The following sermon was delivered in Truro Episcopal Church on December 4th, 1977. The preacher is the Rev. John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Church. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. Back in the 1920s, there was an eccentric Episcopal minister that they used to call Daddy Hall.

Ran around Wall Street, and especially at rush hour or at lunchtime, whenever there was a crowd around, he would set up a portable pulpit, kind of a movable lectern on the street corner, And he would preach to whoever would stand around and listen. Kind of a portable Hyde Park approach that he took. He called him the Bishop of Wall Street.

And eccentric though he was, he had quite a remarkable ministry. One of the things that he used to do to get a crowd to gather was advertise himself by wearing sandwich boards. He'd go around with collar and all of his clergy attire.

And then over that, he'd hang sandwich boards. And on the front side, in great big garish letters, it said, I'm God's fool, which nobody questioned very much. But then as he walked past you and you look at him still laughing, on the backside it read, whose fool are you?

We come this morning to consider John the baptizer. He was God's fool. What an incredible figure he must have been.

Running around in the wilderness wearing a hair shirt. Eating insects. Unkempt.

Probably unwashed. railing against corruption and immorality, high and low, and yet with a charisma and an authority that didn't allow people to ignore him. Some of them may have found him laughable.

Some of them, no doubt, were absolutely terrified by him, but nobody ignored him. It says all Judea came out to hear him. We speak of John as the Baptist, as if he was the one who dreamed up the idea of baptizing people.

Interestingly enough, that's not at all true. For centuries, baptism was practiced in the ancient world as a rite of initiation when somebody left his own culture and joined some other. If you left your own religious tradition and joined some other, very commonly the rite of baptism was used as a symbolic way of washing away your past.

And curiously enough, for at least 200 years prior to the time of Jesus, the Jews practiced baptism. As a matter of fact, the great Rabbi Hillel, one of the pillars of Jewish orthodoxy, was one time asked, which is more important, baptism or circumcision? And he said, baptism.

Which is really astonishing when you stop to think that God himself had given the right of circumcision as the mark of being a member of the Jewish covenant. And yet Hillel says, even more important is baptism. And we're left wondering why. He didn't explain himself.

My speculation is that it's because baptism is so much more obvious a kind of symbol. The washing away, the complete eradication of your dirty, sinful past. But note one thing very carefully, that though the Jews practiced this right, It was only for Gentiles.

Gentiles who wanted to become Jews. Maybe they wanted to marry a Jewish girl. They married into Judaism.

Or for whatever other reason, they wanted to become Jews, had to wash away their dirty, sinful, heathen, pagan Gentile, which were all synonymous terms, mind you. Background. The Jews never were baptized.

They never had to wash. You see, they didn't have a past to be ashamed of. They gloried in their past.

We're the children of Abraham. So that helps us to appreciate the impact of John. It's not that he began this unique thing of baptizing people, but that he began baptizing Jewish people.

He says, you think you've got your relationship with God all sewed up because you're the children of Abraham. Listen, God doesn't count that any more valuable than a bunch of stones. You also have a sinful past that you've got to repent of, wash away, and be clean.

You know what nice gracious language he used. You bunch of snakes. You dirty vipers, who warned you to flee from what's coming?

God's going to get you. And especially, we read, he directed his comments toward the professionally religious, toward the clergy, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all those people who took their relationship with God as something to take for granted. I don't have any needs.

I've really worked it out. The comfortable pew sitters, if you will. And his message was, repent.

Get ready. Messiah is coming. The Holy One of Israel is about to visit us.

Get ready for Him. And he said, every mountain of pride has to be torn down. Every valley of despair has to be filled in.

All those crooked and kinky places in your life have to be straightened out. All the obstacles to holiness have to be stripped away because when He comes, He comes only where there's righteousness. And He doesn't come except where there's a work of preparation.

Get ready. He's coming. So John is called the forerunner.

The one who makes ready a path for the Holy One to travel on. You know, there are people in the church who count themselves good Christians, who have never ever even heard that Jesus Christ is coming a second time. That's not strictly accurate.

They've heard it, but somehow it's never registered. I believe that the message for this generation is that Jesus Christ is coming again. That's always been there.

Those who haven't heard it haven't listened. We said a few minutes ago, He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will have no end.

Come to the communion service and we say, He did institute and command His disciples to continue in the same until His coming again. Every time we say the Lord's Prayer, we pray, Thy kingdom come. The kingdom comes when the king comes.

I believe this is the message of the church today. Sometimes we talk about the resurrection as being the center of the circle. As if it were the whole focal point of everything.

It's not. Critically important, but it's one of two foci. It's more an ellipse, if you will, than a circle.

We look back to what Jesus Christ did on the cross 2,000 years ago and when He conquered death and rose again. We look forward. The hope of the ages, the expectation, the promise of the Scriptures, He will come again with glory.

And ladies and gentlemen, I believe He's coming soon. if you're not into the scripture may I suggest that one of the most exciting things that you could do as a way of beginning to get into the Bible is look at the prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled begin with what Jesus himself said about his own return and the signs that would surround it Matthew 24 and 25 for instance Luke 21, Mark 13. And you're going to come up out of your chair with an excitement because those very things that he described are happening in front of our eyes.

