Wednesday June 25th :: Lk. 3 :: Vipers!

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! …Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. (Luke 3.7-8)

This is the kind of sermon that could get a pastor fired.

Still I’ve been thinking of John’s words in Luke 3 today. He condemns the Jewish people for boasting about their religious pedigree while forgetting to live a godly life. They’re proud of their nationality and their religious roots. We might even say they were life-long ‘church-goers’.

But John calls them snakes. Vipers! Because their lives did not produce ‘fruit’ (i.e. ‘results’) in keeping with repentance.

I often take heart in the fact that we do not earn our salvation. And it’s true. Yet Jesus clearly states that one can tell a tree by its fruit. In other words, our true identity as a son or daughter of God comes out in our actions. If I am a child of God, then my life will show it. I will be more loving, less gossipy, more generous, and less greedy. My life will produce fruit, as John says: ‘in keeping with repentance’.

Perhaps then, John’s harsh words are an opportunity for each of us to examine the ‘fruit’ being produced in our own lives.