From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Third Week of Advent
Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
When we speak of the “Gospel of Christ,” the question comes to mind: Which Gospel? Indeed all four Gospels are different; have different agendas, varying theology, particular points of view. We now know that there were many other “Gospels” written in the First Century and beyond, but only four were deemed by the church fathers as authoritative. It took many voices and many years to begin to speculate and understand the mission and ministry of Jesus, what and who he would become in the pantheon of human mythology. There are those still who seek to understand.
Having said all that, there are some events, though few, that occur in all four Gospels. Today’s reading from Matthew is one of them. All four evangelists speak of John the Baptist as herald to the authority of Jesus as “new blood” in a resistance movement. Yes, the movement began before Jesus came onto the scene. Resistance to what, you may ask? It was what all movements of conscience resist: corrupted power… namely the empire of Rome, and the Jewish leadership who acted as imperial vassals. On one level, perhaps quite literally, Jesus’ baptism is an initiation, a rite of purification, preparing him for activism in the movement of which his cousin John was already a vital part. In other words, this isn’t the beginning of a new religion; this is a movement that sought to put religion (Judaism) into practice.
Also, all four Gospel writers use the same passage from Isaiah, “the voice crying in the desert,” as introduction to Jesus’ baptism and his ministry. As interpreters we have to take such typology seriously. The prophet is writing somewhere in the early fifth to late fourth centuries BCE, and he is speaking of Israel’s return to their homeland from exile in Babylon. He is speaking of the possibility of freedom, a new “exodus,” as it were. The Hebrew faith, its birth, Israel’s life as a nation, began with the exodus from slavery in Egypt. So we have some corroborative theology here among the four evangelists: That the Jesus movement was about resistance to power; and its goal was freedom… freedom in every sense of the word: political, social, spiritual, emotional, physical….
Matthew, his passion uncontained, speaks of the impetus, the energy of this movement as “Spirit and fire.” It is the same Spirit that moved over the face of the deep in the beginning, and the fire by which God revealed Godself to Moses, back in the day; the fire that led the freed slaves of Israel by night through the desert wilderness of Sinai … the Spirit and Fire that will burn away injustice and shame, and sweep away the ashes of illusion, unreality, into nothingness.
It is the ancient pattern, don’t you see? God is forever on the move renewing the earth; bringing life where there is death; calling God’s beloved community to account; instructing us as to a better and sustainable and gracious way. We are always at the beginning of a new day, good people. We should expect the pattern to hold; pray that it will; and be prepared for our part in the coming new day.
A Prayer of the Incarnation (BCP p. 252)
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