Some of them are arguable. They've been around as long as man has been around. You shall hear rumors of wars.

There have always been rumors of wars. Some of them are happening in this generation in a way that is absolutely different than anything that we've ever seen. For instance, Jesus said the gospel of the kingdom shall be published in every nation of the world.

The American Bible Society announced that it was in 1956 that the gospel, in whole or in part, was published in the official language of every nation of the world. There are thousands of people yet to hear. Thousands of little dialects.

Thousands of tribes out in the bush. But the literal fulfillment of Jesus' words, the gospel in whole or in part, has been published to the nations in our generation. Luke 21-24 Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

For 1900 years, men scratched their heads over that one. And they said, what in the world does that mean? Obviously, it's a metaphor.

Jesus is talking about the church as the new Jerusalem. Because they couldn't believe that Jerusalem, the literal city, would ever become Jewish again. Do you know when the last time that Jerusalem belonged to the Jews was?

586 B.C. In other words, when Jesus gave that prophecy, there had already been nearly 600 years of Gentile dominion. And he says it's going to continue to be dominated by the Gentiles until their times are fulfilled.

There's going to be a closing of that era. And it's going to become Jewish again. People said, no way.

Of course, that's metaphorical. Until June 1967, 2,600 years later. Jesus Christ is coming.

And we better get ready. If the message, when He came the first time in lowliness and humility as a servant of men, if the message then was repent, get ready, how much more so the message today when He comes in all of His glory, with the authority of His Father, with the train of angels and archangels. Repent, get ready.

If we needed to make our paths straight, because He walks nowhere but on holiness. How much more so do we need to hear that message more loudly, more clearly, more urgently today? Get ready.

Get ready. The King is coming. I believe we're losing the comfortable pew.

And I say praise God. God is sifting His church. I believe the agenda for the church today is to prepare it to be the bride for the bridegroom.

Scripture says Christ comes back to claim His church as a bride prepared for her husband without spot or wrinkle or any blemish. To rule with Him, to reign with Him. Destined for glory and God is fashioning a bride for the bridegroom.

Get ready. the comfortable pew is collapsing beneath us we're either going to stand for Jesus or we're going to fall by the wayside casual Christianity is quickly becoming a thing of the past I want us to notice one thing the connection between the ministry of John and the ministry of Jesus John says I baptize you with water for repentance but there is one coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire and I'm not even worthy to tie his shoes the word baptize means literally to saturate it was a word used when a ship sunk sank And became waterlogged. That's when it was baptized.

When it was completely saturated, waterlogged. So you have not been baptized with water in that way. Whether you've been dunked, sprinkled, crossed, or spit upon, you have not been baptized that way.

It's only an external symbol. But to be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be infused, saturated, waterlogged with the life of God. That's God's agenda for the church, that we would become waterlogged with the Holy Spirit.

And he says, with fire. You know, there are two ways to cleanse things. For instance, those communion vessels.

You can wash them with water and cleanse the outside. Or you can pass them through the fire. And all the impurities are burned up.

And they're cleansed through and through. And that's how John describes the ministry of Jesus. When he baptizes you, it's going to be with fire.

No mere external prettying up, but a cleansing from the inside out. The burning up of all impurity. Whatever else the baptism of the Holy Spirit may mean, that's where it begins.

God readying His people to meet His Christ. I used to do a lot of traveling when I was working amongst students. the best part about it was coming home again the glorious reunions that we would have after a time of separation Karen would come out running to meet me it made it all worthwhile I want you to picture a man going away on a business trip and it's an extended trip away and he writes faithfully every day to his wife and she writes back but after a time the letters stop coming and he begins to sense something's wrong and he calls her on the telephone and he says, what's wrong?

and there's a distance in her voice there's a hardness to it there's an edge to her tone of voice and he says, something's wrong and he cuts off his trip prematurely and he comes home to find out what's wrong and instead of her running out to greet him with joy and expectancy she shrinks back and hides herself because there's been infidelity there. John writes, little children abide in Him so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him at His coming. Are you ready?

He's coming back. It's coming in a moment when the world least expects it. When the world is written off Christianity as passé and old hat, foolishness and a myth, superstition and something of the past.

It's coming in a moment of desperation. Scripture says men fainting with fear and foreboding for the things coming upon the earth. When it looks as if all hope is gone.

he's coming and there's a word of encouragement as these things begin to happen you look up don't be weighed down with dissipation and the cares of this life as these things begin falling apart all around you look up because your salvation is drawing close God is allowing his world to go its own way to the farthest extreme that they might discover that there's no hope apart from Him. And when it looks as if things have become most desperate, He's coming back. And there'll be many who are totally unprepared for that.

Many in the church who are playing church. And suddenly, they'll remember, yes, that's what it was all about. How in the world did I get so messed up?

shrink back in shame for their infidelity God says get ready you don't know when it's coming but it's coming because you don't know when it's coming be ready all the time get ready the king is coming make straight a path for him to march on tear down the mountains fill up the valleys straighten out the kinky places I'm willing to be God's fool whose will you be? let us pray In your hearts enthrone him. There let him subdue all that is not holy, all that is not true.

Crown him as your captain in temptation's hour. Let his will enfold you in its light and power. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Amen.