Christ Is Risen… So What Does That Mean on an Ordinary Sunday?

From my perspective as a pastor, one of the most important things we did this past Sunday happened right at the beginning of the service:

“Christ is risen.”
“He is risen indeed.”

We usually reserve that call-and-response for Easter, but the early church used it constantly. It was their way of saying, “This is the center. This is what everything else hangs on.” Before we opened our Bibles, before a single word of the sermon was preached, we reminded ourselves that our hope is in a risen Savior, not in a set of religious techniques, not in self-improvement, and certainly not in our own perfection.

That truth shaped everything we did next, especially as we opened to Matthew 3 and met John the Baptist in the wilderness.

Heavy Words, Lightened Hearts
I’m aware that I have a reputation for preaching “heavy” sermons. Sometimes that’s fair. The Bible doesn’t always whisper. It speaks plainly, sometimes sharply. Matthew 3 is one of those passages that comes at us with strong language:

“Repent…”
“You brood of snakes…”
“The axe of God’s judgment is poised…”
Those are not coffee-mug verses.

So before I even got into the text, I wanted our church to hear this clearly: this passage is not about piling more weight on your shoulders. It’s about clearing a path. It’s about God removing what’s already weighing you down so you can actually live in the freedom Jesus offers.

If you were tired, guarded, or bracing yourself the moment you saw I had the mic—this sermon was meant to let you exhale, not tense up.

Why John the Baptist Matters for Us
In Matthew’s biography of Jesus, chapter 2 focused on Joseph and all the disruption, danger, and unexpected changes his little family faced. The question there was:

Will you trust God when the plan keeps changing?

In chapter 3, the camera shifts away from Joseph and Mary and lands on a strange figure in a strange place—John the Baptist, in the wilderness. And now the question becomes:

Will you let God change you so you’re ready for what He is doing next?

John is not a side character. He’s the one who prepares the way for Jesus to step into public ministry. He’s a prophet after 400 years of silence from God. He’s simple, blunt, and very aware that he is not the point. His whole life and ministry exist to point away from himself and toward Jesus.

I need that reminder as a pastor.

It is dangerously easy for any of us in ministry to become the center of attention: to be “the voice,” the one with the microphone, the one people look to. John shows us a better way. He lives and speaks in such a way that Jesus becomes clearer, not John.

That’s the posture I want for myself and for our church: not to build a brand, but to clear a path.

An Inconvenient Location, a Simple Message
Matthew tells us John preached in the Judean wilderness. To put that in our local terms, it’s as if God called him not to downtown, but to set up camp at Quincy Lakes—out of the way, not convenient, not polished, not optimized for “maximum reach.”

Yet verse 5 says people came from:

Jerusalem
All over Judea
The whole Jordan Valley
Why?

Because there was truth in what he was saying. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t attractional. It wasn’t comfortable. But it was real.

We’re used to polished presentations: high production value, smooth transitions, curated branding. A lot of church culture has adopted that same assumption: “If we make it attractive enough, people will come. And if they come, maybe some of Jesus will rub off.”

That’s not what we’re trying to do here.

We are intentionally pursuing a stripped-down, non-program-based discipleship:

Open Bibles.
Honest conversations.
Real relationships.
Ordinary obedience.
We don’t want to hook people with flash and then hope to slip Jesus in quietly on the side. We want Jesus—His Word, His ways, His presence—to be the unmistakable center.

John was not Instagram-ready. Camel hair and locusts won’t trend. But God used him anyway—precisely because the message mattered more than the packaging.

Repentance: Not Punishment, but Preparation
John’s central message is simple and disruptive:

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

For many of us, the word repent is tangled up with shame, fear, or the sense that we’ve never done enough. But biblically, repentance isn’t about groveling. It isn’t about beating yourself up or promising God you’ll never mess up again.

Repentance is about turning.

I told the story of Ruth driving back from SeaTac. She and her sister were in such deep conversation that muscle memory took over and she found herself on the road to Yakima instead of Quincy. Once she realized it, she didn’t:

Keep driving in the wrong direction out of stubbornness.
Pull over and sit in shame.
Pretend it wasn’t really a problem.
She turned around.

That’s repentance in everyday language: realizing I am headed in the wrong direction and turning the wheel.

Repentance is not about God saying, “If you fix yourself, I might come close.” It’s God saying, “I am already drawing near; turn toward Me and live.”

This is why I phrased it this way on Sunday:

Repentance isn’t punishment.
Repentance is preparation for presence.

We’re not repenting to earn grace. We’re repenting because grace has already arrived and is knocking on the door.

