by Sal Huckel
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Produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8).
Read Matthew 3:1–12
Today’s passage invites us to the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. His humble lifestyle and calls to repentance were already bringing the people to respond to their sins and be baptised by John in the river. Not surprisingly, also came the conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
John’s reprimand and call to repentance is stark. We might feel that it was well deserved. After all, we do know much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their apparent hypocrisy. Paul himself was a Pharisee. While the Pharisees and Sadducees had doctrinal disagreements, they were united in their efforts against Jesus. Here, John’s warning is for them all.
What can we learn here today? We can study the baptism John was bringing, how Jesus’ baptism is the one we need and the meaning it has for us now to be baptised into Jesus’ baptism. We can also ponder what it means to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. How does that look? What do we need to repent of? We sometimes hear that Jesus simplified the Ten Commandments and that we don’t need to worry about all of those anymore; we are not ‘under the law’. However, Jesus said he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them (Matthew 5:17).
Unless we understand God’s law, we cannot properly repent. We may feel the law is less prescriptive and onerous ‘since Jesus’, but if we begin to unpack the Ten Commandments and look at Martin Luther’s explanations – the Small Catechism is very helpful on this – we will see that they go further than we might expect. It’s a misleading idea that ‘Jesus replaced them’. Helpfully, rather like the ways in which it is best to teach children, Luther offers positive instruction to further expand on the negatives.
Start today with commandment number one: ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ We don’t have to look very far to see the things that compete for our attention, love and trust. How can you fear, love and trust God above all things today? To produce fruit in keeping with repentance, we need to follow through with this.
Father God, help me to more fully understand the law written in our hearts (Romans 2:15) and produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sal is married to Pastor Matthew Huckel, and they live in Victoria with their six children, enjoying their ministry with Moorabbin–Dandenong Lutheran Church. Their two eldest children are excited to study at undergraduate and postgraduate levels during term time in Sydney. Theology, music, philosophy, literature and history are passions the family shares and explores together. Sal loves writing, speaking and walking to the beach at every opportunity.
