Sunday, 12/5/10: Second Advent – A: Matthew 3.1-12
The name of this season, “Advent” means “coming.” During Advent the Bible readings and collects look for
- the coming of Christ again at the End, and we remember the one who will come to be our Judge is the Savior who died for us on the cross;
- the coming of Christ to be born in Bethlehem of Judea;
- and today, in the story of John the Baptist, we look for the coming of Jesus at the beginning of his earthly ministry, as an adult, in Galilee.
Today’s Gospel introduces us to the fascinating figure of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, who preached and baptized in the wilderness in Israel. In his preaching, he called the people to repent – to turn to God and ask God’s forgiveness.
The writer of Matthew tells us that John the Baptist is the one referred to in Isaiah. This is one of the quotations I always think of as set to music by Handel in his Messiah:
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ (Matthew 3:3 quoting Isaiah 40:3)
Jesus would come and be baptized in the river Jordan by his cousin, giving us baptism as the great way to enter the new life with Jesus, as his disciple and follower and friend.
Matthew describes John as dressed like one of the ancient prophets of Israel, eating desert food, locusts and wild honey -- which I suspect seemed just as odd to the people then, as it does to us!
In this passage we are told that Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized. They did not meet with a warm welcome from the Baptizer. I want to reflect on that for a moment. Of course, in our time, those of us who are honored to welcome people to baptism in the church (and it is a great honor) should be careful to be precisely that – welcoming.
In the historical time of today’s story, there were various groups or parties within Judaism. The Pharisees and Sadducees were two.
My own personal view is that there was a crisis in authority in the Israel of that time. The traditional sources of authority were the priests and prophets and kings. The kings were the family of old King Herod – only semi-Jewish puppets of the Romans. The priests were hereditary and it is hard to say what authority they had as religious leaders among the people. Both the priests and kings would disappear from history with the destruction of Jerusalem and Israel by the Romans in 70 AD.
Meanwhile there was a fluid situation among what we in modern times would call voluntary associations or parties of people – which is how I would describe the Pharisees and Sadducees. There was also a fascinating community called the Essenes – mentioned in the historian Josephus. We do not know if John the Baptist was associated with them or part of them. Curiously, while the Sadducees and Pharisees play a large role in the Gospel stories, the Essenes are never mentioned.
Into this fluid situation, under Roman occupation, Jesus came to carry out his ministry.
John movingly says that he looks to the coming of one greater than he is, who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with the fire of God’s love. May that fire burn in us.
Raymond Webster
