Sermon Starter
The Divine Opportunity

Luke 3:7-18 Opportunity comes with so many different faces that we often don't recognize it. That's probably why we sometimes miss its call. A previous generation said that opportunity comes dressed in overalls. And they were largely right, for nothing succeeds like hard work. Our generation thinks that opportunity comes with a college diploma. It may, but there's no guarantee. The divine opportunity comes in what is, to our human eyes, the most unlikely garb of all. It's no wonder we don't recognize it; or that, recognizing it, we resist it. This Advent season is an especially good time to experience the divine opportunity. Any time is God's season; but because you and I find certain settings and circumstances especially hospitable to religious experience, Advent and Lent are particularly attractive. The first Advent preacher, John the Baptizer, offered opportunity in a compelling, almost ferocious way. When you read his words, you don't think he's offering opportunity; I expect that if we had heard him in person, we would have been even more doubtful. William Barclay said that John's message "was not good news; it was news of terror" (The Gospel of Luke, Westminster John Knox Press, p. 28). I understand what Professor Barclay was saying, but I see it differently. It seems to me that good news must sometimes come dressed in rough clothing. That was surely the nature of John's approach. When we read the brief gospel summaries of his messages, we wonder why people went to so much trouble to hear him. Were they masochists courting abuse, or did they perhaps hope to hear him thunder against the sins of their neighbors? One way or another, the crowds flocked to him. And largely, I think, because they felt, in the integrity of his message, an opportunity which they had sought for a long time. His was a message of judgment; but in the judgment was opportunity. And opportunity was wrapped up in the word repent.

1. John’s Message of Judgment and Opportunity.
2. The Opportunity of Repentance

I like Madeleine L'Engle's poem on this point ...

God did not wait till the world was ready,
till ... the nations were at peace.
God came when the heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time
God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. God did not wait

til hearts were pure. In joy God came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours of anguished shame
God came, and God's light would not go out.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

A friend encouraged author Neil Cole to tour the Rodin museum while in France. 
Reflecting on Rodin's most famous work, Cole writes the following in his book 
Cultivating a Life for God: "Rodin was a French impressionist sculptor. 
Though many do not realize his name, most are familiar with his work. He created The Thinker. 
What you may not realize is that the Thinker was really a study he had done to sit on the top 
of his greatest masterpiece -- The Gates of Hell. For years we have been wondering 
what it is that The Thinker is thinking about. No, he's not wondering about where he left his clothes 
the night before. What the Thinker is contemplating is an eternity of judgment separated from God." 
Cole's friend began to describe The Gates of Hell, which Rodin worked on for 37 years 
until his death in 1917, which depicts innumerable beings writhing in agony on their way to judgment. 
As the vision of the work gripped Cole's friend, she said, "Oh, I could just stare at The Gates of Hell forever." 
It was quiet for a moment as the significance of her words became clear. Cole writes, 
"All I could think of to say at that moment was, 'Oh, I hope not.'"

Maybe you have heard the story about the parents who had a great idea for their children's special 
Christmas gift. They had ordered a kit from a catalog to make a treehouse. Late on Christmas Eve, 
as the mother and father began to assemble the pieces, they discovered to their dismay 
that while they had received the plans for a treehouse, they had been sent the materials for a sailboat.

A few weeks later, in response to their letter of complaint to the company, they received this reply: 
"While we regret the inconvenience this mistake must have caused you, it is nothing compared 
to that of the man who is out on a lake somewhere trying to sail your treehouse."

It looks at first glance as if John the Baptist was also sending the right set of instructions 
to the wrong people. John looks out at the crowd that has come out to be baptized by him, 
that is looking to him for inspirations and guidance, and he calls them a brood of vipers! 
Here they are, trying their best to prepare for the coming of the Lord. 
And this is the season's greeting they receive!

The commercial culture may have kidnapped the baby Jesus (or at least it may seem that way). 
It may have converted the angels' song into advertising jingles. It may have plastered the image 
of three kings across hundreds of thousands of greeting cards -- 
but at least there's one person in the Christmas story who remains untouched by commercialism: 
John the Baptist!

Can you imagine watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and seeing -- 
between the giant Garfield balloon and some marching band from the Midwest -- 
John the Baptist's float go by? There he'd be, shaggy-haired, wild-eyed, 
clad in his camel's-hair coat, a wireless microphone in his dirty hand, shouting, 
"Repent!" (It's highly unlikely he would be lip-synching.)

