NRS Matthew 3:1
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,
2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"
4 Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, in the words of St. Paul from today's Second Lesson, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). (Please say --) Amen.

Let's say our center aisle is the river of time. And let's say that time flows from the altar to the narthex. Now imagine that you are going to take a little river cruise. You don't have a steamboat or a motorboat or a tugboat, but what you do have is a little one-person rowboat. Now you know how to move a rowboat - you face aft, to the back of the boat and start pulling on the oars. So you start to row, row, row yourself gently down the stream of time, and as you row, what you see in front of you is time past, while the future comes at you from behind. Right? You're looking at the past as the future creeps up on you.

That's the ancient conception of time, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. What we know best and see most clearly is what's happened, the time that's immediately past, and what we know least is what will yet be, the future, which we can hardly see at all. When the psalmist reflects on his past, he declares, "I remember the days before me (miqqedem)." When in Jeremiah 29 the Lord announces his intention to give Israel a new future, the word we translate as future actually means in Hebrew "that which is behind or which follows me ('aharit)."

Vestiges of this same understanding persist even in our own modern languages. If you know a little German, you might recall that the word for ancestors is Vorfahren (those that go before), while descendants are referred to as Nachfahren (those that come after). In English, too, we speak of our parents and grandparents as our forefathers, and when we get squeezed for time, we talk about deadlines sneaking up on us, as if time were catching us from behind.

In today's Gospel John the Baptist summons his hearers to a radical reorientation toward time. This is what John is getting at when he calls his listeners to repent. Turn around, he John. Change directions. Or in other words, stop facing the past, and instead turn to the future that is upon us, for "the kingdom of heaven has come near" (v. 2).

In making this announcement John is clearly speaking in the great tradition of the prophets before him. The so-called "Second" Isaiah had earlier declared centuries before, "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43: 18,19). The new thing that John now perceives is nothing less than the very rule of God, for which Matthew's gospel uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven." [Where Mark and Luke refer to the "kingdom of God," Matthew writes of the "kingdom of heaven," probably as a courtesy to his Jewish Christian audience who would have qualms about using the name of God.] "Kingdom of heaven" doesn't mean heaven per se, but rather, the rule, the reign, the kingship of God that trumps all other power and authority in heaven above and on earth beneath. John is announcing that God is going to take into God's own hands all the rights, privileges, and honors that other worldly powers
and principalities have been trying to wrest from him. Turn around, says John, and you will see the future coming in the one whose sandals not even I, the mighty prophet, am worthy to carry.

In his proclamation of the coming Messiah, you can't help but notice that John is especially hard on the Pharisees and Sadducees who come out to hear him. The irony, not lost on John, is that the Pharisees and the Sadducees represented the most conservative elements of the Jewish people. They were conservative in the sense that they looked for Israel's future in the past. Both the Pharisees and Sadducees argued that the way for Israel to go forward was to go back to her roots, either going back to the time of Moses or back to the time when the Temple was established. The Sadducees, in particular, picked a time from Israel's past that best suited their own needs and interests, which more than justified John's angry denunciation, "You brood of vipers."

John explicitly rejects the "back to the future" approach of both parties. Rather, John insists that the past holds no salvation for anyone. "Do not presume," he warns, "to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham" (v. 9). Likewise, John also renounces claiming our roots as a basis for hope, for "Even now," says John, "the ax is lying at the root of the trees" (v. 10). The fruit worthy of repentance means turning around to face the future from whence the Messiah, Israel's Righteous Judge and Mighty Savior, is coming.

Thanks largely to the impact of Christian teaching and theology, we now usually think of the future as in front of us and the past behind us. But even though our language may have changed, we shouldn't underestimate the power of the past to turn us around and hold us captive. Sometimes the romance of the past lures us into longing for a time that never really was. Sometimes the guilt and shame of past deeds can delude us into thinking that there is neither future nor hope for us. Sometimes the hurt, grief, or rage at things done to us in the past can cripple us from seeing beyond our pain and into a future of health and healing.

And that's why there can be no true repentance, no real turning around without forgiveness. Forgiveness cancels the power of the past. Forgiveness opens us to the grace of the coming Messiah, allowing us to live forward into time and not drown in the past. Which makes Advent more than just the pre-Christmas season. Advent is the season for us to re-immerse ourselves in John's baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That means recognizing, naming, and acknowledging what it is we need both to forgive and to be forgiven of. What in your past makes you cringe, what saddens your heart and burdens your soul? Lift it before the mercy of God and let God's righteous judgment burn it away. And likewise, what are the grudges you hold? What resentments are you keeping alive? What are the hurts, sorrows, and secret pains you just can't manage to let go? Leave them to God. Don't torment yourself with hateful thoughts of revenge and retribution. But as God forgives you and washes you clean, so forgive others that you may live with your face to the Rising Son, the one who comes with hope and healing in his wings.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.