[Matthew 3:7-12]

John called people snakes.

That’s rude.

The people he called snakes were people who claimed to be godly. They were the religious people of the day, denominational leaders. They were the people who believed that they were closest to God.

John was saying, “Is your life messed up? Here’s what you do. Tell someone and take a bath.” It was a symbolic, though still very wet, dip in a muddy river in front of everyone.

The leaders were checking things out, coming to the river not because they were wanting to get wet but because they wondered what was happening.

And John calls them snakes. He calls them deceptive ones. He calls them, well, he calls them names.

They, of course, had names for people like John. Heretic. Troublemaker. And they tended to punish people like him. (They called Jesus names, too.)

Tragically.  the religious leaders probably had names for the people that John was baptizing. Tragic because they were criticizing the people who most needed help.

They were sinners, but John was baptizing them anyway. They were broken, but John was willing help them toward wholeness.

We think of John being edgy and harsh, prophetic, abrupt. But he offered hope. And he offered it humbly. He acknowledged that he was not the main attraction. He was the warm-up act.

John gets the hierarchy clear when he says that he won’t deserve to carry the sandals of the one to come. Sandals that walked on camel paths. It’s a subtle, powerful message.

We are warmup acts. Our calling isn’t primarily to offer condemnation. It’s to offer hope, to point to the One to come.

John’s life bought the right to critique the ones who should have been in the hope-giving business. He bought it by giving hope.