Can you picture what John the Baptist's line of Christmas cards might look like? 
"From our house to yours this holiday season: Merry Christmas... you brood of vipers!" 
"Season's greetings to you, from across the miles... who warned you to flee 
from the wrath to come?" "Let's all pass the wassail cup and gather round the Yule log... 
to watch it burn with unquenchable fire!" Not exactly a Hallmark moment, is it?

Did you ever have a minister call you and fellow audience members "venomous snakes"? 
If that were to happen, would you listen long or would you be out of there? 
Would you hire an attorney to help defend your honor against the speaker's character assassination?

For some reason, John the Baptist's listeners tolerated his calling them a "brood of vipers." 
John wasn't finished with his verbal hit. He also warned them against religious and racial pride, 
and cautioned them about having to face God's judgment. His hearers absorbed those assaults too.

He told them what life qualities showed that God controlled their lives. 
What behavior is evidence of it? We can read what John said and conclude that it's too demanding, 
or we can practice it and gain a relationship with God.

What did John tell us?

• Share
• Be fair in business
• Don't falsely accuse people
• Be content with our pay

When we practice these things, they show God's work in our lives. When we don't, 
we probably are a brood of vipers in danger of God's judgment.

Joe Wick pastored the First Christian Church in Lafayette, Indiana, for more than 25 years. 
In that time, he developed a reputation as a man who could get the best from his church staff. 
One of his techniques for motivating others was to remind them that they were not 
in the business of ministry to gain personal accolades. Instead, the objective of ministry 
is to "build up the body of Christ."

The way he put it in his Hoosier dialect was: "Who knows how much good we can do for God 
if we don't care who gets the credit."

John the Baptist operated by that same principle. At the baptism of our Lord, 
he made it clear that his ministry was intended to clear the way for the Christ. 
That's a good strategy for all of us.

Having been an artist for the Creative Poster Company for several years now, 
Dan always enjoyed the challenge of portraying a saying or thought with pictures. 
His latest project involved one of the company's most popular poster collections, 
which was designed around specific Bible passages. It took him a little longer than usual 
to come up with a good idea for Luke 3:7-18. The passage's theme of repentance as preached 
by John was a tough one for him to translate into pictures. But then, 
as he looked at the various examples of repentant behavior mentioned by John, 
an idea for the poster came to mind.

He drew a three-picture collage featuring a tax accountant sitting at his desk, 
a family making a donation at a clothing drive, and volunteers at a soup kitchen 
for the homeless. At the bottom of the poster, in bright, bold letters, 
he inserted the saying: BE FAIR, SHARE, AND CARE.

John the Baptist's words have a contemporary ring to them. We are always asking 
"What then shall we do?" and his answer sounds like the December appeal of the Salvation Army 
or the Council of Churches food pantry in every city: "He who has two coats, let him share with him 
who has none; and he who has food let him do likewise." That seems to be both good news 
and bad news -- good news, since we are still finding it in our hearts to share food and clothing 
with those who otherwise would be cold and hungry; bad news, in that in the almost 2,000 years 
since John first proclaimed these "fruits of repentance," we still have to hear such appeals, 
and without them many would be in want. As we make our final preparations for Christmas this year, 
let us search our hearts to see what our priorities are -- the indulgence of our own need to give lavishly 
within our own family groups, or a gracious willingness to share with "him who has none."

William Willimon, Chaplain at Duke University, says that John the Baptist reminds us of boundaries 
we must respect and gates we must pass through. At Duke, Willimon reminds the students, 
"If you are going to graduate, you must first get past the English Department. If you are going to practice law, 
you must pass the bar. If you want to get to medical school you must survive Organic Chemistry." 
Likewise, "If you want to get to the joy of Bethlehem in the presence of Jesus, 
you must get past John the Baptist in the desert." The word from John is "repent," which means 
"about-face" or turning 180 degrees.

(by Richard A. Wing from Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing Company)

 

There is a story going around about a man who wanted to see and hear God. 
So he went out to a hilltop and yelled and pleaded with God. "Speak to me!" And a bird sang. 
And disappointed he again begged God to speak to him and all he heard was the sound 
of children playing in the distance. "Please God, touch me!" he cried 
and the wind blew across his cheek. And discouraged at not having his plea answered the man prayed, 
"God, show yourself to me!" And a butterfly flew across his path. And when he got home, 
convinced that God had forsaken him, his daughter ran out to greet him, but he felt abandoned by God. 

