Jesus is Baptized

Christ Is Risen: Clearing the Path, Not Adding the Weight
A pastor’s reflection on Matthew 3 and a week of “turning”

“Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.”

We say those words a lot in our church—on Easter, yes, but also on ordinary Sundays like this past one. I keep coming back to that declaration because it’s the foundation under everything else we talk about: repentance, discipleship, confession, communion, spiritual growth—none of it makes sense unless Jesus is actually alive.

If Christ is risen, then what we’re doing together is not self‑help, self‑improvement, or religious performance. We’re learning how to live with a living Savior. That’s the lens I carried into Matthew 3 this week, and it completely shaped how I approached a passage that can easily feel heavy.

When “Repentance” Feels Like a Loaded Word
The main word in Matthew 3 is one most of us don’t love: repentance.

For a lot of people, “repent” feels like:

Try harder.
Feel worse.
Prove yourself.
Fix everything now.
But as I sat with Matthew 3, I was struck again that repentance is not about God piling more weight on our shoulders. It’s about clearing what’s already weighing us down.

John the Baptist appears in the wilderness proclaiming:

“Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 3:2)

That last part is everything: “for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Repentance is not punishment.
It’s preparation for presence.

It’s not, “Do better so God might come near to you,” but, “God is already drawing near—will you turn toward Him?”

A Turning, Not a Beating‑Yourself‑Up
One of the clearest ways I can picture repentance is that story I shared about my wife driving from SeaTac.

We’ve driven the Quincy–Portland route so many times we could do it in our sleep. Years ago, Ruth drove to SeaTac to pick up her sister. On the way back, they were so absorbed in conversation that muscle memory took over—and suddenly they realized they were heading toward Yakima, not Quincy.

What did she do?

She didn’t pull over to sit in shame.
She didn’t stubbornly keep going in the wrong direction.
She didn’t wait for some mysterious “sign” to fix it for her.
She turned around.

That’s repentance in Scripture: the realization, “I’m going the wrong way,” followed by a simple but costly action—turning the wheel.

Repentance is less about beating yourself up and more about waking up. Less about self‑condemnation and more about reorientation.

And it’s not just “turn away from something bad.” It’s “turn to Someone good.” Turn to God. Turn toward life with Jesus.

Why the Wilderness?
Matthew makes a point of telling us that John shows up “in the Judean wilderness,” not in the city, not in the religious centers, not in the culturally comfortable places.

The modern equivalent I used in the sermon was this: instead of setting up shop downtown, in schools or at the grocery store, it’s like he goes out to Quincy Lakes and just lives there—simple clothes, simple food, simple message.

It’s inconvenient.

And yet, people went anyway.

They weren’t drawn to polish. The text doesn’t tell us John had great branding, a tight band, and compelling video packages.

They were drawn to truth.

That’s been part of our conviction as a church. We want to be intentionally non‑attractional in all the ways that compete with real discipleship. Not because there’s something inherently wrong with “flash,” but because transformation rarely happens in the flash. It happens in the quiet, the ordinary, the unspectacular places where we are finally still enough to hear God.

That’s why we keep pushing you toward:

Small discipling relationships
Sitting with Scripture together
Praying with and for each other
Actually obeying what Jesus says
You won’t always get something “polished.” But our aim is that you’ll always get something true.

Two Ways to Come to the Wilderness
In Matthew 3, everyone ends up out in the wilderness, but they don’t all come with the same posture.

The crowds come confessing.
They’re honest. They know they need to turn. They respond to the Spirit’s nudge.

The Pharisees and Sadducees come “to watch.”
They’re not there to turn; they’re there to evaluate. They trust in:

Their heritage (“We’re descendants of Abraham”)
Their knowledge
Their status
Their certainty
And John’s tone changes dramatically when they arrive:

“You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath?
Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” (Matthew 3:7–8)

The issue is not that they’re religious. It’s that they’re unrepentant.

Repentance becomes hardest when we think we’re already fine. When we’re secure in our own certainty, sure we can “manage” our sin, sure our perspectives are obviously right.

That posture hardens our hearts. It makes us defensive instead of receptive, proud instead of surrendered.

The fruit of that is telling. Instead of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and self‑control, we get:

Self‑protection
Self‑importance
Self‑justification
Self‑centeredness
John’s call is not: “Perform for God.”
His call is: “Let your life show the true direction of your heart.”

The Axe That’s Poised, Not Swinging
Verse 10 is one of those passages that can sound terrifying if you only hear it in a certain tone:

“Even now the axe of God’s judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees.”

It’s important that Matthew says poised, not swinging.

That imagery isn’t about random divine anger; it’s about urgency.

It’s John saying, “Don’t waste this moment. Don’t assume you can put off responding to God forever. He’s serious about real transformation.”

But again, it’s invitation, not fatalism. The axe is poised. There is still time to turn.

God warns before He judges because His heart is restoration, not destruction.

John Prepares. Jesus Transforms.
John is so clear about his role:

“I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am…