The Second Sunday of Advent was about John the Baptist (as will be the Third Sunday) and I had jotted some notes down about the way of repentance. The way of John the Baptist comes at a critical time in the life of Israel. Rome has been in power and now they’ve encroached on the land with a heavy hand. Corrupt governors and religious leaders are oppressing people. These who are oppressed have revolution in mind.

Along comes John and what he is preaching is… revolutionary.

And thus, the problem. We all have our ideas of “revolution” and “change.” We find that in our day. To the far right and the far left, both ideologies have a “burn it all down” mentality of change and revolution. (These are not small percentages in our country, by the way.) How that change will happen is the issue. Everyone has their own ideas.

And none of them are going to work.

Along comes John the Baptist in the time of the Romans. He is preaching change. The hunger for change is driving some of God’s people back to Scripture and prophecy. John is making sense. The question is always this: What John has in mind and what the audience has in mind… are they the same thing?

I had shared a quote from NT Wright in an earlier post about this passage:

If God was coming back, he wasn’t coming just to tell them that because they were Abraham’s children everything would be all right. The reason God brings rescue and salvation is precisely because he is the holy and faithful God, keeping covenant with his people—but, if that is so, he is bound to bring judgment as well as mercy. He isn’t a tame God. — Wright, T. (2004). Luke for Everyone (p. 33). Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

The invitation is given by John: repent and be baptized.

The caution is this: when you come, don’t think it’s for the “revolution” in your mind.

Repent.
Change your thinking.
Follow Jesus.

I note this as I think about Advent, reading Scripture, our culture, studying Bonhoeffer, and the upheaval all around us:

If I want my version of “revolution,” I need to just stay out of the waters of baptisms. John’s baptism… Christ’s baptism… they are not for me. I can’t go into that water and leave it with the same thinking. I have to go in surrendering.

Yes, I long for change. But my bigger yes is this: I need God’s change, not my own.

If I want true change, and unbelievable revolution, I need to change my thinking.

I want to plunge myself into the waters of repentance and come up shouting: “I AM YOURS, LORD!”

Then, I follow him.

This is the thinking we need in our day. We need a fresh baptism of repentance. We need a fresh baptism of fire.

We need a new-found obedience to the way of Christ.

Quit complicating the way to Jesus. Make the crooked roads straight!

Quit insisting on your way of “revolution.” Make the mountains come down and the valleys rise up!

Jesus came to set the world to rights. Follow him. His revolution is the only way ahead.