Now hearing a story like this, it is easy to see God. But in this story this man was as certain 
about what it means to see and hear God as we are about the end of the stories we heard today.

(by Sally Sedgwick)

Once the eminent philosopher John Dewey found his son in the bathroom. 
The floor was flooded and he was mopping furiously trying to contain the water in that room, 
keeping the damage to a minimum. The professor began thinking, trying to understand 
the deeper ramifications of the situation. After a few moments, the son said, 
"Dad, this is not the time to philosophize. It is time to mop!" 

Baptism is our statement that we are ready to stop philosophizing and ready to start mopping. 
Zig Ziglar reminds us that the largest locomotive in the world can be held in its tracks 
while standing still simply by placing a single one-inch block of wood in front of each 
of the eight drive wheels. The same locomotive moving at 100 miles per hour can crash through 
a wall of steel reinforced concrete five feet thick, but it must be moving first. 

(by King Duncan from Collected Sermons, www.sermons.com)

In John Steinbeck's story "The Wayward Bus" a dilapidated old bus takes a cross country shortcut 
on its journey to Los Angeles, and gets stuck in the mud. While the drivers go for assistance, 
the passengers take refuge in a cave. It is a curious company of people and it is obvious 
that the author is attempting to get across the point that these people are lost spiritually 
as well as literally. As they enter into this cave, the author calls the reader's attention to the fact 
that as they enter they must pass a word that has been scrawled with paint over the entrance. 
The word is repent. Although Steinbeck calls that to the reader's attention it is interesting 
that none of the passengers pay any attention to it whatsoever.

All too often this is our story. Yet, John the Baptist calls upon us to take our sinning seriously. 
Why? Because God does? Repentance is not just changing our minds, or feeling sorry for something 
that we have done, or even making bold resolves that we will never participate in certain conduct again. 
Instead, repentance means to turn around and go in another direction. What John the Baptist wanted 
his audience to hear was: Turn your life toward this one called Messiah. This is not negative or down-faced. 
Rather, it breaks the chains of oppression and death that hold us back.

(from Repent Your Way to a Merry Christmas by Brett Blair and Staff)

A few years ago as the world watched the beginning game of the World Series in San Francisco, 
there was suddenly an interruption of the opening interview. The screen blinked and went blank. 
When the program resumed: A Special News Bulletin. The San Francisco metropolitan area 
had experienced a serious earthquake. We all watched the live pictures as the huge fire in the Marina area burned. 
A remote camera crew was there and we saw the firemen fighting the fires. The scene I remember the most, 
however, was a group of people standing around just looking at the destruction and looking at the fire. 
All of a sudden a cop came up to the crowd and yelled out to them: What are you people doing just standing there. 
You must get prepared immediately. Go home and fill your bathtubs up with water. 
Be prepared to live without city services for 72 hours. The sun will set in another hour 
and your time is running out. Go hence and get prepared.

A long, long time ago a man came on the scene by the name of John the Baptist. 
John's message was not told in soft monotones, but rather there was an urgent screaming in his voice. 
"Why are you not getting ready?" he yelled to the Hebrews. Why are you just standing there. 
Don't you see that your time is running out on you. You need to be preparing the way. 
Making the path straight. Go and get ready.

That message may sound very strange to our modern ears, but the simple truth is that if Jesus were standing here 
in the flesh this morning and we asked him to give a list of the preachers who were most instrumental upon him, 
he would have listed the name of John the Baptist. There is just simply no question about that. 
There was no single human being who was more influential upon the life and career of Jesus than John.

(Staff, www.eSermons.com)

Some years ago a military airplane crashed at Sonderstrom Air Force Base in Greenland. 
Twenty-two people were killed. The runway and the nearby fields were strewn with bodies. 
It was a tragic and horrible moment. There was only one chaplain on the base at the time... 
and the entire burden was laid on him to bring comfort and the Word of Christ 
to a shocked community staggered by the horrendous accident. But there was little time to mourn that day. 
The grisly task of gathering up and identifying the bodies needed to be done.

