Summary: Luke’s central character emerges today and takes “center stage” so to speak. His message is loud and clear. His character is uncompromising and unmistakable. His diet and wardrobe make it obvious that this is a prophetic figure not to be dismissed easily. He will not go away, quite down, nor be ignored. Herod knew that only too well.As artists often use strong contrasts of light and darkness or contrasting colors to draw one eye to the subject of a painting, writers will sometimes strongly contrast characters to tease the reader into the story. Luke is such a writer. John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth could not be in greater contrast. It isn’t that one is right and one is wrong, that one is bad or one is good; it is simply that they are very different in personality and in message, in expectation and in hope. It seems to me they have the same message, but simply different ways to present it.John shouts. Jesus speaks gently. John threatens. Jesus persuades. John expects wrath. Jesus expects mercy. It is no wonder that there is no hint in any of the Gospels that they were friends. There is some sence that perhaps for awhile Jesus was a disciple of John, but after his thrity day retreat in John’s territory, the desert, Jesus emerges on his own. There is also no reason to think that John became a disciple of Jesus. John sent his disciples to Jesus with questions that reveal how puzzeled he was that this “Lamb or God”, the Messianic figure was so unlike what he expected. He must have wondered while sitting in Herod’s jail where the fire had gone, the wrath, the power, the force. John never thought of himself as the messiah. John wanted fire!What he got, and what we got was Jesus: one who baptizes with the Spirit, whose fire is the passion of love more than the heat of anger. This Spirit revealed in the Messiah, this Spirit that burned within the Messiah was the fire of mercy and justice not wrath and revenge. This Spirit is not a contradiciton of John’s expectation, but a refinement and a revelation that there is a power greater than wrath, and motive more appealing and effective than fear. It is Love.John used the images and language of some of the prophets before him, and we must guard against being too literal, becasue the words are biblical and nuanced. The “wrath” John speaks of need not interpreted as “anger”; but is better understood in terms of God as “passion”: the deep, lasting, personal desire that burns in ones very being. The “cleansing” John speaks of is really about a purification which can mean a gentle washing just as easily as violent purgation.Both Jesus and John reveal to us a God who is passionate for us, and wants us to be free, and pure, clean, and holy. This is a God revealed through His Son that waits, and longs for us to hear the Word spoken by his Word Made Flesh.When we begin to understand and listen, like those who gathered around John is there is more than just curiosity, we ought to begin to asking: “What Shall we Do?” If it is the desperate question of frightened people, it’s too late to ask and too late to care. If, however, it is a question that comes from love then the Spirit of Baptism has begun to burn in us. The image of a merciful God that comes to us in Jesus cannot allow us to live complacent and shallow lives believing that God will wave the merciful hand and ignore all that has been done or all we have failed to do. The justice of this God will will expect an accounting and look for repentance and conversion which both Jesus and John called for. The mercy of God waits for us to finally ask the question: “What shall I do?” John gives the only answer that matters: “Do the work of Justice.” And what will that look like we might ask, and there begins a life of conversion and shortly thereafter will come peace.
