“Mind The Gap”

“Mind The Gap”

Text: Matthew 3:1-12

© December 9, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

Every year at Christmastime there are always warnings about certain toys that are dangerous for kids to play with. You know, toys that have lead-based paint, toys that have rough zagged edges on them, toys that have small parts that kids might swallow. Well, back in 1974, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the government agency that’s responsible for warning people about those kinds of dangers, decided they would take a new and creative approach. What they did was they made up 80,000 buttons that people could wear that said “For Kids’ Sake, Think Toy Safety.”

The only problem was that once those 80,000 buttons were made and distributed to people, they had to be immediately recalled, because they realized that the buttons were made with lead-based paint, they had rough zagged edges on them, and the pin on the back could easily come off and be swallowed by children.[1] When that sort of thing happens, we can’t help but just shake our heads because we see so plainly the disconnect, the gap, between what people are saying and what they’re actually doing.

Many tourists who visit London, England, come back with t-shirts that say “Mind The Gap.” You see, when you ride the subway in London, there are signs all over the place with that message posted: Mind the Gap. And what those signs are trying to tell people is to watch their step getting on and off the subway cars, because there is a gap, a space, between the subway cars and the platform that you step onto. And if you ignore that warning, and don’t pay attention to the gap that’s there, you could end up being sorry when you trip and fall.

Mind the gap. In essence, that’s the message that John the Baptist was proclaiming as people flocked to the Jordan River to see what he was up to. No, John wasn’t warning people about how to get on and off subway cars. Instead, John was warning people to mind the gap in their lives – the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do.

There’s an old Negro spiritual song that says, “Everybody talkin’ ‘bout Heaven, ain’t a-goin’ there.” And that was the same point that John the Baptist was making with his preaching. His warning was: Despite what you might think, not everybody who’s talking about heaven is going there. No, our God is a God of judgment. And so don’t kid yourselves. Because if there are gaps in your life – if there are gaps between what you say you believe and the way you actually go about living your life, you better do something to fix those gaps. Because the day is going to come when God is going to judge us. And when that day comes, if those gaps are still there, there’s going to be a price we’re going to have to pay – an awful, horrible, eternal price we’re going to have to pay.

But some people hear John the Baptist say that, and they think to themselves, “Maybe the God described in the Old Testament is a God of judgment. But we’re Christians. We believe in the New Testament. We believe in Jesus. And Jesus didn’t go around judging people. No, he went around forgiving people. So we don’t have to get ourselves all worked up about the gaps that might be there in our lives, because in the end it really doesn’t matter, because Jesus will forgive us no matter what.”

To a large degree, that way of thinking can be traced all the way back to at least the middle of the second century to a Christian man by the name of Marcion. You see, according to Marcion, in the Bible we read about two totally different Gods. According to Marcion, in the Old Testament we read about an angry, wrathful, avenging God. In the Old Testament we read about a God who got so upset with the people’s sins that eventually God decided to destroy the whole world with a flood, saving only Noah and his family. In the Old Testament we read about a God who became so angry with the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, for not letting the Israelites go free from slavery that God sent ten horrible plagues against the Egyptians, with the tenth and final plague resulting in the death of the firstborn child in every Egyptian family. And in the Old Testament we read about a God who became so upset with the Hebrew people for their on-going sins that God sent one punishment after another against them, ranging from plagues of locusts to droughts to invading armies.

But according to Marcion, the God that we read about in the Old Testament is not the Christian God. Instead, Marcion said, the God we worship and serve is a kinder, gentler God, a God that was revealed to us through Jesus. After all, Marcion said, Jesus didn’t walk around smiting people and condemning people. No, Jesus went around patting little kids on the head and healing the sick and telling everyone about how much God loves them.

And so as far as Marcion was concerned, Christians ought to take their Bibles in their hands and just rip out the Old Testament, because, according to Marcion, the God of the Old Testament, the God who judges people for their sins, isn’t the same God that Jesus wants us to worship. And at first glance, it might appear that Marcion was right.

But Marcion only appears to be right if you don’t bother to read the entire New Testament. Because if you bother to read the entire New Testament, or even if you just bother to read the four Gospels, you can’t help but discover that Jesus himself warns us that the day is coming when we are going to be judged by God.

As a case in point, I want to invite you to turn in the pew Bibles to Matthew 25, which may be found on page 29 in the New Testament. Beginning at Matthew 25:31, we read:

“When the Son of Man (that is, Jesus) comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

How can you read a passage like that, words from Jesus’ own lips, and then say that Christians don’t believe in a God who is a God who judges? Or elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus refers to people who persist in their sins as being like weeds that one day will be tossed into the flames and burned up, or as being like unfruitful trees that one day will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.

But all that talk about judgment isn’t there in the Bible to scare us and to cause us to live in fear. No, whether we realize it or not, all that talk about judgment is part of God’s good news. Whether we realize it or not, all that talk about judgment is part of God’s good news, because it shows us that God cares, that God cares what we do with our lives, that God cares what goes on in the world.

For example, which parent would you say is more loving? A parent who lets their children do whatever they want; or a parent who is serious about teaching their children the difference between right and wrong, and who is willing to make the effort to punish their children in appropriate ways when they intentionally make bad choices when it comes to how they act? I think most of us realize that to be a loving parent means that at times it’s necessary to punish in order to help children understand that there are consequences to the choices that we make in life.

And in a similar way, God is like a good parent to us, warning us of the punishment that we’ll face if we insist on making bad choices – not because God likes punishing people, but because God desperately wants us to understand that what we do with our lives truly matters, that what we do with our lives truly matters to God.

From time to time in all of our lives, there is a gap that exists – a gap between the way God wants us to be and the way we actually are. In your life, where do you see that gap taking place? Especially during this season of Advent, make the effort, with the help of God, to repent and make the changes that need to be made. Because what we do with our lives does matter. What we do with our lives matters to God.