"A SIGHT TO BEHOLD"
Second Sunday in Advent
December 4, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Matthew 3:4-6 (NIV)
One thing that has generated a lot of controversy in our church-body and others for quite a number years has been something called the "Church Growth Movement." This movement has been around since the 1970s and it has to do with what a marketing expert might call "packaging." Proponents of this movement contend that as responsible Christians we should be presenting the Gospel of Christ to the unchurched in way that makes it appear attractive to them. Carried to an extreme, this view means that we should do away totally with such things as church buildings, liturgies, sermons, and Bible study, and replace them with a wide variety of social activities, dramatic productions, and concerts of contemporary Christian music. Traditionalists, on the other hand, feel that according to Church Growth thinking, the packaging becomes so all-important that the product (which is the Gospel of Christ itself) becomes obscured--almost forgotten. These people also say that we are not honestly proclaiming the Gospel if we see our ministry as being able to trick people into coming to worship by making it appear to them that they're not really worshiping. I suppose that there is a nugget of truth to each point of view, but I seriously doubt that we will ever find a happy median.
I often think of this whole matter of packaging the Gospel when I read about the ministry of John the Baptist--the forerunner of our Lord. Now here's a guy who really packaged the Gospel well, didn't he? I can't help but wonder how Church Growth experts might evaluate John's packaging of his message. Did he make it attractive to the people he was trying to reach, particularly when he called them a "brood of vipers" (Matthew 3:7)? Did he become so concerned about appearance that he forgot about his message? Did he tailor his message to suit the audience, being careful not to say anything that might offend those who heard him? And what was the end result of John's ministry? Was his message understood by those who heard it? Did they believe it and respond to it? Were they turned off by the way that John looked or by the things that he said? Let's take a look at the Bible's description of John and his audience to try find some answers.
How was the ministry of John packaged? Well, let's put it this way: John probably could have benefitted what modern American politicians might call "handlers." John was eccentric, to say the least. He had all the markings of what we today might call a "fanatic." The passage before us describes John in this way: "John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey." After reading this description of the Baptist in the wilderness, I'm almost tempted to visualize John as looking (and perhaps even smelling) not unlike one of those people who stop you downtown to ask if you can spare a couple of dollars. And yet, John's strange appearance wasn't all that unusual for a prophet of God. The Old Testament prophets were well-known for their unusual appearance and strange habits. In fact, these became for the prophet almost a badge of identity, or at least an attention-getter. If they were familiar with the description of John given in our text, the people who went looking for him in the Judean desert certainly would know who he was when they found him!
And what was the product that God packaged in the person of John? Strictly speaking, John was not a preacher of the Gospel. He came to prepare the way for the Gospel that was about to come in the Person of Jesus Christ--to make people ready to encounter the Gospel that Jesus would not only preach but also establish in His life and death. John was specifically a preacher of the Law. He prepared people for the coming of their Savior by letting them know in no uncertain terms that they were in need of a Savior. John exposed his hearers for the sinners that they were. Humanly speaking, that doesn't make much sense. Most people don't want to hear about sin (especially their own), and nobody wants to hear that he or she is a sinner worthy of God's judgment and condemnation. That's a real downer. If you preach about that, we are told, people will take offense. This kind of thinking certainly didn't intimidate John. He was committed to his mission and purpose. If he would have stopped exposing sin he would have forsaken his mission, which was to prepare the way of the Lord by making the people to whom He was about to come ready to receive Him--making them hungry and thirsty for the grace and forgiveness that He would bring.
One of the most important principles of Church Growth is to know your audience. Experts tell us that you need to know the background and interests of the people you are trying to reach if you're going get through to them at all. So who were the people that John preached to? Where did they come from? What were their interests? Matthew tells us in the passage before us that "Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region of the Jordan were going out to him." These people were natives of what we today know as the "holy land." They were for most part Israelites--members of God's chosen people. These were the people who were supposed to have it all. John knew his audience, to be sure, but he was really going out on a limb to dare to suggest to them that they were in need of anything, least of all of repentance for their sin and God's forgiveness.
What effect did John's ministry have on the people who heard him? Once again we look to the text, where we are told that "they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." Apparently John was successful even from a human perspective, in spite of his unusual appearance and the unpopularity of his message. There certainly must have been many who turned away in anger from the message that he preached, but we aren't told how many, nor are we given any kind of percentage. But God was nevertheless able to work through John (or perhaps in spite of him) to accomplish His divine purpose. There's a lesson in this for us as well: It is this God's Word alone, not the preacher or the packaging, that is important. It is the Spirit of God alone working in and through that Word, not the preacher or the packaging, that accomplishes God's will in the hearts of those who hear it.
As we look at John and his ministry we are reminded once again that you really can't judge a book by its cover. That principle applies to us as much as it did to John. We might feel at times as if we don't have "what it takes" to be an effective witness for Christ in this complicated world that we live in, but the effectiveness of our witness lies not in us or in our methods but in the Savior who we proclaim and in His Spirit, who has called us to be witnesses and has equipped us for the task. That is our motivation, our comfort, and our encouragement as we seek to follow in John's steps, preparing people for the Christ who is coming soon.
Amen.
May the One who once came as an Infant in Bethlehem prepare you for His coming again in glory by His Means of Grace, through which He comes to you even now. May He equip you to be His witnesses so that you, like the Baptist in the wilderness, may prepare the way of the Lord. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.