The Second Sunday in Advent (At the Baptism of Kaesyn Ryan Avey)
If You Want Cheap Insurance, Go to Geico Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. John the Baptist declared to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “*You brood of vipers! Who warned to flee from the wrath to come!*” (A viper, by the way, is a poison snake—not a compliment.) Dear Christian friends: This is a strange Gospel. God speaks about His gift of Baptism in countless places throughout the Scriptures. Most of the time, God describes Baptism in such glowing terms that anyone in his right mind would want to run toward the baptismal font, jump into the water, and never wish to leave it again. Why would anyone say “no” to such welcoming baptismal promises as forgiveness of sins, eternal life with Christ, poured out in sincerity and truth by the God who wishes for all people to be saved? That is the strange thing about today’s Gospel. Everywhere else in the Scriptures, Baptism seems like a divine gift that should welcome all and be welcomed by all. Here in today’s Gospel, God’s prophet John does not seem very welcoming. God sent John for the purpose of preaching Baptism because Baptism is all about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. As you heard, “*John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins*.” When the people heard the preaching and “*came out to be baptized by him*,” John responded by calling them names! John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” So much for a warm welcome at the baptismal font! Rather than allowing everyone to rush headlong into Baptism and to splash around in the promises contained therein, John blows a whistle and holds up his hands: Wait a minute! What exactly do you mean to accomplish by coming to this water? “*Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come*?” By speaking to the crowds in such harsh terms, John is forcing us to believe that God’s gift of Baptism is much greater and far more serious than we would all like to think. By calling all those people at the Jordan “*a brood of vipers*”—by demanding that they “*bear fruit in keeping with repentance*”—John is warning us that we should hold every aspect of Baptism with the utmost seriousness. We should NOT think of God’s Baptism as a cheap insurance policy. Cheap insurance: That is exactly the accusation that many of our fellow Christians make against us Lutherans in particular. Many fellow Christians hold our practice of infant Baptism in contempt, and not merely because they “*know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God*” (Matthew 22:29). Many of our fellow Christians hold infant Baptism in contempt because Baptism so easily looks like our cheap insurance policy. Why do they think Baptism is our cheap insurance policy? Because of the way we so often treat the good gift of Baptism that God has so graciously given. “Do you Lutherans really think,” they ask, “that all you have to do is stick a child into the water and that makes him a Christian? Are you telling me that once a child is baptized, he can go and make a wreck of his life, living as if God does not matter or even exist? Many of you Lutherans do exactly that! You seem to want your name on a church role, but then you also want to act as if nothing matters after Baptism—no evidence of repentance, no discernable trace of good works, no faithfulness in worship, and not even a decent life according to the Ten Commandments! What are we supposed to think of this holy water you that sprinkle upon yourselves?” Perhaps these accusations are well-deserved. Perhaps many of us Lutherans actually do prefer to act like faithless thugs, all while expecting nothing but good things from God. I wonder what sort of sermon John would preach to us, if he was standing over there next to the font, rather than knee-deep in the Jordan River. Probably his sermon to us would not be very much different from the one he preached in today’s Gospel. What is John’s goal with such brutal preaching? We should be very careful NOT to misunderstand! 1. John does NOT wish to drive people away from God’s good and life-giving gift of Baptism. John wants YOU to be and to remain in the Jordan River of God’s Baptism. John wants Kaesyn Ryan to remain in the Jordan River of Baptism, now that he has joined us there. Forgiveness of sins floats in Baptism! Eternal life bobs around in its waves! Rebirth and adoption and regeneration and spotlessness all soak into you when you come to the font. 2. John does NOT wish to flatter people or to stroke their egos, as if they should boast about their wonderful arrival at the shores of the Jordan. Baptism is not a reason to be congratulated, as if John is glad we finally made such a wonderful decision. The phrase “*brood of vipers*” pretty much destroys happy-clappy Christianity. 3. John is also the last guy on earth who would have us think that we must do something about our sinful condition before we enter the baptismal waters. John wants us to know and to believe and to stake our mortal lives upon the fact that Jesus Christ our Lord is “*the Lamb of God, the one carrying the sins of the world*” (John 1:29). If we carry any sin at all, it shall only be as far as the font, for there at the font our Lord Jesus takes our sin upon Himself, crucifying and killing our sins for us so that we may live. Why John’s brutal preaching? So that Baptism will matter. So that we will act as though Baptism matters. John wants our Baptism to matter, not merely on the day we each show up at the font—as Kaesyn Ryan did today—but also for every day of the rest of our lives. God’s prophet John wants us to hate the idea of cheap insurance, as if we dare to come here merely “*to flee from the wrath to come*.” God’s prophet John wants us to all to allow God’s gift of living faith to come down from heaven and to root itself within you, within me, and with Kaesyn, there producing for us “*fruit in keeping with repentance*.” There is a sense in which I want to say that we have our work cut out for us with this kid, Kaesyn Ryan, but I hate to make it sound as if I am singling him out. The only reason I mention him by name is because today is baptismal day. To be sure, that boy is going to need our steadfast love, our constant example, our direct encouragement, and our faithful confession of the one true faith. Kaesyn Ryan does NOT need us to tell any lies about cheap insurance! That boy needs us to believe and to look as though we believe. But we need the same things from him! We need his love, his example, his faithfulness in worship, and his life of good works done through faith in Christ Jesus. Faith in Christ Jesus: that is the reason why “*John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins*.” Faith in Christ Jesus: that is the reason why John preaches so strangely and so harshly in today’s Gospel. In a certain sense, God’s prophet John still preaches today and faith in Christ is the only reason why John continues to preach. As it is written in another place, “*John came as a witness, to bear witness to the Light, that all men might believe through John*” (John 1:7).
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