The First Step: Honesty, Not Perfection
As people came out to John, they confessed their sins, repented, and were baptized.

That first step is not performance. It’s honesty.

Confession is not humiliation. It’s relief. It’s the end of pretending. It’s saying to God, “Here’s where I really am. Here’s the direction I’m actually going.”

And it’s important to say this: we are not called to do this alone. Real repentance, real turning, is hard work. Addictions, habits, relational patterns, anger, pride, thought patterns—we all have something that feels costly to turn away from.

That’s why I keep pointing our church back to discipling relationships, to actually being with other followers of Jesus in the Word, in prayer, in honest conversation. Repentance is personal, but it is not meant to be private. We help one another turn and keep turning.

When Repentance Feels Unnecessary
Not everyone came to John in humility. The Pharisees and Sadducees came to watch, not to confess. They were religious experts, confident that they were already in the right. They had heritage, position, influence, and a deep certainty in their own perspective.

That’s when John’s tone sharpens:

“You brood of snakes… Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” (Matthew 3:7–8)

Repentance becomes hardest when we are most certain we don’t really need it. When we’re sure we can manage our sin, manage our image, and keep control of our lives, our hearts quietly harden.

The fruit of that isn’t love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control. The fruit becomes a life subtly (or not so subtly) centered on:

My preferences
My timeline
My agenda
My sense of how things should be
John’s not saying, “Perform better for God.” He’s saying, “Let your life tell the truth about where your heart is facing.”

That’s a word for me as a pastor too. It’s possible to preach well, lead well, “do ministry well,” and still be living largely for myself. The question is not, “Do I look spiritual?” The question is, “Is my life actually facing Jesus?”

The Axe, the Fire, and the Invitation
The imagery of the axe and the fire in this passage can be unsettling:

“Even now the axe of God’s judgment is poised…”
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

This is not about a short-tempered God waiting gleefully to swing. The axe is poised, not yet falling. It’s a picture of urgency, not random rage.

Before God judges, He warns. That warning is an act of mercy.

And the fire? Fire in Scripture isn’t only destructive. It also refines and purifies. It burns away what doesn’t belong so what is real can remain. The same presence of God that exposes and removes what is false is the presence that heals what is true.

John says, “I baptize with water for repentance. I’m preparing you. But someone greater is coming—Someone whose baptism is not just outward but inward. Someone who can actually transform you.”

Water prepares.
The Holy Spirit transforms.

John points.
Jesus fulfills.

So What Is God Asking of Us?
Across Matthew 2 and 3, the questions we’ve wrestled with are:

Will we trust God when our plans keep changing?
Will we let God change us so we’re ready for what He wants to do next?
Notice what those questions are not:

“Will you fix yourself?”
“Will you become spiritually impressive?”
“Will you clean up your life so God will finally accept you?”
Instead, the invitation is about direction and surrender:

Where is God inviting me to turn away from what leads me away from Him—sin, distraction, misplaced hope, stubborn self-reliance?
Where is God inviting me to turn toward life with Jesus—life as a disciple, not just an occasional religious consumer?
Before Jesus steps into the water in the next passage—though He has no need to repent—John calls us to prepare the way. Not by becoming perfect, but by becoming honest.

Repentance is not the end of the story.
Repentance is how we make room for the One who writes the story.

Meeting Grace in the Middle of the Turn
This is why we moved from a moment of silence straight into communion.

That silence wasn’t a space to fix yourself. It was space to be honest. The simple prayer I invited us to pray was:

“Jesus, prepare the way in me.”

If you prayed that, even haltingly, even with a mixture of desire and fear, Jesus hears that.

Communion, then, is not a reward for the already-arrived. It’s where grace meets us while we are still turning. We don’t come to the table with our act together. We come as people in process—people facing Jesus, even if our steps are shaky.

John prepared people with water; we come now to Jesus’ table, trusting that by His Spirit He is truly with us, feeding us, forgiving us, forming us.

A Cleared Path, Not Added Weight
If you remember nothing else from this Sunday, remember this:

This is not about weight being added. This is a path being cleared.

Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed.

That means the One calling you to repent is the same One who died for you, rose for you, and now lives to intercede for you. He is not standing at a distance with crossed arms. He is already moving toward you.

So this week, my encouragement to you—as your pastor and as a fellow disciple—is simple:

Take one honest look at your direction.
Name, before God, where you need to turn.
Don’t do it alone—invite another believer into that process.
Take one faithful next step with Jesus.
Not perfection.
Turning.

Not crushing weight.
A cleared path.

Walk that path in grace and peace, as a beloved child of God, a citizen of heaven, and a disciple of Jesus—just one faithful step at a time.