The Second Sunday in Advent, December 5, 2021

Luke 3:1–6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

St. Luke’s very thorough information tells us that St. John began to preach in or just before the year 29 A.D.  The fullness of the information Luke gives us imitates the style of ancient historians when they begin to tell the story of a king or emperor.  It is a sort of literary trumpet blast introducing the figure.  This tells us of the great importance of John the Baptist in the eyes of St. Luke and of those for whom he was writing.  This introduction goes far beyond that accorded to the Prophets in their books.  That of Isaiah, for instance, opens with the simple, “The vision of Isaiah the Son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Oziah, Joathan, Achaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isaiah 1, 1).  The preface to Isaiah locates his prophecy within the rules of the local kings.  The introduction of John locates him within the reigns of the Roman Emperor, the local procurator, the local tetrarchs, and the high priests.  This places John on a higher level than that of the Prophet, and also allows the non-Jewish reader to understand when he began to preach.  

“The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.”  We can compare this to the beginning of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: “The word of the Lord which came to him in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign” (Jeremiah 1, 2).  This phrase “the word of the Lord came” was used throughout the prophetical books to indicate that the prophet had received a message from the Lord and the motivation and strength to announce it.  This tells us that Luke, the Gentile Christian, understood John as a prophet in the line of the prophets.  We also see from his use of the phrase that he knows the Old Testament fairly well.  This knowledge will assist us in noticing how he frames the incidents in his Gospel, throwing more light on their meaning for us.

“In the desert.”  The Greek word means “wilderness” rather than “desert”.  This means rough, largely uninhabited country, but not desolate, as is implied by the word “desert”.

“John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  The “whole region” might mean the sixty mile strip of territory between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.  Perhaps his preaching near the Sea of Galilee attracted future Apostles of Jesus to him, such as Andrew and John.  He must have lived in a particular place along the Jordan for some time, praying and doing penance, and was gradually discovered by the Jews in the region.  His way of life, resembling that of the Prophets Elijah and Elisha, would have brought to him many who were longing for a prophet and for the promised messiah.  As the crowds grew, he began to preach and to baptize.

“A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, etc.’ ”  This is part quote and part paraphrase of Isaiah 40, 3-5.  Although we should not expect that a Gentile Christian writing for Gentile Christians would see the need or value of quoting the Jewish Scriptures in this way, Luke wanted to establish that John the Baptist and, later, Jesus, did not simply pop up in history, but that their coming into the world was long anticipated and foreseen by the Jewish Prophets.  That is, their coming was part of the plan of salvation for the world by Almighty God.

We are also voices crying out into the desert of this world in our living out our Faith.  We prepare the way for the Second Coming of the Lord, and will be present when he comes.