Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Do you remember hearing about John the Baptist a time or two, or three, or more, during the past few months? If so, you might remember that I said John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. You might recall how he lived in the wilderness, eating "bugs for lunch," wearing a camel-hair tunic and preaching. What did he preach? He preached a "baptism of repentance" for the forgiveness of sins. He called people to repent, telling those who wondered, that he was not the Messiah, but that "one who is more powerful than I is coming," that in fact, he, John that is, was not even worthy to stoop down and untie that one's sandals. He preached repentance -- well, what did he say? You might remember that he told the folks who came to hear him to "bear good fruit," that if they had two tunics, to give one to someone who had none.

He told them to share food with those who were without, in the case of soldiers and tax collectors to collect only what was due and to not extort but be content with their pay. He told the folks who heard him that the he baptized with water but the "one who is more powerful than I" will baptize with "fire and the Holy Spirit." That the "one who is more powerful than I" has his winnowing fork in his hand and he will separate the wheat from the chaff, and cast the chaff into the unquenchable fire. Powerful words from a voice crying out in the wilderness.

We are now in Lent, a time of penitence, reflection and repentance. This morning you heard more powerful words from the one who John the Baptist said is "more powerful than I." It sounds like what we Lutherans like to call "Law." It sounds like someone, the "one who is more powerful than I," is telling us to do works, maybe even practice "works righteousness." They are not pleasant words, it is not a pleasant message. If we look at the message of Jesus this morning, parts of it have a pretty obvious application to our lives. Oh, we may not have our blood mingled with our sacrifices, we do not have to worry about Pontius Pilate getting his hands on us whether we are Galileans or Norwegians. But it looks like bad things happen to bad people, people who have not repented. Depending upon where we are when it happens though, we might have to be concerned about a building falling on us. It will probably not be from shoddy construction unless we are in Haiti when an aftershock hits, but if we are in California or Chile, when a big quake hits, it might be another story, even with all the retrofitting that has taken place in the last couple decades. Might the story Jesus tells be a case of bad things happening again to more bad people? Might the same happen to us? Are we bad people? What is Jesus saying?!

Well, how about when bad things happen to good people? Even if we repent we still might fall through the ice, or get hit by a car, or contract cancer or some other debilitating, possibly fatal disease? How do you explain this, pastor? What is in it for me? What is the percentage in repenting? I mean frankly, we know we are going to perish no matter what, so why bother?

But wait! What about the rest of the story? What about that parable Jesus told? Ah! Good point, let us look at that parable. We probably do not even need to talk about it because I am sure you know what it means, right? God owns the vineyard, that is pretty obvious. We are the fig tree, you are, I am. God looks at the fig tree, sees no fruit, specifically, no fruit of repentance. "Cut it down!" he says, "Why should it be wasting the soil?" Oh, oh, those are not pleasant words, this does not sound like a pleasant message either.

"But wait," the Gardener says. "Let me work on it, I will dig around it and put manure on it." Oh, that sounds hopeful. But then again, put manure on it? That does not seem too pleasant a message, not if he is talking about us! Who is this gardener anyway? Oh! It is Jesus. God the Father, the Creator is ready to "cut it down" and Jesus intercedes. Working on us, working in us, giving us a chance to grow in God's Word, a chance to produce the fruits of repentance. The Word feeding us with his Word, giving us what we need to make us strong in faith, to awaken us, to challenge us, to teach us, to equip us.

But wait again! Are we not saved by grace through faith? What does that have to do with repentance? What is this "Word" anyway? Hhhhmmm. More good questions. We are saved by grace through faith and faith comes from hearing and what is heard comes from the word of God. So what does this have to do with repentance, with bearing fruit? Well, repentance is not a fruit problem, it is really a root problem; in fact, it is the root of the problem. Because it is not a "one shot" event. It is part of our lives as human beings. We live in sin, we are born in sin, we sin whether we will it or not. God created us in his image, but all too often the truth is that we want a God who wants us to be in our own image instead of his. We want a God who does not expect us to be forgiving of everyone who offends us, who expects us to love our neighbor but only those we like. Whether we will it or not, whether we like it or not, we are sinners and we will die. But we will not perish because we are not in a state of separation from God as were those Jesus referred to, killed by Pilate or by a falling tower. We will die, but we will not perish, we will not pass away, we will pass to another place, a place with God, with Jesus. Because the truth of the matter is, Jesus Christ became the fig tree in our place! He was separated from God, divided from God by that great gulf that we cannot pass, as the Apostle Paul tell us in 2nd Corinthians; for our sake Jesus made himself to be sin who knew no sin. In Galatians, Paul tells us that Christ became a curse for us. In other words, because he was removed from the vineyard, we are spared that same removal. But the fruit of repentance still applies to us! You cannot get around it, if you are saved by grace through faith then there will be fruits, works, a response from that gift of salvation, because of that gift of salvation. It is a fact, deal with it! Deal with the idea that it is on God's terms, not your terms, on God's terms! For example, you say you are doing something here out of love and you will push everyone out of your way to do it? That is neither a fruit of repentance nor a fruit of the Spirit because as Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians, love is kind, it is patient, it is not rude, it does not insist on its own way.

Well here is the long and short of it. Even though we are saved by grace through faith, we are still called to repent, to bear fruit. You may think that this is a continuation of all the sermons you have heard from me in the past 18 months, and it is, but next week you are going to hear more, you are going to hear something about repentance that might surprise you, might even confound you. See you next week!

AMEN.