Consider these questions as we look at Luke 3:1-22:

1. How does John the Baptist's call for repentance serve as a preparation for the ministry of Jesus, and why is it significant in the context of salvation?

2. What is the significance of the prophetic passage from Isaiah that John the Baptist quotes, and how does it emphasize the universal nature of salvation?

3. In what ways does John the Baptist challenge his audience's understanding of righteousness, particularly with regard to their heritage as descendants of Abraham? How does this message resonate with us today?

Transcript:

We move from one season to another very quickly don’t we. Yesterday was Christmas and while we not quite ready to move on yet, it won’t be long before we do. The joke is always that as soon as one season is done in the stores you show up the next day and the next one is set up. The music is different on the speakers and the previous season is on clearance. Time moves quickly and so does the world around us.

‌As we return to the book of Luke this morning we find the story moving very quickly as we move on from the story of the announcement of Jesus and his early life. Now we are not only meeting the adult Jesus but the adult son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist. This is what we have truly been waiting to see. It’s exciting and sentimental to see the birth of the Messiah but we want action. We want to see what he is going to do. And from our passage today we get the idea that the Messiah is not coming to make people feel comfortable. If the one who is preparing the way for him is upsetting the apple cart just imagine what the one who comes after him will do.

‌As we come to our passage today we see not only John the Baptist preparing the way but also the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus with his baptism.

‌As we come to this passage today we are covering quite a bit of ground and so we are going to break it down into our three points to help us navigate it.

‌The first thing that we are going to see is that John is proclaiming a baptism of repentance. This is an important part of the story because it is about preparing for the coming of the ministry of Jesus. John is calling people to repent and return to God. We will see that is fulfilling a roll that was prophesied in the Old Testament to call people to repentance.

‌In our second point we will see that this proclamation by John the Baptist causes people to wonder if he is the messiah. He has arrived calling people to repentance and offering baptism. Is he the Christ or is there one who is yet to come? John makes it very clear that he is not the promised one but the one who prepares his way.

‌Finally we see the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Jesus comes to John to be baptized and we see a confirmation of who Jesus is. He is the beloved Son and the favor of God rests upon him.

‌And so, we find ourselves in another familiar story and it is a lot of text that we are looking to navigate this morning and so we jump right in to the first three verses and see a familiar way of starting out a story. Remember back to other parts of Luke that we have seen thus far. Luke isn’t afraid to draw the story of Jesus into the real world. This is not some mystical, religious story where it doesn’t matter if it ever happened. This is a real story taking place in the real world where we have a real sin problem that needs to be taken care of. The curse is a reality. The world was plunged into sin by our first parents and so we need a real salvation and that was what God promised all the way back in the garden. The promised messiah was not a mystical, spiritual, and ethereal being who was going to appear out of thin air. God promised that the savior who would come would be from the seed of the woman and so we need a savior who arrives in our very real, very broken world.

‌And so, Luke tells us about what was going on when John the Baptist arrives. It’s the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, some guy named Pontius Pilate is no governor of the region of Judea and Herod is ruling over Galilee and his brother Philip ruled over assorted regions. Luke is framing the history of the ministry of Jesus with the world around him. Before we move on to the mention of the arrival of John, there is one piece of information that is interesting. Luke tells us that this occurs when Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. Well, this is strange because there is only supposed to be one high priest. Well, Annas had been removed from being high priest and his son-in-law Caiaphas was named high priest. As you can imagine, the Jews likely didn’t appreciate the Romans sticking their noses in their religious business and so even though the Romans ensured that Caiaphas did the official functions of the high priest, many Jewish folk still were of the opinion that Annas was the true high priest.

‌And now with all the historical info set forth we read that the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth has the word of the Lord come to him in the wilderness. Now, we are seeing why John was considered worthy of getting so much exposure in the first part of Luke. The story of his arrival is a significant part of the what we see in Luke and now we see why. He is the going to be calling the people to repentance. This is a common prophetic idea. Remember all the times in the Old Testament where the people are called to return to God. He is doing the same thing. The idea here is that John the Baptist is like a prophet. He is in the wilderness. The word of the Lord has come to him and now he is calling people to repentance.

‌And as we advance through the chapter to verse 4 we see that this was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah.

