Matthew 3:1126 (The Message)
Thunder in the Desert!
1-2 While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea.
His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
John and his message were authorized by Isaiah’s prophecy:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
4-6 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey.
People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action.
There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
7-10 When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river?
Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and flourishing? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.
11-12 “I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life.
But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives.
He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
Thunder in the Desert!
1-2 While Jesus was living in the Galilean hills, John, called “the Baptizer,” was preaching in the desert country of Judea.
His message was simple and austere, like his desert surroundings: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
John and his message were authorized by Isaiah’s prophecy:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
4-6 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. He lived on a diet of locusts and wild field honey.
People poured out of Jerusalem, Judea, and the Jordanian countryside to hear and see him in action.
There at the Jordan River those who came to confess their sins were baptized into a changed life.
7-10 When John realized that a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river?
Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and flourishing? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.
11-12 “I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life.
But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives.
He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
Reflection
Advent is this amazing time when there is this collision of the coming of the Kingdom with the coming of Jesus. Boom –expectation and reality!
Here was John the Baptist, coming out of the wilderness, preaching on the banks of the Jordan, calling people to get ready, baptizing those who well believed that something new could happen and would happen.
John must have spoken with authority and charisma, with an authenticity because lets face it – he was a little strange living in the desert, famed for having lived a pretty basic lifestyle eating locusts and honey. It’s a big contrast with simple life of fisher folk, farmers and craftsmen, an even bigger contrast to the traders, priests and aristocracy in Jerusalem. And his message: “Get ready, the Kingdom of God is coming.”
It’s a pretty exciting time. We call it the inter-Testementary period- that 500 or so years between the Old and New Testament when there’s not a whole lot being written that people thought was important enough to be included in Scripture.
That doesn’t mean it’s empty and nothing was happening – just the prophets seemed to have died away and the Torah or Law of Moses was pretty much defined (the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).
We tend to think that there were three main groups of Jews about the time of John and Jesus” The Sadducces and Sanhedrin at the Temple in Jerusalem, the Pharisees who were all over the place and the Essenes; who were a mystic Jewish sect ,famed today because of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that were hidden away in caves at Qumran in the first century CE.
But, today, many scholars think there were more groups and factions which believed and promoted the idea that the eschaton was near and the final days and the time of judgment was coming.
So, maybe John the Baptist’s voice was not the only one calling for repentance, but the number of people attracted to him and his message garnered the attention of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And when they showed up John was not about to be conned by their appearance, he wants and demands to see true repentance. The Good News version puts his meeting with them this way:
7 When John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him to be baptized,
he said to them, “You snakes—who told you that you could escape from the punishment God is about to send?
8 Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins.
9 And don't think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham
is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham!
10 The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire. (Matt. 3:7-10)
John is asking for more than an appearance, more than just showing up and going through the motions; John is calling for true repentance – real baptism as an act of cleansing and purification and real change. Get ready for the Kingdom of God!
Maybe, that is what Advent is all about, getting ready for the Kingdom, and how you define Kingdom depends on what you are looking for.
Some Jews, like Isaiah, mourned the loss of the Unified Israel under King David and sought after a bigger better Kingdom where Israel, and thus Yahweh, ruled over all the nations. The Messiah would be a military commander that the Zealots would rally around and Jerusalem and Israel would fight to win their country back and protect their Temple.
This week John the Baptist calls for people to get ready: to repent, to purify themselves because only then would Yahweh come to the aid of his people. Significantly, this is done apart from the Temple and away from Jerusalem and John specifically rebukes the high priests and Pharisees, calling on them to change their behaviour, change their lives because Yahweh was coming and the time of Judgement is at hand.
I must admit John’s vision of the Kingdom is a little frightening because it’s a time of judgment, a time of reckoning, a time when the good and the bad are separated and it does not go well for the those on the wrong side.
John knows his job is to get people ready but ready for someone else
“… after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
John doesn’t know who the Messiah will be, and his idea of what the Messiah will do ultimately doesn’t correspond with Jesus’ message.
In Matthew 11:2-11, John wonders if Jesus is the one to come, or if they were supposed to wait for another.
John, who was in prison at the time, sent word through his own disciples to Jesus questioning if he was the Messiah. Jesus’s response to the messenger was to tell John what the messenger had witnessed: everyone and anyone is included if they choose, the dead are raised, and the sick are healed, people’s lives are changed and the message is the Good News that the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Perhaps John and others were still expecting a Messiah who would bring about a worldly kingdom, wearing the robes of kings or perhaps the powerful voice of a prophet and commanding leaders, but Jesus was at work preaching a whole different Kingdom, teaching with parables and stories not laws, showing disciples, followers and friends that there was a different way of being in the world, a different way of being in relationship to each other and to God. Jesus was at work giving people a glimpse of the Kingdom in the here and now, as well as, the Kingdom that was coming, and it was coming because people were participating in it.
The Kingdom preached by Jesus is a relational kingdom and Yahweh is Abba, and Jesus is a Messiah of healing and wholeness, forgiving those who sin with the exhortation to “go and sin no more”, bringing people together to hear stories that would change people’s hearts and minds.
Jesus’ perspective of the Kingdom brought people together, he gave them opportunity and vision. Men, women, rich, poor, fisherfolk, tax collectors, lawyers, Samaritans, Pharisees, Zealots, fear filled and confident; people began to see the Kingdom as Jesus saw it. People began to live into the Kingdom
It’s not weird at all that our Advent Sundays of Hope and Love and Peace and Joy usher in the Christmas Stories told by Matthew and Luke. Angels and shepherds on a starry night and the birth of a baby, born to Mary and Joseph in a small town in an occupied territory. It's an invitation.
