A friend of mine—interestingly, he’s a pastor now—used

to drive around our hometown during high school in a

maroon pickup truck with a bumper sticker you could

read from two lanes over. All caps. Big block letters. No

subtlety. “JESUS IS COMING. LOOK BUSY.”

And we do. We walk fast enough to suggest purpose

and avoid interruption. We sprint through December like

servers in a crowded restaurant, with our arms full and

our minds spinning and a smile painted over the hum of

“just let me get through this.”

It is a kind of liturgy, isn’t it? Find the tree. Buy the gifts.

Take the pic. Send the card. We have middle school

band concert and basketball practice the same night?

Oh, that’s just our schedule. In our house, we talk about

dividing and conquering. And above all, just keep

moving. Seventeen days left.

But here’s the thing about liturgies. They shape us.

With or without our permission, we are being formed

by the practices we practice. And somewhere in the

flurry of activity are the questions we can’t quite outrun.

Busy doing what? Or perhaps more to the point, busy

becoming what?

That’s when John the Baptist shows up. A bull in the

Christmas ornament shop. Refusing to play along. No

one ever accused John of subtlety. He speaks in all caps.

Big block letters. He crashes our carefully arranged

Christmas preparations and shouts his own version of a

greeting, “Merry Christmas — you brood of vipers!”

You won’t find that on a bumper sticker, but having

earned our attention, John wastes no time. And here is

his message: The old world is dying, collapsing under

its own weight. The axe is already sharp, waiting

at the root of the tree. One swing and it all comes

crashing down. This is your final warning. If you need

to change, you better do it now. Don’t just look busy.

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. That is, the kind of

fruit you can see, smell, taste, and touch. The kind of

fruit that costs you something.

Luke’s story does not begin with starlight and

shepherds, but with a roll call of the most powerful

men in the world. “In the fifteenth year of the reign

of Emperor Tiberius...” And he goes on to name them

all. The emperor. The governor. The tetrarch. The

high priests.

Luke might have been a history buff, but this isn’t just

context. It is an indictment. It had a name. The Pax

Romana. The peace of Rome. It was no peace at all. It

was order. Order maintained by force of occupation.

Order maintained by crushing taxes. Order maintained

by the swift violence for any who threaten the status

quo. Tiberius ruled from afar, but Pilate kept his orders

with crosses and blood. Herod played politics while

the poor starved. Religious leaders made peace with

empire and called it pragmatism. Their bumper sticker

read: Rome rules. Better stay close to power.

He names them all, and then Luke shifts the camera

from the palace gates to a river running through the

wilderness. The Jordan. He pulls us from the places

of power and pushes us to the edge of the map. Luke

is clear. Salvation will not start at the center. It takes

root on the margins. Into Rome’s carefully constructed

and dutifully maintained world comes a wild man. And

Luke says it was to this wild man, not to the emperor

or the governor or the high priest, that the Word of

God came. John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness,

looking and sounding like he came straight out of the

Old Testament.

He preaches, and the word spreads. Crowds begin to

pour into the wilderness. John does not disappoint them.

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? You

brood of vipers! John called them vipers not because

they are monsters, but because they are hiding from a

truth that would require them to change.

His voice draws them out from under their rocks,

and it’s hard to understand why. John offers them no

comfort, no affirmation, no easy path. All John offers is

the truth. And it is as if they have been starving for what

he is serving.

They listen. They’re baptized. They’re transformed by

a simple, devastating realization: life cannot remain as

it is. This order enforced by Rome is only an illusion.

Change is possible. Jesus is coming.

Luke names Tiberius and Pilate. We could name our

own rulers, our own governors, our own structures,

our own Pax Romana, the gap between the world God

created and the one we’ve learned to tolerate. But I

must tell you, John the Baptist does not address the

rulers. He sets his eyes on everyone who made peace

with that old order. Everyone who looked busy to avoid

interruption. People like me. People like us, who come

to church on Sunday, and light our Advent candles, and

sing about peace on earth, and walk back into the world

without blinking at all. Who participate and benefit and

stay silent.

