The Second Sunday of Advent, December 4, 2022

Matthew 3, 1–12

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.  When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize 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 with unquenchable fire.”

The Prophets had vanished so utterly from the land of Israel since the death of Malachi over four hundred years before the Birth of Christ that it must have seemed to the Israelites who lived during the time of the Roman occupation that God would not send another, despite the promise made st the end of Malachi’s book.  Certainly, people did rise up and claim to be prophets, but these were bandits, revolutionaries, and those who would establish their own sects.  None of these lasted for very long.  They gained few followers and these dispersed after their deaths.  The arrival of John the Baptist came like a bolt out of the heavens on a clear day.  And no one doubted that he was a prophet.  He lived in a primitive way, he preached, he foretold, he performed prophetic actions — in his case, baptism.  Even the leaders in Jerusalem knew, though they could not admit, that he was a prophet.  The real question regarding his identity concerned whether or not he was something more, perhaps the Messiah.  The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Jerusalem leadership ruled this out as soon as they heard him criticizing them, and rather sharply.  But they needed to ascertain who he thought that he was, who was he promoting himself to be, what weaknesses did he have that they could use against him when he became too tiresome for them,  and they knew they had to proceed cautiously because it was evident that the crowds who came to him did believe he was — somebody.

“At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.”  St. Matthew reminds his readers, many of whom would have also gone to John, how exciting it was when John appeared.  He shows us how ready the people were for the coming of Christ, that Jesus came exactly when he was supposed to.  The people went to John in droves and let him plunge them in the cold water of the Jordan while they confessed their sins.  No one does such a thing unless they feel the urgent need to do so and that a great good would result from this.  By the time John began to preach and to baptize, the people were so ready for the Messiah that they dropped like ripe fruit into John’s basket.  Every age has its troubles and looks for a savior, a leader.  But by the time of John and Jesus, the whole Jewish nation writhed in expectation.  Everyone, that is, but those who feared being displaced by a prophet or the Messiah.

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.”  A viper is a snake with a deadly bite.  John was calling the Pharisees and Sadducees killers, for they let the people astray with their false interpretation of the Law.  That John demands to know who warned them to flee the coming wrath poses an interesting question.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were very self-enclosed groups.  For them to listen to John and to approach him for baptism shows that they knew they needed to go beyond the teachings and practices of their groups in order to be saved.  Logically, they should then have abandoned these groups, but they wanted to have both the identity and security of the group and to take part in the baptism of John at the same time.  But the key to John’s teaching was not baptism, it was repentance.  His baptism was just a sign of their repentance and commitment to live righteously thereafter.  Their coming to him showed that they knew that their practices did not make them righteous, and yet they did not give them up.  John seems to refuse to baptize them until they have left their groups, with their distinctive manner of dress, and they have performed acts of penance.

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  John speaks of the Messiah, whose Baptism would fulfill the sign of John’s.  The fire of which John speaks will destroy sin in us, and the Holy Spirit will then fill us and make us adopted children of God.  In this way we also become prophets, pointing the way to the second coming of Christ.