We are all invited, we are all being called to attend to this birth of a baby this Christmas. We are all being called into Peace and Hope and Love and Joy. We are all being called to live into and participate in the kingdom of God here and now.
May it be so Amen
Advent is this amazing time when there is this collision of the coming of the Kingdom with the coming of Jesus. Boom –expectation and reality!
Here was John the Baptist, coming out of the wilderness, preaching on the banks of the Jordan, calling people to get ready, baptizing those who well believed that something new could happen and would happen.
John must have spoken with authority and charisma, with an authenticity because lets face it – he was a little strange living in the desert, famed for having lived a pretty basic lifestyle eating locusts and honey. It’s a big contrast with simple life of fisher folk, farmers and craftsmen, an even bigger contrast to the traders, priests and aristocracy in Jerusalem. And his message: “Get ready, the Kingdom of God is coming.”
It’s a pretty exciting time. We call it the inter-Testementary period- that 500 or so years between the Old and New Testament when there’s not a whole lot being written that people thought was important enough to be included in Scripture.
That doesn’t mean it’s empty and nothing was happening – just the prophets seemed to have died away and the Torah or Law of Moses was pretty much defined (the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).
We tend to think that there were three main groups of Jews about the time of John and Jesus” The Sadducces and Sanhedrin at the Temple in Jerusalem, the Pharisees who were all over the place and the Essenes; who were a mystic Jewish sect ,famed today because of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that were hidden away in caves at Qumran in the first century CE.
But, today, many scholars think there were more groups and factions which believed and promoted the idea that the eschaton was near and the final days and the time of judgment was coming.
So, maybe John the Baptist’s voice was not the only one calling for repentance, but the number of people attracted to him and his message garnered the attention of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And when they showed up John was not about to be conned by their appearance, he wants and demands to see true repentance. The Good News version puts his meeting with them this way:
7 When John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him to be baptized,
he said to them, “You snakes—who told you that you could escape from the punishment God is about to send?
8 Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins.
9 And don't think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham
is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham!
10 The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in the fire. (Matt. 3:7-10)
John is asking for more than an appearance, more than just showing up and going through the motions; John is calling for true repentance – real baptism as an act of cleansing and purification and real change. Get ready for the Kingdom of God!
Maybe, that is what Advent is all about, getting ready for the Kingdom, and how you define Kingdom depends on what you are looking for.
Some Jews, like Isaiah, mourned the loss of the Unified Israel under King David and sought after a bigger better Kingdom where Israel, and thus Yahweh, ruled over all the nations. The Messiah would be a military commander that the Zealots would rally around and Jerusalem and Israel would fight to win their country back and protect their Temple.
This week John the Baptist calls for people to get ready: to repent, to purify themselves because only then would Yahweh come to the aid of his people. Significantly, this is done apart from the Temple and away from Jerusalem and John specifically rebukes the high priests and Pharisees, calling on them to change their behaviour, change their lives because Yahweh was coming and the time of Judgement is at hand.
I must admit John’s vision of the Kingdom is a little frightening because it’s a time of judgment, a time of reckoning, a time when the good and the bad are separated and it does not go well for the those on the wrong side.
John knows his job is to get people ready but ready for someone else
“… after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.
He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
John doesn’t know who the Messiah will be, and his idea of what the Messiah will do ultimately doesn’t correspond with Jesus’ message.
In Matthew 11:2-11, John wonders if Jesus is the one to come, or if they were supposed to wait for another.
John, who was in prison at the time, sent word through his own disciples to Jesus questioning if he was the Messiah. Jesus’s response to the messenger was to tell John what the messenger had witnessed: everyone and anyone is included if they choose, the dead are raised, and the sick are healed, people’s lives are changed and the message is the Good News that the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Perhaps John and others were still expecting a Messiah who would bring about a worldly kingdom, wearing the robes of kings or perhaps the powerful voice of a prophet and commanding leaders, but Jesus was at work preaching a whole different Kingdom, teaching with parables and stories not laws, showing disciples, followers and friends that there was a different way of being in the world, a different way of being in relationship to each other and to God. Jesus was at work giving people a glimpse of the Kingdom in the here and now, as well as, the Kingdom that was coming, and it was coming because people were participating in it.
The Kingdom preached by Jesus is a relational kingdom and Yahweh is Abba, and Jesus is a Messiah of healing and wholeness, forgiving those who sin with the exhortation to “go and sin no more”, bringing people together to hear stories that would change people’s hearts and minds.
Jesus’ perspective of the Kingdom brought people together, he gave them opportunity and vision. Men, women, rich, poor, fisherfolk, tax collectors, lawyers, Samaritans, Pharisees, Zealots, fear filled and confident; people began to see the Kingdom as Jesus saw it. People began to live into the Kingdom
It’s not weird at all that our Advent Sundays of Hope and Love and Peace and Joy usher in the Christmas Stories told by Matthew and Luke. Angels and shepherds on a starry night and the birth of a baby, born to Mary and Joseph in a small town in an occupied territory. It's an invitation.
We are all invited, we are all being called to attend to this birth of a baby this Christmas. We are all being called into Peace and Hope and Love and Joy. We are all being called to live into and participate in the kingdom of God here and now.
May it be so Amen
