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Luke 3:1-14
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
The lectionary’s list of gospel readings is now coming from Luke, which provides us with a good chance to stop and review what the New Testament scholars tell us about the Gospel of Luke and how it comes to us.
You might remember that many New Testament scholars say that the Gospel of Mark was the first gospel published, around the year 57 AD. These scholars say that Mark is based on Peter’s remembrances of his time with Jesus, and of his life and teachings. Some 10 to 15 years later, Luke seems to have started with Mark’s gospel, and added a good deal of material from an Aramaic source that’s been lost to history. (You can tell by looking at Matthew’s gospel that he also used a lot of material from that same source.)
It’s important to remember that the scholars say that Luke intended his gospel mostly for gentile readers. And because he was he was telling the story of Jesus to people who were from the Greco-Roman world instead of from Hebrew culture, Luke includes information that will help his gentile readers connect the story of Jesus to their own history. In our reading for today, there’s a good example. Luke starts his account of the ministry of John the Baptist by telling his readers that these events took place while Tiberius Caesar was emperor, and he tells us who the Roman officials were in the area at the time of the events he’ll recount. All things that would matter to gentile readers.
Having set the scene, Luke gets to telling us about the role of John the Baptist in the story of Jesus. And he includes some important points that are sometimes overlooked.
For instance, we understand that John the Baptist came into the world to prepare the way for Jesus. And Luke explains what that means. For one thing, Luke tells us that John’s ministry was the fulfillment of an ancient prophesy from back in the time of Isaiah, which was more than five centuries before. That prophesy said that before the day of the Lord, a prophet would be sent to announce his coming. And we understand that John was that prophet.
Luke also describes the main theme of John the Baptist’s preaching, which called people to a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Christians tend to think of “repentance” as giving up the sins we seem to like to talk about the most – drinking, violence, greed, sexual sins, etc. But my suspicion is that people hearing John’s ministry might have heard it a little differently than we would.
The word we translate as “repentance” is the Greek word metanoia, which literally means ‘get a new mind.’ It suggests adopting a different outlook on the world – coming to the conclusion that you’ve been going about things all wrong. (And in this case, John might have been talking about people’s relationship with God.)
The gospels seem to say that thousands of people came streaming out of the cities and towns to experience John’s baptism of repentance. It seems unlikely to me that all those people were seized with a craving to confess they were drinking too much or stealing or checking out the neighbor lady lustfully. What seems much more likely to me is that people realized that their religious life – their system of rituals and sacrifices and ways of relating to God in general – had gotten away from what God had in mind.
And it seems to me the way Luke tells the story of John the Baptist supports that idea. I say that because Luke quotes John as denouncing the people for a way of life that was bearing no fruit for God. Lots of the Hebrew people seem to have been thinking that just because they were descended from Abraham, just because they were the chosen people, they were doing all that God could expect of them.
So hearing John’s ministry, the people say, “What should we do then?” And John begins to describe a different way of being God’s people that has nothing to do with rituals and sacrifices and listening to a glorified and self-righteous group of priests. He tells them to begin sharing sacrificially with those who are in need. He tells them God wants them to commit themselves to meeting the needs of others.
And John tells those who had been given authority from the powers of this world to stop using that power for their own purposes. Tax collectors got rich because they had the power to demand extra taxes from people, but John the Baptist tells them to stop exploiting that power, and to collect only what was required of them. And soldiers in the ancient world had almost unrestrained power over civilians. They could generally strong-arm people with impunity. But John told the soldiers among his listeners to stop exploiting their power for their own purposes, too.
When you think about it, discontinuing those abusive practices makes a fundamental change in the relationship between the tax collectors and soldiers and the rest of the population. If they were to do as John told them to, they would stop being abusive thugs, and start being something more like “public servants.”
That, it seems to me, sheds some new light on what John had in mind by calling people to “repentance” – to lay aside old ritualistic religion for a new way of being God’s people that’s characterized by concern for the interests of others and by willingness to sacrifice your own interests.
John’s call to repentance also seems to say something important about how we’re meant to fit into the culture around us. People of faith should live in such a way that those in the culture around us can see that we’re followers of Jesus without being told. Our faith should be manifested, not just by condemning those who do things we don’t approve of, but instead by showing a deep commitment to the welfare of others – and especially of the poor and the suffering and the marginalized.
We said when we were talking about the sermon on the mount that we followers of Jesus are called to be a counter-cultural movement in the world. And in this passage, Luke shows how John the Baptist began to prepare the way for Jesus by announcing the coming of that counter-culture.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of being the salt and light of the world in our lives of discipleship. Help us to live in service to others as Jesus himself did, and help us to make him known by our lives of service. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
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