✠ Psalmody: Psalm 25:1-3a;25:4;25:3a, 4;85:7;25:1-3a;85:12
✠ Lection: James 5:7–10; Romans 13:11-14;St. Matthew 3:1–6
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew begins on familiar ground. There’s the genealogy of the Christ, His birth in Bethlehem, the visit of the Magi from the East, the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, Herod’s slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and Jesus’ return to Nazareth to grow in wisdom, stature, and favor of God. All that is in the first two chapters, out of which St. Matthew takes us right into chapter three with the words In those days John the Baptist came preaching, making a clear literary link with what is written here about John, along with all the rest of this Gospel, and with what he had already accounted in the beginning chapters, even though there were decades of earthly time separating the events. In those days has us moving on to Jesus’ adulthood and the beginning of His earthly Ministry while also calling us to remember all that surrounded His long-expected and marvelous birth and early childhood, to rejoice in the majestic whole picture of God Himself coming to save us from our sins. St. Matthew does this so that we are led to understand that all the days lived by the One born King of the Jews kicked off creation’s ultimate Last Day in which we still live awaiting for that same Jesus, the King of Glory, to come again. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, because He is Himself the fullness of time since it, too, was created by Him and through Him.
Such is a glorious aspect that we may grasp about the prophecies fulfilled in Christ. Do not picture the ancient foretellings as words sitting in a sacred, dusty vault just waiting, longing, hoping to someday be fulfilled if the One about Whom they speak might ever come. No. Rather view prophecies, such as those of Isaiah, Elijah, Ezekiel, Micah, and Zephaniah, as glimpses of the certain reality that was for them still yet to come, the reality of the Christ stepping down into time, in those days to bring salvation to His people. The prophets’ prophecies are just as accurate a telling of the life of the Messiah as we have now in looking back through the words of the Holy Evangelists as the Holy Prophets were simply looking ahead in time as is clearly seen in the words For this is he (John the Baptist) who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.
Yes, John was the final prophet who was to come to prepare the way of the LORD, just as Elijah did in his mighty words that made way for the Almighty in Old Testament days to come for the deliverance of His people. His deliverance comes through His protection. His deliverance comes through His mighty power. His deliverance comes through His call for our repentance. Though it is by what he does with water that we best know John as the Baptist, or the Baptizer, it is equally, if not more, that we remember him as John the Preacher, even if not ever named as such. His words were bold, true, and unwavering, even at the cost of his head. They were words that fell upon the closed ears of Scribes and Pharisees and upon ears that were opened by them as they resounded truth from above. God gave John the words to preach, most commonly and easily summed up in the one statement by which he is introduced to us by St. Matthew, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It is a beautiful proclamation, one that should not be relegated in the mind and heart for the hearing of only those wicked unbelievers, because, boy do they really need to hear it! We all need to hear it. We all need repentance. We all need contrition of heart over our sins and the faith that binds up the wound where the law strikes us rightfully. We need not be a blood-thirsty Muslim jihadist or a greedy, Christ-despising Jew to be in need of repentance, though they both most certainly need it. Both need to repent, to turn from their wicked ways and from their worship of false gods to worship the Father in spirit and truth that is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ, as we, too, regularly examine ourselves.
And in John’s preaching do we see and understand the full meaning of repentance. Indeed, the word literally means to turn away from something, so to repent of sin is to turn away from sin, to condone sin no longer, to tolerate sin in our lives no longer, to forsake the lusts of the flesh and all the chaos and wretched consequence into which sin leads us. But we know that there’s more to repentance than that; that there is most certainly contrition that gives us that pain in heart, that sick taste in our mouth over the evil things that we find ourselves doing and capable of and wish not to be true; and that there’s not only contrition and turning away from the evil and trying to do better, but that there is goodness, there is forgiveness, there is relief and pardon to be grasped by faith that is itself given by the good and forgiving One to Whom we turn. John’s call to repent is for those who do not yet know the Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world to be the One to Whom they cling for the goodness of everlasting salvation, but it is that joyous call and reminder to those who already believe to continue believing by living in repentance, for there is still much life left to live in which repentance is most certainly called for.
All those who heard John the Baptist, John the Preacher proclaim “Repent,” also heard the very cause for repenting in the same phrase, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” What does this mean? Recall that the kingdom of heaven is not characterized by physical borders to which its earthly terrain extends. The kingdom of heaven is the very active reign of God when and where He gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace, we, the people, the sinners, believe His holy word and lead godly lives here in time, lives of repentance and faith, and there in eternity, where neither repentance nor faith will be needed any longer. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, in those days, which began this Last Day where He seeks to continuously gather us under the protection of His wing by our repentance of sins and faith in Him for forgiveness. In Him, the bright and Morning Star, has the dawn of the new creation come. The night is past. The day has come. Dear Christian people, take seriously your sins, come to God, and confess them in all their horrid honesty. Dear Christian people, take seriously your Savior, come to Him, as He comes to you, trust and believe that by His shed blood the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of repentance, the kingdom of forgiveness, the kingdom of life, the kingdom of salvation is at hand.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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