We are a brood of vipers. Not monstrous, but timorous.

Hiding from a truth that might force us to change.

So, we arrive in the wilderness, where lies dissolve.

Where we cannot hide behind our schedules and our

stability and the comfortable fiction that everything is

fine. And in the wilderness, we tell the truth: I need to

change. We need to change. It all must change.

And so, the crowds ask John the only question that

matters if Jesus is coming: What then should we do?

John doesn’t flinch or hesitate. He’s got three answers.

Three groups. And no one gets off easy.

To the crowds: “If you have two coats, give one away. If

you have food, share with the hungry.”

To the tax collectors—that is, empire’s enforcers, the

ones who skimmed profit from the poor: “Collect only

what is owed.”

To the soldiers—the armed, the powerful, the loyal to

Rome: “No extortion. No threats. No false accusations.”

I hope you heard who showed up. Tax collectors.

Soldiers. Now these folks would have gone a long way

to get to John in the wilderness. They are the ones

with authority to enforce Roman rule. They are the

ones who benefit from the system. They come to the

river, and they ask John the question. And John tells

them the truth. If you have power to help or harm, John

is talking to you.

Stop hiding behind your defensive distractions and

spiritual abstractions. Change is coming. Concrete.

Costly. Visible. And now is the time to bear the fruit

of repentance.

Rome offers the illusion of tranquility. The comfort of

moral distance afforded by affluence. The peace felt

when the suffering of strangers can’t quite touch you.

And John calls this what it is: a lie. In place of Empire’s

pax he offers shalom. The peace that comes when

the hungry are fed. When we stop pretending self-

protection is our highest calling. It’s the Pax Dei. God’s

peace. The truth that our lives are so woven together

that there’s no use trying to separate them. That we

will never be well while our neighbors suffer. That

there is no peace in hiding.

John shifts our eyes from the powerful to the person we

walk right by, averting our gaze to avoid interruption.

Look at them, he cries. The ones without warmth. The

ones crushed by cost. Squeezed out of opportunity.

They are not pawns in your policy debates. They are not

expendable. They belong to God.

Listen. If you want to prepare the way for Jesus, you

must love as he loves. The one who is coming will do

everything John demands, and more. He will share his

coat and his life. He will feed the hungry and be bread

for the world.

Karen Johnson, our Food Pantry coordinator, updated

us a few weeks ago. She wrote that in this economic

climate, need is surging. We’re up to 90 families per

shift, three times a week. There’s a scramble for food

and volunteers.

And then Karen wrote these words. Big block letters.

All caps. “BUT GOD! I have seen more goodness,

kindness, and love than I ever recall seeing from my

brothers and sisters in Christ. It is God’s kingdom up

close and personal.”

So, my friends, in the wilderness, there is one question

that remains. What should we do? John’s answers are

simple but not easy.

Check your closet. If you’ve got two coats, give one

away. Check your pantry. If you have food, share it.

Check your practices. Stop supporting systems that

exploit other people. Check your privilege. Use whatever

influence you have to protect those at greatest risk. This

is not charity. It’s not even generosity. It is peace. The

kind that only comes through repentance.

Last month, deep in the logistics of Advent planning,

our tables were filled with calendars and schedules and

checklists, and in that staff setting, someone at the table

asked a question that changed the room. She said, “If

Jesus is coming, what would you change?”

At first, I thought, “Well the schedule is already set, and

we’re already halfway down the to-do list. We don’t

really have time to change any of this. It’s already on

the calendar.”

But I haven’t been able to shake that question. What

would you change if Jesus is coming? I don’t want you to

shake that question either. Not this season.

If Jesus is coming, what would you change? There’s still

time to answer. Still time to pursue peace. Still time to

prepare the way of the Lord.

If Jesus is coming, what would you change? I think you

know. I think you’ve always known. Well, I’ve got news

this morning. Jesus is coming. Don’t just look busy. Go

do it. Amen.