And so, the chaplain, along with a young lieutenant who had been assigned the duties of a mortuary officer 
and a group of volunteers went about the awful business of picking up the mutilated bodies 
and trying to identify the dead, so that their families and loved ones back home could be notified. 
It was a heart-breaking and exhausting task, but it had to be done. The people worked in shocked silence 
well into the night until they almost dropped from fatigue. When every last remnant of death 
had been picked up, they each went silently to their individual rooms.

That night, after midnight, there was a knock on the chaplain's door. Outside stood the young lieutenant, 
the Mortuary Officer. He said nothing. He just stood there and wept. After some moments, 
the young lieutenant spoke through his tears and he said to the chaplain, "As we were picking up the bodies today, 
I realized something. I realized that the only other people out there with us were the people who go to church here. 
I have always been an unbeliever, and I used to ridicule these same people who were out there with us. 
Yet they are the only persons who would, or perhaps could, do what we had to do today. 
It must have been their Christian spirit that could help them see beyond the horror to the hope."

That tragic day turned around the life of that young lieutenant. As he had admitted, he had never been religious, 
had seldom gone to church except for weddings and funerals, but from that time on he was a new man. 
Christ was born in his heart. From that time forward, he took an active part in the Christian ministry of that base. 
Then he did an unheard thing - he extended his tour of duty in Greenland for an extra year. 
He was the first person in the history of that base to do that. He did it because he wanted to be able to tell others 
the story of how the power of the Christian Hope had changed his life.

If you want to give your loved ones a great Christmas present this year, give them the gift of Christian Hope. 
On page after page of the New Testament we find it: the Good News that God will win, 
that nothing can defeat Him; that ultimately God and goodness will have the victory and that 
when we put our hope in Him, nothing, not even death, can separate us from His watch care and His love 
and His triumph. Once each year, Christmas comes along to renew our hope and to remind us 
that the darkness of this world cannot overcome the light of the world.

(by James W. Moore, ChristianGlobe Sermons)

At a funeral being conducted close to Christmas many years ago, an old 
mentor of mine said to the assembled throng:
"At this time of year, it's natural enough to see pain and death and sorrow as 
shadows cast over joy of Christmas time; but that is really to put things in reverse. 
There is nothing new about those things which we regard as shadows and darkness of 
life; they have been with us from beginning; and for many, they speak message of 
emptiness, despair, hopelessness. What is new is that at particular point in 
history, God broke in in a new way; not in some dramatic visitation from outer space; 
but in the birth of a child. So, it is not that darkness shadows the light, but that 
the light has come to shine in our darkness and guide our feet into the way of peace."

The famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright created an idea called organic architecture. He believed that buildings should be blended into the surrounding natural environment. If you stare at the buildings that he designed on the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, it is very difficult to tell where the edifice stops and the environment begins. It merges and blends. Perhaps we should start talking of organic Christianity. If you look at the life of Jesus you see no sharp line of demarcation between his religious life and his everyday life. They blended and they Meshed together. It should be that way for you and for me.

If we have responded to John's demands that we repent, if Christ really has been born anew in our hearts then it will bring out the best, not the worst, in us. It brought out the best in Joseph. When Mary told her husband that she was pregnant, he had every legal right to divorce her for in those days an engagement was the equivalent of a marriage. She could have been turned over to the civil authorities as an adulteress and the penalty for that was stoning. Not one man in a million could have been expected to believe Mary's version of the conception -- Joseph believed it. Christmas brought out the good in Joseph.

It is my prayer that this Christmas season will have an effect on the way that you live your life. That it will bring out the best, not the worst, in you. Not one person here this morning has the problems that Joseph had that first Christmas, yet the best was brought out in him. When you and I care we want to give our best to God. To be the best is to be like Jesus. And to be like Jesus is to have him reborn in our lives. (by Staff, www.eSermons.com)

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the age-old story of a babe born in Bethlehem. To them a little child will always mean hope and promise to a troubled world.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the Christmas star. Their lives may ever reflect its beauty and light.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the joy of giving lovingly to others. They shall share the gladness and joy of the shepherds and wise men of old.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the fragrant greens, the cheerful holly and soft flicker of candles. To them shall come bright memories of love and happiness.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the happy music of Christmas time. They shall have a song of joy ever singing in their hearts.

Blessed are they who find Christmas in the message of the Prince of Peace. They will ever strive to help him bring peace on earth, goodwill to men (author unknown).

(by James T. Garrett from God's Gift, CSS Publishing Company)