At Hand

"At Hand"
Matthew 3:1-12

The college basketball season is at hand.  That builds my anticipation, but also my frustration.  As a lot of you know, about 3 or 4 years ago, I gave up television.  I decided I was just watching too much TV in my spare time, and my brain was turning to jello.  So that makes this time of year really tough for me—college basketball is the only stuff on the "tube" that I really miss.  Realizing that the college basketball season is at hand, then, creates some mixed feelings for me.  (I listen to all the KU games on internet radio, which is actually kind of fun.)

Anyway, that the college basketball season is at hand, is nothing compared to a statement like, Your surgery is at hand.  That kind of statement makes the anxiety level escalate a bit.  Having a surgery date get closer and closer—being at hand—is a bit unnerving.

At hand.  Those two small, simple words, are so good at building anticipation or anxiety or both.

For something to be "at hand" it means that it is approaching, and that approach is closer and closer.  To be "at hand" means that something is coming near.  Either the good or the bad can be at hand.  A final exam.  A house closing.  Your mother-in-law coming for a visit.  A dentist appointment.

It's an interesting word in the Greek language in which Matthew wrote his gospel.  The word, "at hand" literally means, "to join one thing to another."  When John the baptist used the word here, he was making the point that an event in the future is going to be joined to this present moment.  The present and the future are getting closer and closer to each other, until one day they will be joined together--they will be at hand.

What is it that John the baptist says is "at hand"?  It is the "kingdom of heaven."  The kingdom of heaven, that time when God brings all things to fulfillment, is at hand.  That is, the kingdom of heaven, that promised future is getting closer and closer and, behold, has already invaded this present moment.  At a time of God's own choosing the future promise and this present moment will come together in the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of heaven holds within it all present moments, and all of God's moments to come.  The kingdom of heaven is yet, but not yet.

The kingdom of heaven is a huge change in the way of the world.  Time--past, present, and future--have always been separate.  In this present moment, you can't go backwards.  Even by a minute.  The second I started this message became a second in the past.  Neither you or I can go back to that precise second and live it again.  It's gone.  It's left behind by this present moment.

And the future is unknowable.  Even the next word I'm going to say.  None of you know what that word will be.  But I just said it.  It was the word "none."  I just said it in my last sentence.  And now it's in the past.  The unknown future to be lived into.  All separate.  Unmixable.

Except as the kingdom of heaven.  The "at hand" of the kingdom of heaven does the impossible, mixing the future and the now.  In order for that to happen, in order for that huge change in God's world, God's order of things, God's kingdom of heaven to happen, a huge change has to happen to us and in us.

When the kingdom of heaven, the yet/not yet, the present and future of God begin their mix, three things happen  repentance, baptismal cleansing, and winnowing.  All three of these have to happen to each of us if we are going to be God's new people in God's new world where times blend—where present and future are blended together.  These three qualities of God's yet/not yet mix will have a huge impact on who we are as believers and generally who we are as human beings.

First, repentance.  We all know what repentance is, right?  Basically it's a reversal of direction of your life.  Repentance is what we do when we have made a life choice or decision, and we realize that was the absolute wrong choice.  So we choose, with God's guidance, to go in an entirely different direction.

It can be a change of mind, also.  You make up your mind to do such and such, or be a certain kind of person, and you realize that wasn't the right thing to do, so you change your mind.  Or you adopt a way of thinking, a point of view, a frame of reference upon which you hang all other things in your life.  But then you realize that frame of reference has gotten your thinking all muddled up.  So you make what's called a paradigm shift.

A paradigm is basically a framework upon which you build your way of thinking, your values.  It's like the stud work of building a house.  A carpenter can't put up the sheet rock for the walls if there is no frame work there to hang it on.  The studs are that framework.  But what if the framework of your way of thinking ends up being all wrong?  That framework doesn't allow you to build a life you're proud of, and you just keep getting deeper and deeper into a mess.

That's when you need to do the hard work of making a frame shift, or a paradigm shift.  In my mind that's just a fancy term for repentance.  It means having to tear down the old framework so you can rebuild.  That's the work of repentance.

