John had a fiery personality to say the least. He shared a common characteristic with the prophets who had declared the Word of the Lord before him. He was someone who told it just the way He saw it (or more importantly – just the way God saw it) So when the Pharisees and Sadducees began showing up along with the crowds coming out to see the Baptizer in the wilderness, he wasted little time in going on the verbal offensive. He said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Yep, that course on winning friends and influencing others was really paying off.
At first glance these words might seem a tad harsh to us – especially since John is addressing the religious leaders of the day (not child molesters or drug dealers). Such biting words might even leave us wondering – “Aren’t they all on the same team?” To really get the picture of what’s going on, it might help to remember that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, while outwardly seeming quite religious, all suffered from a major attitude problem. Pride in their own accomplishments and personal agendas ran rampant among them. The more you study this story, the more you realize that their journey out to see John was not from a desire to hear his message, but to gather evidence to support their preconceived judgment that John was not worth listening to in any fashion. They were masters in circular reasoning.
In other words, they were totally closed off from what God had to say to His people – including them. So John took a rather dramatic approach to try to break through their hardened hearts. The “brood of vipers” was certainly an attention grabber, followed by a call to change the direction of their lives and their religion. John made it clear that it was foolish to blindly trust that their relationship with God was based on their genetic line. In fact, John pointed to the stones that lay everywhere in the desert and told them: “
And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.'
I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
Like I said, John wasn’t one to mince words. He made it clear that to have a relationship with the living Lord means a life of repentance and turning to the Lord as one’s Savior. Of course, these words appear to have been lost on them and most of the religious leaders simply concluded that John had spent a little too much time out in the desert sun. (In other words, they reacted to him the same way they would soon be reacting to Jesus.
So by now are you wondering if I’m going to tell you that to have a “John the Baptist” Christmas, we had all better sharpen our tongues and let the words fly like stones from David’s slingshot. Maybe we can update the “brood of vipers” talk for something more fitting to the twenty-first century? I don’t think so.
At first glance these words might seem a tad harsh to us – especially since John is addressing the religious leaders of the day (not child molesters or drug dealers). Such biting words might even leave us wondering – “Aren’t they all on the same team?” To really get the picture of what’s going on, it might help to remember that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, while outwardly seeming quite religious, all suffered from a major attitude problem. Pride in their own accomplishments and personal agendas ran rampant among them. The more you study this story, the more you realize that their journey out to see John was not from a desire to hear his message, but to gather evidence to support their preconceived judgment that John was not worth listening to in any fashion. They were masters in circular reasoning.
In other words, they were totally closed off from what God had to say to His people – including them. So John took a rather dramatic approach to try to break through their hardened hearts. The “brood of vipers” was certainly an attention grabber, followed by a call to change the direction of their lives and their religion. John made it clear that it was foolish to blindly trust that their relationship with God was based on their genetic line. In fact, John pointed to the stones that lay everywhere in the desert and told them: “
And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.'
I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
Like I said, John wasn’t one to mince words. He made it clear that to have a relationship with the living Lord means a life of repentance and turning to the Lord as one’s Savior. Of course, these words appear to have been lost on them and most of the religious leaders simply concluded that John had spent a little too much time out in the desert sun. (In other words, they reacted to him the same way they would soon be reacting to Jesus.
So by now are you wondering if I’m going to tell you that to have a “John the Baptist” Christmas, we had all better sharpen our tongues and let the words fly like stones from David’s slingshot. Maybe we can update the “brood of vipers” talk for something more fitting to the twenty-first century? I don’t think so.
No, I would suggest that to have a “John the Baptist” Christmas is to take to heart what John was trying to communicate. Our relationship with the Savior is not based on the blood line we carry through Christian parents or grandparents. After all, God can still raise up some stones from Northeast Ohio (or wherever you live) to be “genetic” Christians. No, we are called to journey with the God who has taken on flesh to walk among us. That journey involves getting our false pride out of the way through repentance and living in the power and new life of the Savior who died for us, rolled away the stone, and trades our “hearts of stone” for “hearts of flesh.”
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