It seems like we've entertained a fairly constant stream of guests lately, with more to come. Standard procedure: clean sheets, clean floors, clean bathroom, grocery shopping, cooking and baking.
Sometimes standard procedure has to be modified. For example, when Dawn's folks come for dinner, in addition to cleaning and cooking, we remove evidence of those parts of my character that embarrass my wife. That comes down to hiding my computer gaming (there, now that I've outed myself . . . .)
When John announced the coming of Jesus, he didn't say, "Get ready! Go home and clean your house." Listen to this from Luke 3:7-9: John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
You have to understand a couple of things about Israelites of that day and vipers. First, it was commonly thought that vipers were born by eating their way out of their mother's belly; vipers were mean. Second, when a field would become infested with vipers, common practice in the off season was to burn the field and kill or drive out the vipers.
So John's message to prepare the people for Jesus was something like this: "You guys are so ornery and low-down you don't care about your own mothers, and you're going to pay for it! Who warned you to get out before the field burns?"
Not exactly a winning message, but it was a spiritual version of my wife's prohibition against playing a Medal of Honor where her folks can see it. John knew that Jesus was coming not to visit homes, but to win hearts. It was the lives of the people that needed attention, not their houses.
The Messiah was coming to make everything right, and restore the people to God. That called for the ultimate clean-up: Repentance.
Sometimes standard procedure has to be modified. For example, when Dawn's folks come for dinner, in addition to cleaning and cooking, we remove evidence of those parts of my character that embarrass my wife. That comes down to hiding my computer gaming (there, now that I've outed myself . . . .)
When John announced the coming of Jesus, he didn't say, "Get ready! Go home and clean your house." Listen to this from Luke 3:7-9: John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
You have to understand a couple of things about Israelites of that day and vipers. First, it was commonly thought that vipers were born by eating their way out of their mother's belly; vipers were mean. Second, when a field would become infested with vipers, common practice in the off season was to burn the field and kill or drive out the vipers.
So John's message to prepare the people for Jesus was something like this: "You guys are so ornery and low-down you don't care about your own mothers, and you're going to pay for it! Who warned you to get out before the field burns?"
Not exactly a winning message, but it was a spiritual version of my wife's prohibition against playing a Medal of Honor where her folks can see it. John knew that Jesus was coming not to visit homes, but to win hearts. It was the lives of the people that needed attention, not their houses.
The Messiah was coming to make everything right, and restore the people to God. That called for the ultimate clean-up: Repentance.
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