Sermon: “The Fire of Divine Love” Isaiah 1:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12, December 07, 2025

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Title: “The Fire of Divine Love”

Every year on the second Sunday of Advent we get a heaping dose of John the Baptist.

We open on huge crowds gathered on the banks of the Jordan River. And this scruffy figure named John, who eats grasshoppers and raids beehives for honey is shouting at people to “repent.” To turn their lives around because God’s kingdom is coming near. That’s what the word “repent” means. To “turn around.” John’s baptism isn’t quite a Christian baptism. It’s a “baptism of repentance.” Turning away from the old ways, towards God’s way. Turning over a new leaf. A new start in the right direction.

And the new start he’s offering is exceedingly popular. He’s baptizing, dunking folks in the river one by one. But then, it says, this gang of “Pharisees and Sadducees” get in the lineup. These guys, if you remember, are kind of the villains of the New Testament. Their problem is usually hypocrisy. Or holding others accountable in ways they themselves are not accountable. John isn’t too pleased that they’ve shown up. He reams them out, calling them “a brood of vipers.” I mean, imagine if I began a worship service by “everyone’s welcome… except you, you, you and you. VIPERS, all of you.” Pharisees and Sadducees. Not exactly what you’d call a “seeker-friendly” guy, John.

But they aren’t just hypocritical jerks, though. They’re what you might call spiritually unproductive “Bear fruit,” John shouts at them. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

The issue with these Pharisees and Sadducees is complacency. They are publicly pious, and generous. They claim their identity as children of Abraham—they coast on their religious laurels. They were born into the faith, and wear it as a badge of honor. But then when it comes down to it they are trees unable to bear fruit. They jump through all the right hoops, they go through all the right rituals. But nothing about them changes. They end up the same people day after day after day. Stuck, mired in the same old habits and behaviors. All branches, no apples.

And John says, this sort of complacency will have deep consequences: “Even now,” he says. Even now “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.” I mean, we’re used to roaring fires around this time of year, especially that one you can click right on using Netflix. But according to John, chestnuts ain’t the only thing that are gonna be roasting on the open fire. If you don’t change, all you fruitless trees are getting trimmed. Or worse. If you don’t change there’s gonna be hell to pay. So to speak.

Now, let’s be fair. John seems exactly like the kind of guy who might go around improperly wielding an axe. Exactly the kind of guy who might make the easy transition from shabby street preacher to convicted arsonist. He’s got something of a uni-bomber quality to him. Let’s be fair.

But the carnage John’s painting a picture of isn’t gonna be wrought by him. No. “I baptize you with water for repentance,” he says. “But one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

For the concert-goers out there, John’s just the opening act. Kind of like when I took my dad to see Neil Young for his birthday, but we had to sit through Death Cab for Cutie as the opener. They said couldn’t believe they were sharing the stage with such a legend and knew everyone actually came to see him instead. My dad wholeheartedly agreed—not a huge fan of indie pop. John’s the opening act who’s setting up for somebody else.

John doesn’t give a name, but that somebody else is the Messiah of the Lord, who has yet to arrive on the stage. The Messiah, meaning the anointed One. A divine figure sent by God to set the world right. We got a huge dose of this in our series on the book of Daniel earlier this fall. John is sometimes called the last of the Old Testament prophets because with all the fire and choppy-choppy talk he he picks up where the Old Testament ends in the last chapter of the book of Malachi.

“Surely the day is coming,” warns Malachi:

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them.’”

It’s not me, you’ve gotta be worried about here, John says. Surely the Messiah is coming. Surely the Messiah is coming, and whoever the Messiah is, he’s coming with an axe in one hand, a flamethrower in the other. To make short work of anybody who doesn’t get with it. If you don’t turn your life around you’re toast.

Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking at this point. First of all—we’re close to CHRISTMAS. Christmas is NICE. If John’s anything it’s the opposite of nice.

Beyond nice, though, a lot of us have come to this church precisely to escape stuff like this. Fire and brimstone. Preachers wagging the finger of repentance in your face every Sunday. Threatening and cajoling us to turn our lives around, lest a fiery future awaits.

I mean, it’s unpleasant, for sure. But the biggest problem—for me anyway—is less how unpleasant John is or how uncomfortable he makes me. Or even how mean it all is is. No, the biggest problem—in my mind—is just how ineffective it all is, at least ultimately.

