“The desert firebrand”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, December 19, 2024
Matthew 3:1-12 (Forward, p. 51) CEV p. 983
All four gospels speak of John the Baptist being a voice crying in the wilderness, and while John’s Gospel does not spell out its Old Testament reference, the three Synoptic gospels do. And while Mark delineates John’s message only in general terms, Matthew and Luke spell it out in some detail. But even here there is a difference. Whereas Luke mentions three groups of enquirers, the crowds in general, some tax collectors and some soldiers, Matthew mentions only one, a group of Pharisees and Sadducees.
So, why might Matthew single these out, out of all of John the Baptist’s audience, for special mention? Seeing as it is generally understood that Matthew was addressing a Jewish audience, this group would have had a special interest to it.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the bluebloods of that place and time, the elite, whether religiously or politically. That they even came to Jesus at all was worthy of note. But that John demands something more of them was even more note-worthy. After all, according to most people’s thinking, these two groups ‘had it made’: there was nothing lacking or that needed to be done.
John, however, accuses them of two things, two things that are the exact opposites. Firstly, he suggests that they are like the scruffy snakes that inhabit the dry scrubland of that area, that run for their very lives with the threat of a prairie or grassfire. That, he suggests, is because they fear the judgment that is to come. No, John tells them: “you need to do more than just ‘go through the motions’ of being baptised. You need to show in outwardly, in some observable fashion, that you have really given up your sins.”
His other accusation takes an entirely opposite tack. He accuses them of ‘resting on their laurels’, their ancestral laurels, that is. According to him, these folks think ‘that they have it made’ on account of their ancestry stretching back to Abraham, on account of their being part of God’s chosen people, the Jews. And so, according to this line of reasoning, they are eternally secure and don’t have to worry about their fate, no, not in the least. No, John says, God can produce children for Abraham even out of these stones. Once again, John demands proof and uses the image of an unproductive tree to describe their fate. Their fate, if they don’t change their lives, could be like a tree that is cut down and thrown into fire because it doesn’t produce good fruit.
All of this could well have had a very sobering effect on Matthew’s original audience. It would have suggested that neither status in society nor ancestry really counted for much. And even outward ceremonies like baptism, if not shown to be real, not accompanied by the appropriate changes in behaviour, really didn’t mean that much either. It was a stirring wakeup call from their desert firebrand, a wakeup call for them, and for us.
Forward notes: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (verse 7b)
“Thank God John the Baptizer was not the chair of the Evangelism Committee! He does not mince words or spare anyone’s sensibilities. John has a job to do, and he is going to do it his way, like it or not. His words of rebuke are hard to hear but true.
“Prophets have a way of telling us the hard truths about ourselves and our relationship to God and each other. They lay bare the many fissures, failures, and faults we have accumulated in our faith. In short, they tell us about ourselves by holding up a mirror.
“In this season of longing and expectation, we need John. We need to get our spiritual house in order so that we can adequately welcome the One who is to come. Prophets may make us uncomfortable, but they speak truth, and in the One who is coming, we know that truth will set us free.”
Moving Forward: “Do you have a ‘John the Baptizer’ in your life? Do you listen?”