John the baptizer is making a further point about why we have to repent, and why repentance is a major part of the kingdom of heaven.  At verse 8, he says, "Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives," (Common English Bible).  So, to repent is to effect a certain result in your life that could be called "fruit." What you recognize, prior to repenting, prior to making a paradigm shift, prior to rebuilding your life's framework, is that you aren't bearing fruit.  Your life may be a lovely tree, but you're an orange tree, and you haven't ever produced any oranges!  It's time to do something very different so you can produce fruit as you were meant to.  It's time to repent.  Reframe.  The kingdom of heaven, which is at hand, demands you do so.

Secondly, John says if we have repented, if we're ready to reframe our lives to bear fruit in a way that's pleasing to God, there is a ritual by which you signify that inner paradigm shift.  It's called baptism.  John told the people, "I baptize with water those of you who have changed your hearts and lives" (vs. 11, CEB).

Interestingly, the word that John uses for "baptize" doesn't mean just once.  It doesn't mean "once for all time," as we believe as Presbyterians:  "Once baptized, always baptized."  Here, John has used the word to mean dip repeatedly for the purpose of cleansing.  It's more in line with the Jewish rite of baptizing or ritual washings.

For example, in a Jewish household, you have to wash your hands ten times before each meal.  It's like baptizing.  You have to wash your hands, then have someone pour water over your hands as a baptism, then repeat the process nine more times.  There were all kinds of ritual washings for purification like that in the Jewish religion.  It was a repeated dipping or pouring of water for the purpose of ritual cleansing.

Baptism, or ritual water washings, then became the norm for the Christians to signify they had repented.  Baptism as we now have it as a sacrament of the church is an action by which God signifies to us that we are his own--that our sins have been forgiven, once and for all.  But baptism which was the daily ritual washings were the way people signified to God that they had repented, and were now ready to make that shift in their lives to become a kingdom of heaven person.

And let's face it, we mess up--a lot.  We may end up repenting on a frequent basis, as we continually make those shifts after each mess up.  We need a way to ritualize our promise to God that, this time, our lives, our life direction, the stud work holding up our lives, is really going to change.  And so we dip repeatedly in the cleansing waters, for the purpose of signifying our inner cleansing promise.  That we are now ready to live as a kingdom of heaven person.

Third, and lastly, to be a kingdom of heaven person we need to do some winnowing.  With the kingdom of heaven "at hand", that is, approaching and preparing to mix its time with our present moment, we get ready by repenting, by signifying that repentance with cleansing, and then winnowing.

Farmers have big machines to do their winnowing for them.  They're called combines.  And they cost a lot of money.  Back in Jesus day, they did all that work with a shovel--a winnowing shovel.  The dried wheat stalks would be laid out on a large cloth on the ground. Those stalks would be beaten to release the wheat from the heads.  Then, on a windy day, the farmer would take his winnowing shovel, scoop up the wheat and throw it straight up in the air.  The lighter chaff, or husks, would blow away, and the cleaned, heavier wheat seed would fall back down to the cloth.

Using this imagery, John talked to the people about the final process by which the coming Savior would prepare the people for the approaching kingdom of heaven:  "The shovel he uses to sift the wheat from the husks is in his hands.  He will clean out his threshing area and bring the wheat into his barn.  But he will burn the husks with fire that can't be put out" (vs. 12, CEB).

The kingdom of heaven, that yet/not yet moment, that major work of God's future ushered in by the Savior that will become mixed in with our present, is a time for God's people to get rid of that part of our selves that really doesn't matter.  There is a part of us that really does matter to God.  That's what God wants to hold on to in us.  That's the part of us that God wants to save, the part of us that God says is worthy.  The fruit, if you will.

But there is a part of our selves that is husk.  It's worthless.  It did it's job of protecting the fruit.  But now that the Savior has come, the Savior will protect our fruit--those worthy, God-saved parts of us that will become the kingdom of heaven.  Those husks need to be let go of.  They need to be cast to the wind.  They need to be burned away.  They aren't the part of us that will go with us into the kingdom of heaven with the Savior.

Only the Savior can do that.  We can't.  We would try to hold on to too much that is unnecessary and useless.  We have to let the Savior do his shoveling work so that we can be totally released and ready to become kingdom of heaven people.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  The Savior is coming.  A big change is on the horizon.  The changes that God is making come near will as of us to make some major shifts so that we will be ready:  Repent,  a paradigm shift;  baptize washed, a constant dipping into God's cleansing waters;  and let God use the winnowing shovel on us so we will finally let go of the chaff in our life.