It appears to me the Pharisees and Sadducees should at least get points for trying. Instead John verbally attacks them for being all repentance and no fruit. (All hat and no cattle) But to what end? Granted, the Pharisees and Sadducees, teachers of the law and keepers of the temple, come out together overcoming their natural animosity towards each other and they give up their respective positions of power to be subject to the poor people’s prophet, but it’s just a weekend excursion for them. The diet of locusts and honey and camel’s hair clothes with leather belt identify John as one who has forsaken the world for the wilderness, which is always the place of preparation for Israel. So when the city slickers come slumming he calls them on it. Who warned you to flee? Confession by itself is not worth the words used to say I’m sorry unless accompanied by a change of heart and hand. That is John’s point. You can’t come out to do a wilderness weekend of wailing and then go back to the city of business as usual. To bear fruit worthy of repentance is to live into the conclusion of confession – the amendment of the sinful life. The One who is coming after will do something more than John and though he will burn the same Pharisees and Sadducees with words like blind guides and brood of vipers and white washed tombs he will gather them in with “Father, forgive them…” And so it is for us. Our confession needs a word of judgment before absolution so that we will not be satisfied with an “I’m sorry” that does not in some measure lead to “I can do better.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
"Bear fruit worthy of repentance." Words, even outward behavior, can often come cheap. Repentance, as you point out, is about so much more than the superficial. One Biblical example of repentance comes from Ephesians 4, and for me makes this point well: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.“ In this instance repentance means going from being a taker to becoming a giver, about more than even stopping dishonest behavior but instead doing a complete about-face.
ReplyDeleteYet, I think the point John is making has also to do with the power to change, to turn around and repent. These Jewish leaders thought that it was all about their ecclesiastical standing and historical lineage. They are really only along the Jordan to make themselves look good. It's all superficial and political religiosity.
John reminds them that honest faith has nothing to do with their own religious standing, that the ax is lying at the root of the trees, and that the source of real power was close at hand.
Confession is so much easier than repentance. God help us!
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