Sermon Tone Analysis

It’s never on the lists of “all-time great movies,” but one of my favorite movies is Uncle Buck.

It actually came out 30 years ago, but it really is fantastic.

If you haven’t seen it, the movie is about a couple, Bob and Cindy Russell, and their 3 children who are 15, 8, and 6. Bob and Cindy suddenly has to leave town because of a medical emergency with their parents.

They can not take their kids with them, but they can’t find anyone to stay with them.

In desperation, they’re forced to turn to the husband’s brother.

They try desperately to find any other option because his brother, Buck, is not someone you’d entrust your kids to.

The basic premise of the movie is that a couple suddenly

Buck is unemployed.

He lives in a small apartment in Chicago, drinks, smokes cigars, and earns his living by betting on rigged horse races.

He drives a dilapidated 1977 Mercury Marquis Brougham Coupe that pours smoke and backfires.

...Buck and [his girlfriend] Chanice have been together for eight years; she wants to get married and start a family, and Buck has grudgingly accepted a new job at [the tire] shop [that she owns.

In fact, when Buck calls Chanice to tell her that he can’t start the new job yet because he needs to stay with his nieces and nephew,] Chanice thinks Buck is trying, as usual, to lie his way out of working.

(Wikipedia)

It certainly doesn’t go smoothly.

It gets pretty interesting along the way.

(For example, this is the movie with the scene where Buck is making an enormous pancake and using a snow shovel to flip it.)

By the end of the movie, not only are the kids perfectly safe, the 15 year old daughter is saved from an abusive boyfriend and is even reconciled to her mother.

(Now, I only have boys, but from what I understand, that last part, especially, is an amazing achievement.)

Buck is not someone who should be entrusted with the care of children.

He is the last one you’d want for this job.

And yet he proves to be exactly what the family needs.

That’s why I bring him up today.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, our attention turns to John the Baptizer.

He is the one that our first hymn was about— “‘Comfort, comfort ye my people.

Speak ye peace,’ Thus saith our God.

‘Comfort those who sit in darkness, mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load....’” And yet John the Baptizer seems like the last person you’d want fort this job.

And yet he proves to be exactly what we need to prepare us for Christ’s coming.

Think about it for a second.

Let’s say that you were casting for a movie and you were designing a character who was supposed to be a comforting figure in your story.

Would you pick someone as weird as John the Baptizer— living in the wilderness, wearing a garment of camel’s hair with a leather belt, and eating locusts and wild honey?

Would this comforting character greet people with “You brood of vipers!

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

Is this the voice of comfort, calling for repentance, declaring that, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees;” that, “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire;” that, “He who is coming after me… will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”?

He would seem to be an even worse choice as a comforter than Uncle Buck was for a babysitter.

He would

So what’s going on here?

John the Baptizer certainly calls for repentance.

There’s no question about it.

But why?

Why is repentance necessary?

Think back to the way that his message is summed up in verse 2: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

That phrase doesn’t ring in our ears the way it could— perhaps even the way it should.

What is this kingdom that he’s declaring is at hand?

You heard it in our Old Testament reading, “6  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.

7  The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9  They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” ().

Or, as we heard last week, “4  He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” ().

6  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

7  The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9  They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

6  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

7  The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9  They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

Or, as we heard last week, “4  He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” ().

4  He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

().

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

4  He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

Those words resonate in our ears and our hearts a little bit more.

That’s more like the comforting character that we would draw up.

That is the kingdom of heaven.