The Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2024

Luke 3, 10–18

The crowds asked John the Baptist, “What should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He answered them, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Soldiers also asked him, “And what is it that we should do?” He told them, “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”  Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.

St. Luke devotes much space to the figure of St. John the Baptist in his Gospel.  This is due in part to John’s fame, even for the Gentiles living in Syria, to whom Luke was addressing his Gospel.  Luke carefully shows John not as the Christ but as the one who heralded the Christ.  In the first century Near East a real likelihood existed that people would have heard of John and not of Jesus (cf. Acts of the Apostles 19, 3), or that they would think John and Jesus were on and the same — Even Herod, who killed John, thought this (cf. Mark 6, 15).  St. Luke sets the annunciation stories of the births, and of the births, of John and Jesus side by side in order to allow the reader to compare and contrast them: to see for themselves that Jesus is the Son of God and that John “will be called the Prophet of the Most High” (Luke 2, 76) who will prepare the way of the Lord.

Luke also gives us examples of John’s very simple teaching: “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise”, and, to the tax collectors, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.”  In this John reiterates what is in the Jewish Law, making it easy for anyone to understand what was commanded.  It will be Jesus, when he begins his Public Life, who will fulfill the Law — to complete it and teach the fullness of God’s justice to the world.

“I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.”  To understand John’s meaning here it helps to keep in mind that the Greek word we translate as “baptizing” originally had no religious significance at all.  It simply meant “washing”: I am washing you with water, etc.  This is how the people whom John was addressing would have heard him.  Thus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”: He will wash you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Here again, St. Luke, quoting John’s words, shows the distinction between John and Jesus.  And when John says, “I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals”, he makes it abundantly clear what the distinction is.  The slave loosened the thongs of his master’s sandals.  The slave himself went barefoot.  John declares that he is not worthy even of being the Master’s slave.

“His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  The winnowing fan was a flat basket woven of reeds into which harvested grain was poured.  The basket was shaken, loosening the chaff that covered the grain heads, and and dirt or other impurities.  Even a slight breeze would clear these from the fan so that the grain could be stored and later sold.  Any of the inedible chaff that remained would be burned.  John is saying here that the Lord would separate the just from the wicked and bring the just into his Kingdom while the wicked burned in hell.

“Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.”  We should understand “good news” as the content of a herald’s message.  In ancient times, a king would communicate with his subjects through heralds who would tell what the kings wanted them to know.  Usually it was news of a royal wedding or of the birth of the king and queen’s children.  John the Baptist preaches the message entrusted to him by Almighty God: that his Son was approaching them.