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Two Sandwich Signs

So here are two sandwich signs. How do they make you feel? Does one or neither grip you? Why does one grip you and not the other? Maybe neither grips you and you just think they’re nuts or kooks or overly zealous but entitled to their opinions and free speech?

John the Baptist

Here is the story of the most successful sandwich-sign-guy in first century Judea.

Matthew 3:1–12 (NIV)

¹ In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea ² and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” ³ This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ” ⁴ John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ⁶ Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. ⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

The Last Prophet

John comes not with a sandwich board, which would be the expected end-of-the-world prophesy for our times, but with clothes of camel’s hair, a leather belt eating locusts in honey. His listeners would get the picture. What is easy to picture is something like the movie Legion from 2010.

Israel has failed God, again, and judgment is on the way.

Instead of some super-hero angel to offer shelter John invites people to a baptism of repentance. It is not too late to turn and get on God’s good side.

This isn’t just a watery “get out of the apocalypse quick” scheme, there is an ethnic to go along with it. Matthew I suspect assumes his readers already had the picture. Luke fleshes it out a bit more for his non-Jewish audience.

Luke 3:10–14 (NIV)

¹⁰ “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. ¹¹ John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” ¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” ¹³ “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. ¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

Unlike the plot of most Hollywood movies where the goal is to stop “the end of the world” which is imagined basically like the naturalist narrative of the end of the universe.

The “end of the world” for John the Baptist is really the beginning of a new world, a better one, a world without sin and suffering.

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