‌There will be a voice crying in the wilderness with the purpose of preparing the way of the Lord. And look at what is anticipated. This one crying in the wilderness will make the path straight for the coming of the messiah. The valleys will be filled. The mountains made low. The crooked will be straightened and the rough places will become level.

‌You get the idea here. Things are going to be changed and this is going to be a great leveling event. If there are those who are too low, they will be lifted up. Those who are too high will be brought low.

‌And we see something interesting in the way that Luke shares this passage from Isaiah. All four gospels apply this passage from Isaiah 40 to John but there is something unique in what Luke does here. The rest stop before getting to the final line we see quoted here. All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Well, the reason Luke has gone a little further in Isaiah is because of his audience. Remember who we saw that Luke was writing this for. Theophilus. He was not Jewish. He was a Gentile and so Luke is letting us know this idea that the messiah will come to all people, not just the Hebrews, goes all the way back to the way the one preparing the way for the Messiah was foretold. The idea of all flesh here is that the Messiah will bring salvation to all people regardless of their ethnicity or what their family tree looks like. This is really good news before we start the ministry of Jesus. We are reminded that what we are going to see Jesus do and teach is not just for people who are born from a certain genetic line. It is for all the children of Adam and that means it is for us.

‌And while this is good news that the Messiah is coming the message that John brings is not just sunshine and happiness. In fact, from what we read John is saying it is no wonder he is in the wilderness. It might be the only place they let him talk.

‌It doesn’t matter whether you are talking in the first century or in our present day if you tell your audience that they are a bunch of snakes you are going to get their attention. And that’s not the only attention grabbing line that John has. He asked them “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”. What in the world is John so worked up about? Well, it is likely that many of those in his audience were not what we would call sincere. They probably came out to see the show that everyone was talking about. This wild man in the wilderness sounding like a prophet of old. This is before Netflix and Hulu and I’m guessing a prophet like John the Baptist might have been the most interesting thing around. And so, John is telling his audience to examine their hearts. This phrase, brood of vipers implies that they are the offspring of poisonous snakes and so they are becoming like those who have lived in sin and oppressed the prophets.

‌So, what is the ultimate thing that John calls them to do. They are to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. In other words, don’t just say you are going to repent. Don’t just have John baptize you and then go home and live your life the same way you always have. He is calling them to live their lives in a new way to reflect the washing they have in the baptism he has given them.

‌And isn’t that the hard part? It is easy to feel sorrow for our sin. It is easy to say that we are going to live differently. It is an entirely different thing to actually do it.

‌And we see that John anticipates what he thinks their answer will be. He says do not begin to say to yourselves “We have Abraham as our father.” In other words, don’t think that because you are a Hebrew by birth that you and God are OK. Don’t think that just because you ancestry.com profile of your DNA came back with Abraham down the line that you don’t need to actually bear fruit in keeping with repentance. He tells them that God could raise up children of Abraham from the rocks around them. And even now the axe is laid to the root. In other words, the whole way of doing things and the understanding of who is the children of God could come down because every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Harsh words, but that is what prophets do. They say what people don’t want to hear but we see that these calls to repent are being heard by the people and are causing them to wonder what they should do.

‌And we see that John calls them to give to others and tells them to do their jobs honestly. There isn’t any real super duper insights in the call to repentance here, is there. He just tells them to be honest in their professions. This isn’t any different than it is for us. When we are called to repentance it starts with the things of our ordinary lives. We want some path to higher enlightenment of some kind but what we are called to do is take the path of holy and just living in the ordinary little things of life.

‌And even though these instructions were simple it causes the people to wonder who John is. Is he really just a prophet or is he something more and that question brings us to our second point.

‌You’ve heard me mention before that this time in the history of the Jewish people was a time of messianic expectation. They had done the math on the 70 weeks from the book of Daniel and they were living in hopeful expectation that the Messiah was on the way.

‌And so they are asking the very obvious question. Is John the Christ? Is he the promised messiah? They are asking a good question but they have no idea how close they are to getting it right. It’s like that question that you got wrong on the test but you went and asked the teacher for partial credit because you thought you were close enough to deserve at least a few points.

