The Gospel for December 16, 2004
Matthew 3:1-12
In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.’ This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said: A voice of one that cries in the desert, ‘Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’ This man John wore a garment made of camel–hair with a leather loin–cloth round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who comes after me is more powerful than I, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing–fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing–floor and gather his wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
These are the expectations that John raised for the triumphant messianic king of Israel. John's understanding had been shaped by the texts we collect in the Hebrew Bible, and perhaps by his parents' telling him of angel visits before his birth and the birth of his cousin Jesus.
A Reflection
"There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?"
That's the final sentence in Arthur C. Clarke's [very] short story, The Star.
Every time I read the accounts of John Baptist I am re-drawn to Clarke's story, and every time I read it again, I leave it with a twinge of remorse. John Baptist was necessary for Jesus, to be the new Elijah, we are told. When his usefulness was completed, his death was insignificant. Except, of course, to John.
We are told that John was witness to one of those moments when God's time and our time touch, when John baptized Jesus and observed heaven's reaction. John knew and told his friends that this one, Jesus, was the one about whom Isaiah had written. In another gospel account, John points him out (John 1:36) as "lamb of God" to Peter's brother Andrew.
Scholars remind us that the gospels don't always submit properly to deconstruction and analysis, that they are stories within stories. The miracle is that so much of the Story holds together despite the fog of old men writing from memory, and translators trying to catch and keep the flavor, and church-people trying to make sure that the right version of the truth gets out (and nothing else).
And then there's us, of course, laden down with all these beams in our eyes, pointing out to God that there's this tiny little dust-speck right there in Your Eye, Sir, with the way you treat John. You see, Sir, it's not fair.
When we tell ourselves that we are the beloved of God, and then think about the story of John Baptist, we should just stop and ask for directions to the nearest insane asylum, right?
Not so fast.
We are not our own. We are creatures. The Genesis myth tells us that we are mud-babies sculpted by loving hands. Science thinks that we are probably the current ending of a strain of organisms that thrived on the stink and the heat from volcanic vents under the primordial sea on a chunk of star-stuff that organized itself billions of years after the start of this universe; I believe that the start is a tiny part of God. And for me, the myth and the science are all the same stuff.
When I type out a sentence on my computer, I can look at it and love it for its idea and its construction, but realize that the story doesn't like it. Even though I delete the sentence, I still loved it, and it's still a good sentence, so I remember it; it will show up somewhere else, maybe more than once[!].
We don't know any answers; we probably have all the wrong questions, anyway. We have faith that feels right, and that's probably the best us mud-babies are going to do for a while.
I would like, however, to be one of the sentences of which God says, "Needs more work, but the idea is good."
A Collect
Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
10:55:02 PM 
|
|
