Well, maybe not. Just how much back-pedaling can we do and how quickly? We walk right into this scriptural brick wall every December. We’re ready for Christmas. We’ve trimmed the tree and started shopping. We have warm and fuzzy feelings about a baby sleeping in the hay and stable creatures and angels and shepherds and small town Bethlehem. We open the holiday cards adorned with puppies in Santa hats or winter wonderland scenes just like we woke up to yesterday morning, and then we come to church on Sunday and have to hear that awful “brood of vipers” text. At least if you show up to some archaic church where the liturgically stubborn pastor still reads from the Advent readings of a million years ago – that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Since that would be me, now you’re stuck. No big nativity production this weekend. No pondering in Mary’s heart quite yet. It’s full-on John the Baptist and he’s on the tear of his life. It’s probably not the biblical scenario that we’re going to make into the next holiday drama. You’ll be glad to know that I don’t find this text particularly illuminating for a pastoral care model either. When folks come to my office to talk about being baptized, the first words out of my mouth will not likely be, “You brood of vipers.” I try to hold off on that one.

This is the long-awaited messenger who is expected to announce the good news of salvation to a hurting world, and he scares me just a little. OK – he scares me a lot. The prophet Malachi forewarned us that this messenger would be like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap. Either one of those things will burn your skin right off! Malachi also told us of this messenger’s mission, “He will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” That means that he will come to burn off everything but the most pure nuggets of preciousness that are in us. It sounds painful to me.

Later when John arrives on the scene, his message sounds right on target with Malachi’s prophecy. “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.” And this, John says, is nothing compared to what Jesus will do. Jesus will come with a winnowing fork in his hand to separate the wheat from the chaff, which by the way, will be burned with unquenchable fire.

I detect a theme here – a holy fire. There is a holy fire that engulfs us, purifies us, prepares us, unsettles us, and baptizes us by the flames of the Holy Spirit. It’s the kind of fire that will melt your skin, and turn your bones to dust. And this is the good news of salvation that will change the world forever? Well, at least according to the prophets of old, it is. This is the baptism of repentance that John preaches down by the river. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” is what John tells us right after he calls us a bunch of low down snakes. Ultimately our actions will make all the difference. It doesn’t matter if we have the right religious ancestry, and it doesn’t matter what we have done or haven’t done in the past. Now is the time to make way for the plans of God to unfold!

When I read this passage as one that is preparing me to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ, what I hear John calling for is ruthless self-examination – the likes of which are rare in our feel good world. Sure we have self-help sections in every bookstore, and therapists and counselors abound to help people solve their problems. But this is introspection of a higher order that John puts in front of us. It’s the refiner’s fire, the fuller’s soap, the flames of the Holy Spirit licking away everything in us that isn’t worthy of God. The holy fire in this case is a fire of purification rather than the fires of damnation. Experiencing this fire burns off the impurities and makes our finest efforts shine even brighter. Salvation then comes through searching our hearts and beginning to know ourselves as God knows us. John Calvin began his Christian Institutes with his observation that, “Without knowledge of ourselves, there is no knowledge of God.” But with that level of intimate knowledge comes a great deal of pain. Calvin also recognized very quickly that human beings mess up, a lot. In fact, we are more like the worms than the angels. When we begin to understand even little glimpses of God, we begin to know just how far we are from obeying God’s Word to us. We recognize that brood of vipers, and as we do, we detect our own fangs.

Repentance and salvation go hand in hand. Why – we might ask. Why can’t salvation be easy, as easy as saying “I believe in Jesus?” Why do we have to confess our sins? Why does religion have to have this downer side just as we’re about to enter a season of celebration? It can’t always be easy or pleasant because healing isn’t always easy and to get well we sometimes have to let go of our control and allow for God to change us. When you look at these biblical concepts to put them into language we can understand, salvation and wholeness are practically the same word. To become whole, to experience God’s healing saving power, means that we have to give up any evil that resides within us. We have to forgive and allow ourselves to be forgiven.

So if we have trouble with this passage, likely it’s because our concept of forgiveness is way too small. We think of small apologies as what forgiveness is all about. But forgiveness is huge. Forgiveness is exactly what saves us from a fire that would consume every last bit of us. Forgiveness preserves those gems within us as a treasure fit for God. Let’s think about forgiveness of a higher magnitude for a moment. I have a favorite prayer of confession that gets to my understanding of how big God’s forgiveness can be in just a few sentences, and it is this:

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.

Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image; through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen.

I appreciate the words of this prayer because in those times when I have truly experienced forgiveness it has felt like a consuming fire was finally coming to an end. John’s baptism of repentance is experienced through hot and sobbing tears, through a breakthrough that changes our lives for good, through someone loving us enough to stand by as the pain loosens up the chains that were holding us back. Our sins are too heavy, too real, and too deep. I can easily get obsessed about my past or consumed with what I need to do in the future. Only by pure grace are we able to grow more and more in the likeness and image of Jesus Christ. We grow in grace by turning our lives around, by knowing how stupidly we have sinned, and how God’s love is available to us to change all that.

So after hearing John preach and preach and preach about repentance, the crowd asks him, “Now what do should we do?” John gives them a list. “Do you have more than one coat? Give one away. Do you have more food than you need? Give that away too. Don’t take more than is required. Don’t give out threats. Be satisfied with your wages.” In this pre-Christmas season, I dare say that there are plenty of opportunities to drop a coat or a can of food in a donation box somewhere. And being satisfied with who we are and what we have is a good reminder this time of year too.

When we live the examined life, when we live as those who are made pure by the grace of God, it becomes easier and easier to give of ourselves to others. If we are holding on tightly to our own sin, it is harder to open our hands and hearts to our fellow human beings. But when we let go – our hearts become lighter, our joys become more joyful, our hopes are recast toward the long vision of God’s love for the world. Forgiveness is hard, painful, and for the moment can give us a shocking look at who we have become. Nevertheless, the experience of God’s forgiveness is all worth it. It saves us. Jesus saves us through God’s amazing love that never ends.

Amen.