Sermon-Sunday-Jan 7, 2007

Brothers and Sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.,
The image of Jesus that John the Baptist speaks of in today’s Gospel lesson does not seem like a very nice image of Jesus. It’s certainly not a politically correct image of Jesus. To this crowd of people who had gathered on the banks to hear John preach, for various reasons, John describes Jesus as one who will come with a winnowing fork in His hand and He will clear the threshing floor so the wheat can be gathered into the granary, and the chaff can be burned with unquenchable fire.
You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to see here that John is talking about judgment. John says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. John’s use of the word fire is what shows us that he is talking about judgment. Spirit and fire is used here in a way to show purification. A common analogy used to illustrate the type of fire that John is talking about is a refiner’s fire, which is a fire used to purify steel or metal. It’s the type of fire that would be used by a person who makes swords to heat up metal or steel, which would remove impure elements, before the metal or steel could then be shaped into a sword.
So, as you hear these words this morning, as if you were one of those people filled with expectation who had gathered to hear John preach on the banks of the river, I ask you, are you among the wheat or the chaff? What exactly does that mean anyway? What does John mean by saying that the wheat will be separated from the chaff? What does John mean by saying that Jesus comes with a winnowing fork? Well, some of you farmers are probably already familiar with the imagery that John is using. But I’ll articulate on it a little bit.
Wheat is separated from chaff by throwing it up into the air with a winnowing fork. The heavier wheat falls back down to the ground, and the wind blows the chaff away. So in that light, what John is saying to those people on the banks, and to you, is that the Messiah will preserve what is valuable and destroy what is worthless, just as a farmer does.
So, maybe this might prompt you think “Well that’s great, then I’m OK.” “If He brings destruction only for the worthless then that doesn’t include me.” “I am a good person.” “I go to church on Sunday, I tithe, I go to Bible-study, I serve on the council.” “Oh, I am not perfect, but certainly I must be valuable, I mean look at everything I do.”
Well, take into consideration that John the Baptist would have been considered by many to have been a righteous and pious man. He even had his own disciples. But, in terms of his own status John said that he was not even worthy to tie the thongs of the sandals that Jesus wore.
The tying of someone’s sandals would have been a task that would have been reserved for a slave or a servant. So, John considered himself to not even be worthy to be a slave or a servant of Jesus. So if John was someone that these people on the banks would have considered to be very righteous and pious, then what does this lowly and humble view of his own worthiness say about them? For that matter what does it say about you?
But again, this does not fit the image of Jesus that we like. This is not the image of Jesus that we have come to embrace. This is not the image of a Jesus who is going to bless us with a new house or a new car if we just sow the right seed. It’s not the image of a Jesus who is going to support our political agenda, be it liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. And this is certainly not the image of a Jesus who is going to affirm every one of our innermost desires and orientations simply because we find them to be an expression of who we really are inside. Has Jesus come to judge and separate or to gather those who have responded to Jesus’ call for repentance? The answer is yes, or both.
Jesus has come to bring judgment, and He comes to gather those who have come to Him in faith and repentance. But God does not wait for us. In sin, we have already been found guilty, and try as we might, we cannot weasel our way out of this verdict. And in baptism, the verdict is carried through and the old sinful creature, or as Luther called it, the old Adam, is sentenced to death.
But thanks be to God, that is not the end of the story. Our Lord does not leave you in death. In His Son, He sends one who would come to take your place and carry your sin with Him to the grave and in exchange you receive His righteousness. And as the old creature is put to death, the new creation emerges. The new creation is called by name and claimed by Christ through the Holy Spirit, in the same way that Jesus Himself is called and claimed by His Father in today’s Gospel lesson when we hear the voice from heaven pronounce Jesus to be the Son of God in whom God is well pleased.
In baptism, the same claim is made on you. In baptism you are claimed as a Child of God in whom God is well pleased. And why is this claim made on you? Is it because of your faithful attendance? Is it because of your generous Spirit? Is it because of your creative energy? No. God has claimed you as His own because He loves you completely and unconditionally, and can’t bear the thought of spending eternity without you.
In Romans 6, Paul writes that “..all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Therefore we have been buried with Him by baptism into death ,so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.”
The newness of life does refer to the future resurrection when we will join Jesus in His eternal Kingdom. But the newness of life also refers to the daily resurrection that you experience daily as the Holy Spirit calls you through the Gospel.
As many of you know, this year we gave Christmas gift-plates to some of our nursing-home residents and other relocated members. And in the short time since we have done this I have already heard many sincere words of appreciation and gratitude from the people who received the plates. Also as a result of this, my visitation ministry was expanded, as I became aware through your contribution to this project, of people who, although they may not technically be members, they still have strong ties to our community.
This began with me reading the newsletter of another congregation and seeing that they did something like that also. So I decided to steal the idea. And had it not been for the generous contributions of so many of you, it would not have been possible. But had it not been for the Holy Spirit, I would have never even had the idea. The Holy Spirit took hold of it and turned it into something much bigger than an idea. The Holy Spirit turned it into the love of Christ being shared with people, some of whom, to be honest experienced quite a bit of loneliness over the Christmas season. The Holy Spirit expanded our visitation ministry with it, and who knows what else the Holy Spirit will do with it.
That is an example of the newness of life that the Holy Spirit is bringing about here daily as we live in baptism. I am not talking about John’s baptism, I am talking about the baptism that Jesus brought and experienced Himself as He was claimed by His Father as the son of God in whom God is well pleased.
In baptism, the same claim is made on you, and you are daily gathered with the wheat of the new creation and separated from the chaff of sin and purified with the refiner’s fire. This does not happen so you will claimed by Christ, but because you have been claimed by Christ, in whom you have been named as a child of God in whom God is well pleased.
Amen