Rejoice in the Warning

Two years ago, a barge hit a support beam on the causeway going from
Port Isabel to South Padre Island in far south Texas. As a result a portion
of the causeway plunged into the Laguna Madre. This all happened during
the very early morning hours. Before any indication of this accident
was conveyed to anybody, several, I think it was 7 or 8 automobiles drove
through the opening, plummeted into the water several hundred feet below
and were killed. Every person in those cars died.

It took several hours before authorities on both ends of the causeway
were notified and all traffic warned of the disaster and the tragedy.
It was a horrible event. Even worse business on the island suffered greatly
as this was the only way for trucks, cars, for vacationers to reach the
island. Many were angry that plans needed to be canceled, businesses
shut down, and only ferries could be used to enter and exit the island.

Now if it was you heading for South Padre Island that morning, would
you not have rejoiced that the warning was there and glad you had been
warned and not let to discover, tragically, the emptiness of the broken
causeway?

In our Words from God for today written by St. Luke, this character
John is warning a „brood of vipers“ that there was a coming
wrath. This crowd of people did not come to be anything more than perhaps
entertained by this „new“ preacher on the block. John sees
them as vipers, snakes who scuttle to avoid injury, who can inflict terrible
harm on people. „Who warned you?“ asked this John.

Do we need this warning? It’s so close to Christmas! We who’ve been
scurrying like moths who have but hours to live, to get all the preparations
done for the big holiday this week, do we need a warning? And about „wrath“ coming?
And we should „rejoice“ in that? Well, now….

We don’t need a warning, do we? Why, we’ve been Christians, Lutherans,
baptized, confirmed and married in the church people. We’ve been faithful
in prayer, in giving, in following the rules. And who here has not been,
at least, trying to be a good person? Do we who are here and not out
there shopping like the others need a warning?

A warning? Yes! A warning that wrath is coming and the old ways of doing
things, of behaving, of carrying on have to be changed! Disaster is ahead
for us if we don’t change. God doesn’t need us. If God wanted, he could
take every single stone out there and there are lots of them around here,
and make them into praising children of the promise.

What’s coming? It’s like the man sharpening his axe, his saw, his pruning
shears. He is going out as we soon here in Texas will, to see what the
trees have done. We all may be bare of leaf and flower, but he knows.
He knows. He knows the tree that is pretty, but pretty bad because it’s
a peach tree and doesn’t produce any fruit. It’s going to be cut down
and thrown into the fire. It has missed its purpose in this world. There
will be severe pruning, sawing off limbs which are useless. Fruit, fruit–that’s
the name of this game. Without it, it’s the brush fire for you!

What fruit does this axe-man want? So ask the crowd, the tax collectors,
the soldiers. This John’s answers seem so ordinary, so common, so much
of what we are doing. Right? I hardly think so.

At this time of year we share, the poor are laden with turkeys, cast
off clothes, tinned goods, candy, and toys, that you could actually begin
to believe that there is a Santa Claus. Many are helped, well, at least
once a year.

John says, „You want to avoid the axe? Then if you’ve got two shirts
give the other away. You’ve got food to share, share it.“ This is
no one time a year giving and helping and feeling good. This is a life-style
change that for most of us (all of us?) requires a kind of fruit we have
never thought was necessary.

We say that Jesus was kidding, wasn’t he? When he told the rich man
to see all he had and give it to the poor, and then he could come and
follow him and in that way have eternal life. It isn’t true, is it, that „the
love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for
money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many
griefs (1 Timothy 6:10)? You know people like this? Has that happened
to you?

How true this is: „Whoever loves money never has money enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income (Ecclesiastes
5:10). Do you complain about your wages? Never satisfied? Try to get
every penney out of every deal or you feel cheated? You young people,
ever complain about how cheap, and I mean cheap, the parents are?

Fruit– that is in keeping with a person who has a changed heart. The
result in a person who has been warned about the coming wrath. So ordinary,
so common, so mundane the behavior, but who of us doesn’t want to best
bargain and would be willing to stretch the truth to get the better of
another?

Not the crowds now, but the people, the laity were eagerly waiting for
the Christ. What were they waiting for? The Christ? Who is that?

The Christ, the Anointed One, the King who would set every thing, every
situation, right again. The Expected One who would bring justice for
all. This Christ would be the mighty One who would wash his people with
the Spirit of God and with fire. This Figure of Promise and Hope would
cleanse with fire the lives of all who were expecting him and would expose
the emptiness of others and blow them away like empty chaff, worthless,
faithless, ruthless and senseless.

What are you expecting this year? A smooth ride to heaven on the basis
of what you have done? A smooth ride in this world because you have discovered
all by yourself the way, the truth and life in this world?

I have presided over a number of people’s funerals in my ministry. Some
just stand out. One was eulogized and asked the Lord to give him what
he deserved. Well, he drank a bottle of Jack Daniels (whiskey) every
day and ruined his marriage, children and grandchildren. Another who
was never able to hold a job and had to be supported by his wife who
had a PhD and was an international lecturer was praised as being a good
family man. Before he drank himself to death, she finally found that
the way to keep him from spending all the family money was by having
him go to school full time.

This coming Christ will bring justice and fairness. He will see through
our shabby good deeds as being a sham. I am reminded of the story Jesus
told about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man feasted every day,
dress in the latest fashions (you all do know what they are, don’t you?),
and subscribed to every charity that was around. He permitted this scum-bag
Lazarus to hang around the garbage cans. There Lazarus could eat the
rolls that got too hard, the tough pieces of the filet mignon, the chocolate
cake that wasn’t appetizing anymore. He hobnobbed with the best, and
couldn’t figure out why that bum Lazarus wouldn’t help him in hell. And
after what he had done for him. Here was justice. Here was a warning.
Here is where we live.

Will the Christ who is so near be fair with you. His fairness is better
than you ever imagined. He wants every injustice paid for and he pays
for it. He takes our fruits which are so small they could have been raised
on the bonsai tree and makes them into perfect fruits through his life.
He destroys our anxiety about how it will all turn out, how we will get
to the island of paradise where we can rest and becomes the only bridge
and it’s a free bridge, no toll required bridge to be in his presence.

In everything after praying about it, after thanking God for how good
he is and has been and will continue to be, and knowing that Jesus didn’t
stand far off and tell you with a terrifying voice that he loved you,
but comes to us, in a shape and form we can understand, and who comes
to us today in that same form in Bread and Wine in the Blessed Sacrament,
then give it over to him to be your care taker.

That’s tough for men who want to solve every problem by themselves,
but you just drive over that causeway that isn’t there. See how far your
self designed car will go. Well, actually don’t do that. Rather, the
peace of God which transcends all your understanding of how things should
be, that peace, better than any lock or bolt, better than anything we
can create will guard your heart, your emotions, and your mind, your
thought. Because that peace is through this Christ, this Savior, this
Lord Jesus Christ.

I have passed over that causeway to South Padre Island many times since
it has been repaired. I always think of those who had no warning.

I think daily of you, and of those who know what’s coming. Why don’t
we rejoice more, worry less, give ourselves to serve others? Why worry
about what’s going to happen, when he has already scooped you up and
taken you into his house.
Why don’t we tell people why we rejoice? That we want them to have joy
as we have joy? Why don’t we warn others so they to may rejoice?

And rejoice in the Lord always. I’ll say it again. Rejoice! Rejoice
in the warning and change by being gentle to all. What a fruit of repentance
that would be! Amen.

Walter W. Harms, Retired Pastor
waltpast@AOL.com