The thing is that John was right. John was right about our need for change, for the urgency of repentance. We all know, deep down inside, that we aren’t who we oughta be, and that our excuses won’t cut it. It’s a painful truth, but a truth nonetheless. John was right about that.

But how many of the Pharisees and Sadducees John verbally cut down did what he said? Or even further, how many of the other folks in the crowd who did appear to at least sincerely be changing their lives stuck with it for the rest of their lives? Judging by how few of us can even keep a New Year’s resolution for more than a month, my guess is not many at all.

That’s really the thing about repentance, about life change of any kind. Threats and terror only go so far, and when they do, they don’t last very long. Even when the stakes are as high as they can be—eternal destiny, yes. But even when something less like a marriage, a career, a friendship, or anything else is at stake. I know this. You know this. Even if we bear fruit one season… there’s always the next.

John was right about our need for change. But wrong about the method. Laying down the law only goes so far. Or so long.

So what will? What will change us?

Remember… John’s just the opening act. He’s setting the stage for someone else. And that someone else is Jesus. Jesus, according to the scriptures is the Messiah, the chosen one.

The thing about Jesus is that when he arrives he’s not the Messiah John expected. Not the Messiah, anyone expected.

The one who came not to be served, but to serve. The one who came not bearing a whip and a new law, but the one who was whipped and condemned by the law. The one who came not wielding a sword, but the one whose side was pierced by the ones he forgave. The one who came not to condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through him. The one who came not tossing trees in the fire, but the one who was himself nailed to a tree, and endured the furnace of hell in his own body. The “greater one” John’s talking about… is Jesus. The one who came to us at Christmas, in total weakness as a baby.

Which means this image—baptism by fire and the Spirit—Is actually good news. Because the fire is not the fire of destruction, but the fire of purification.

Christ comes not to destroy our lives. In the words of the late Catholic theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar: “He will baptize with the fire that is God himself, with the fire of divine love, which he comes to cast upon the earth, fire that will burn away all self-centredness from our souls.”[i] Many of you will have heard me quote him before, but the great Jewish novelist Franz Kafka once said that he believed that literature was meant to change people, to provide them with a new way forward. To provide “ice-axes for frozen seas.”[ii] The coming of Christ is like this. Christ comes to us not to bully or coerce us into changing, because he knows it’ll never stick. Instead he goes to the source. To cut through and melt the frozen seas of our hearts. To burn away all that is not of God in us by the power of God’s own life-giving Spirit. That is gifted to all who believe.

Love, mercy, grace. This is the only thing that can save us, and change us.

Like a forest fire that burns away old rotten stumps and deadfall, Christ came at Christmas, and comes again and again and again in the presence of the Holy Spirit. To burn away all that is cold, all that is hard, all that is dead in us. Everything that holds us back from full and abundant life. Like cauterizing a wound he comes not to hurt, but to heal. Not to condemn, but to forgive. To clear it all away, so to bear fruit again.

So the question for each of us—for you--this season is this: what is Christ coming to burn away in you so you can bear fruit?

Maybe Christ is coming to burn off your anger, your jealousy, your selfishness and resentment, so mercy and compassion grows in its place.

Maybe Christ is coming to incinerate your guilt and regret so the freedom of forgiveness might blossom instead.

Maybe Christ is coming to cremate your greed and self-centredness that the joy of generosity might take hold and takeover.

Maybe Christ is coming for you this year to burn away past pain and suffering. To permanently cauterize old wounds to your body, mind or soul.

Whatever he comes to scorch: though it’s difficult, it’s painful to see where we fall short, know that Christ comes only to save, to raze the old world to the ground and in its place plant a new creation. 

Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ. This time for us, Advent, Christmas, this time for those of us who follow the way of Jesus Christ is a special time. It is not a special time because it is an easy inoculation of candy and sweet dreams. But it is a special time because it’s a time that we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. That we are able to look at ourselves in John’s mirror for who we truly are. Those things in us that are dead, are dying, or need to die. Without shame or self-delusion. Those things that need to be burned away. But we can do it without fear. Though the fire of judgment burns hot, we know it’s the refining fire of God’s love, making room for Jesus to take up residence in our lives. Yet again. Year after year after year. Until it’s for good. Until it’s forever.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. Get ready for his coming. Let ev’re heart prepare him room.

AMEN.

[i] Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Light of the Word: Brief Reflections on the Sunday Readings (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 16.

[ii] “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)