3rd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

The crowds asked John the Baptist, "What should we do?"

Lk 3:10-18

From G. B. CAIRD

The religious leaders ignored John (7:30), but for others, including the most unlikely people, his preaching had an irresistible fascination. To each class he spelled out in simple terms the meaning of repentance. 

• To ordinary, selfish folk, blind to the needs of others because of their preoccupation with security, 
• to tax collectors whose trade was a form of licensed extortion, 
• to soldiers accustomed to line their pockets by intimidation and blackmail, he gave the same injunction: 

renounce your besetting sin. 

When we compare such teaching with the profundity of the teaching of Jesus, we can see that John's passionate urgency was not matched by any penetrating analysis of man's moral problem. There were depths which John, for all his heroic stature, was unqualified to explore.

At least John was aware of his own limitations. His task was to create an immense tide of messianic expectation, and then to make way for the Messiah. His baptism with water was but a prelude to another baptism. It is, however, open to question whether John regarded this other baptism as a promise or a threat. According to Mark, the coming baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8); and, if this is what John had in mind, he was echoing the ancient prophecy that on his restored people God would bestow the gift of the Spirit (Ezek. 3:27, Isa. 44:3, Joel 2:28).

According to Q, the source Luke is here following, the baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and this may be taken either as a hendiadys - 'with the sacred flame of the Spirit' - or as a description of a dual baptism, the gracious gift for the penitent and the rigors of retribution for the obdurate. 

A third possibility is that what John really predicted was a baptism of fire (i.e. judgment), and that the versions given by Mark and Q are the result of reinterpretation by the Christian Church in the light of the experience of the apostles at Pentecost, when the Spirit was seen to descend in tongues of flame. The theory fits well with John’s repeated emphasis on a fiery judgment, and with the fact that twelve of his disciples professed never to have heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2); and a prediction of this kind seems to be reflected in a saying of Jesus in which his death is described as a fire that he has been sent to kindle and a baptism that he must undergo (12:49f).

Even if this third view is adopted, however, it must not be thought that John was a prophet of unrelieved gloom. This would be to do less than justice to his winnowing metaphor. The ancient method of winnowing was to toss shovelfuls of mixed grain and chaff into the air, so that the wind might blow away the chaff, while the grain fell back on the threshing floor. The primary purpose of the winnower was not to dispose of the chaff, but to gather the wheat into his granary. In the same way, the Messiah would come to gather to himself the new Israel over which he was to reign as King, and it is for this reason that Luke can describe even the fulminations of John as a preaching of good news.