old Covenant was a good one. The problem was that while God kept it, humans did not. And they were suffering because of it.
What about us? What have we spoiled in our lives? John’s answer for that is to repent and move forward. What have we done right? The Biblical answer to that is to build on them moving forward. How can we do these things?
We can find that answer in verses 7-9 and verses 15-18. Verses 7-9 tell us:
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Verses 15-18 also tell us:
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
A Vision of the Power:
When something is not working, we need to try something else. Doing what you did before without making any changes means you will get the same result. As one pundit said, “The only time hitting your head against the wall feels good is when you stop!”
Many times, when something is not working, is because it has no power. The first step in most trouble shooting check lists asks, “Is the power cord plugged in?” The second step is often, “Is the device turned on?”
A key problem with the Old Covenant was that people lacked the power to comply with it. Sin is addictive. The tagline from the potato chip commercial applies here: “You can’t eat just one.” People in their natural state can’t avoid yielding to sin. We can’t sin just once. It is literally and spiritually impossible.
It does not matter who you are, it doesn’t matter who your parents are, it doesn’t matter who you know, it doesn’t matter where you are from, no one can resist sin without help. And John was explicit about the results of sin:
First, sin separates us from God. No one can withstand God’s wrath. Also, God is like the farmer who is winnowing his wheat. He is separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat is His harvest, but the chaff is blown away and discarded. Unrepentant sinners are left with no hope and no joy.
Sin also brings to us punishment. Sinners are cutdown like worthless trees and they are burned in fire. Unrepentant sinners are risking an eternal damnation in torment. Consider Luke 16:19-25:
There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
The answer for this terrible problem, of course, is Jesus. John prophesied that Jesus, and here he is really saying only Jesus, can give people the power to overcome sin and avoid the desolation that was coming.
Sinners without Jesus remind me of a car sitting on a railroad track with a train coming. The train cannot and will not stop, but some sinners are oblivious to that fact, and they sit there until the train hits them. Other sinners see the train coming, but try as they might, as desperate as they are, they can’t get their car started and the train hits them. Sinners who are hapless, helpless, and hopeless just throw up their hands in resignation, and the train hits them. Some may even get out of their car and dare the train to keep coming, and, of course, the train hits them.
The effects of sin hit like a freight train unless we get help. The only one who can help us, of course, is Jesus! He is the only one with the power and will to satisfy both sides of the Covenant!
Finally, verses 10-14 show how His power will make a difference in our lives:
And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
A Vision of the Possibilities:
John told the crowds that Jesus had the power to make the difference in their lives. Jesus also was righteous, which meant He not only could make a difference, but also that He was willing to do what it took to make a difference. He was willing and able to give us new beginnings.
New beginnings means that there are new possibilities. Old patterns are restrictive, and they often don’t support growth. This is why vintners in Jesus’s day did not put new wine in old wine skins. The old skins are hard and set in their pattern, but new wine needs to find its own shape, so to speak.
One way to make unproductive trees or vines more productive is to prune them. When we lived in the country, my wife wanted a muscadine vine, so I built an arbor and planted a male and a female vine at both ends. The vines grew and were productive for a season or two, but then they grew so big and matted that they no longer had the capacity to produce. The next winter I pruned them severely to the point that I was afraid I had gone too far, but I had not. The next summer they produced more than ever before.
Likewise, iron ore, silver, and gold are not very attractive in their natural state. When they are refined, however, and they are placed in the hands of a craftsman, they can be transformed into useful, beautiful, or beautiful useful objects.
Even more appropriate is the analogy of recycling aluminum cans or glass bottles. When one of these items is used, they become soiled, and then they are discarded. How much more like unrepentant sinners can an object be? Yet, these items can be rescued from the trash, melted, and then reformed into new, unused and unsoiled products.
In our passage for today, John gave some specific guidance to some specific people about their specific issues. Many other issues exist beyond these, and we might ask the question, what about us? What about my growth issues?
Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament and about half of all he wrote consisted of practical counsel about growing and maturing in the Lord. We cannot cover all of that at this time, but the message of our focal passage is clear:
- In Christ we can have a new beginning
- In Christ we have the power to grow and mature and change
- In Christ we can experience transformation
- In Christ we can avoid separation, desolation, and eternal damnation
- In Christ we can break out of our destruction patterns and find a new way of life
Conclusion:
When I looked down upon my ruined school paper, I wept, because I had lost hope.
When God looked down upon His ruined creation, He wept, and then He sent us the Source of Hope, Jesus.
John told the unrepentant sinners who came to him that they could have a new beginning. So can we today!
Happy New Year,
Dr. Otis Corbitt