‌He is not the messiah but he is the one preparing the way but he lets them know that the messiah is on the way and he is greater and mightier than John the baptist. He tells his audience that he is not even worthy to untie the sandal of Jesus. Now, this is a weird phrase for us. We would never describe someone who is greater than us this way but it comes from the rabbinic tradition. Students were supposed to do tasks for their teacher but they would not loosen the sandals of the rabbi. That job was too menial even for students. The lowest of the household servants did that as their task. And John is saying he’s not even that guy in comparison to Jesus.

‌John is calling people to repentance and baptizing with water but the one who is coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. What is he saying here? Remember the context we are in here. John has been doing an outward washing with water. He is concerned that people aren’t going to be changed, right? He is telling them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. The baptism Jesus is bringing will bring internal change with the Holy Spirit and the imagery of fire is one of judgment and is in contrast to water. John could wash the outside but only Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit can clean up the inside.

‌And John continues with extreme language once again. He is going to come and judge sin and gather the wheat into the barn but those that are not bearing fruit will be sent out and destroyed.

‌John is letting his audience know to prepare themselves for the coming of the messiah for this will be the most important message that they will hear because it is the ultimate message of salvation and judgment.

‌And we see that these calls to repentance get the attention of not only the people in the wilderness but he is also upsetting people in higher places of authority. It is making them so uncomfortable that they lock him up. And we know that this calling people to repentance eventually got him killed.

‌But John is the one preparing the way. The story in Luke is not about him. It is about Jesus and the story is shifting to him as our passage for today concludes. We have felt it shifting in the text as Jesus point to him but now the story is moving towards Jesus and we see that he is the promised one who has come to do the will of God.

‌‌And the story shifts rapidly to Jesus and we get a condensed version of the baptism of Jesus here. Just two verses about it. Generally the gospel of Mark tells the stories in the life of Jesus most rapidly but we have three verses on the baptism of Jesus in that gospel. Earlier we saw a contrast between the baptism of water and the coming baptism of fire with Jesus. Well now we are seeing a contrast between the baptism of the regular folks who were coming out to be baptized and the baptism of Jesus. Everyone else had been baptized and nothing happened. Everything was normal but when Jesus is baptized the heaven open, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, and a voice is heard from heaven.

‌As we notice whenever we find ourselves in a passage about the baptism of Jesus we see all three persons of the Trinity represented. Jesus in the water, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and God the Father speaking from heaven. The idea expressed in what we are seeing here is the sign of blessing on the coming ministry of Jesus. He is the one that was promised. He is the one who will save God’s people. He is the beloved son with whom God is well pleased.

‌It is important that we think back at how the gospel of Luke has confirmed this to us. The angels gave us the identity of the child in Mary’s womb. The angels announced it to the shepherds. We heard the proclamation of Simeon and Anna when he was presented at the temple. We see the blessing as we learned about the young Jesus in the temple. The idea progressing through Luke is that he is the one. God’s favor is upon him. There is no question about the identity of Jesus. We know who he is and as the book of Luke progresses and we hear his teaching and see his life we are to approach what we learn about Jesus with this stamp of approval on him. He is speaking for God and he is the one who is going to do the will of God. He is the beloved Son and because of this we should not only listen to what he has to say but we should believe in him that we might have life in his name.

‌And so, there is a shift that is happening in Luke that we will see continuing as Luke gives us the family tree of Jesus next week but what can we take home from this passage today as it holds great truths about the identity and mission of our savior.

‌I want us to take away one specific application this morning as we live in light of Jesus being the beloved son.

‌There are many voices out there for us to listen to. The world is pulling us every direction. There is a fire hose of information available in our world about nearly every type of content. It is easy for us to be distracted but as believers in the Lord Jesus we are called to follow him and called to live a life of holiness in response to what he has done for us.

‌The Christmas season points us to Jesus and is a good reminder for us of what has been done to rescue us from sin and unbelief. The story of Jesus shows us that there is one who loves us more than anyone else. From the announcement of his coming to his birth, and now in his baptism we have a point driven home to us. He is the one. This is our hope. While there are so many voices in the world the voice of God confirming that he is the beloved son is the voice we need to hear. These words here in Luke let us know that Jesus is the one that we are to follow. What he teaches us is to have authority in our lives. As it says in the opening of the book of Hebrews God has spoken at many times and in various ways but now God has spoken in his son. As the year comes to a close may we be driven to God’s word and the words of our Lord as we desire to live in obedience to him that the beloved son, our great savior, might receive all honor and glory and praise.