This past Sunday we were met squarely with the words of John the Baptist.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3: 7-10)
John’s minces no words when he challenges those coming for baptism to show some sign of repentance first. You brood of vipers! he says to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and to us modern day vipers who are also in need of conversion. The season of Advent calls us to be transformed from being snakes into the saints we are meant to be. Now is the time to prepare for Christ’s coming by producing good fruit in our homes, our work and our communities. If we are to be always with Christ we first have to leave behind the viper pit.
Related Posts:
Tags: Advent, communion of the saints, Indiana Jones, snakes, St. John the Baptist, vipers
This entry was posted by Fr. Christian Mathis
on Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
About The Author
Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.
Comments