1. What John the Baptist taught

During the period of Advent, we are reading a passage about John the Baptist according to the church calendar. The last week reflected on the portion Luke 3:1-6 which describes the scene of John’s baptizing activity in the desert. He compelled there Jewish people to repent to receive good news. Luke situated the event in the frame of the world history. He though that Jesus’ birth was as record-worthy as events concerning Roman Emperors, August the first and Tiberius the second.

Indeed, in the present world, we divide human history in two part by the presumed year of Jesus’ arrival on the earth , BC (Before Christ) and AD or Anno Donimi (Lord’s years in Latin)*. The fact point out the birth of Jesus was the pivotal moment for humans.

However in the time of John the Baptist, John’s act of giving baptizement and teaching about good news, which prepared the path for Jesus, were ignored by the world. Because it happened in a minor region of Roman Empire, in Judea. The majority of peoples of the time should have considered Luke’s stance to be ridiculous or pompous. But the History proved afterwards that Luke was right.

Today’s our lecturing portion is the following part. We will reflect on what John taught and how he played the role of Jesus’ predecessor. At first, let us read introducing verses , Luke 3:7-9 ; - 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? 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. The axe 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.”

John’s words were very severe. He was predicting the last judgement which should come before the last day of the world. Jewish people of the time thought that at the very crucial moment gentiles must pass to the judgement of God. However they were sure that they could inherit the kingdom of God without being judged as the chosen people. But John rejected it harshly as an illusion. He declared that any humans, Jewish or gentiles, must be judged and condemned if they won’t repent.

You might ask why all humans must repent. It is because we are all sinners. “Sin” in original text in Greek is ” ¦Á¦Ì¦Á¦Ñ¦Óί¦Á ” which means literally “to miss the target.” That explains well that sin is to miss God, our creator, who should have been the core of our existence. But, instead, our mind focuses practically on our trivial ego, instead. It is the very sin.

We concentrate on our personal feelings and desires. In consequence, relationship between humans becomes egocentric. Each one seek to take earthy profits from others. Even we tend to exploit neighbors. Japanese old maxims remark also our nature, ” End of money, end or relation” or ” Through out useless friends ”, for example. And such an attitude generate conflicts and litigates. Therefore John compelled to change such a human nature by admitting it was sinful then to repent. The salvation begins from that moment, John said.

The crowd there were strongly astonished by John’s teaching and asked ;- “What should we do then?” (Luke 3:10) And John’s answer was ;- “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."(Luke 3:11)

Having two tunics doesn’t represent a hight living level. Nonetheless John taught them to share such limited belongings with others. After that ; - Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.(Luke 3:12-13)

“Tax collectors” here were Jewish persons but they worked for Roman administration. They collected money from their compatriots, from which picked out a part as their income before paying due amount to Rome. John’s response is suggesting that some of them collected more money than appropriate in order to increase their profits. For that reason , in the Bible, ‘ tax collectors ‘ are very often taken for dishonest persons. 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."(Luke 3:14)

“Soldiers” might be Roman, or Jewish who work for Herod Antipas. In general, soldiers were not well payed and many of them extorted money by force from ordinary people. Therefore John answered that way.

We must remark that John didn’t tell tax collectors and soldiers to quit their current jobs. Instead, he was compelling them merely to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” It does not signify to enter into a religious order, or to live an ascetic life. He meant that they should live in accordance with God’s will in ordinary daily life by helping neighbors .

It is also remarkable that John preached in the dessert, not in Jerusalem where priests practiced rites of worship and sacrifice every day in the Temple. Luke tells us those acts are not essential criteria of the faith and for the salvation. Furthermore we can say that offering the tithe is not crucial to repent truly. Because repentance is an act of recognizing our sinful existence and a determined will to change fundamentally that nature. In short, real worship is to live by following God’s will in our daily life.

2. John points out Jesus

John’s teaching impressed strongly the crowd because ;- The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ.(Luke 3:15)

However John denied their supposition ; - John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Luke 3:16)

Instead, he promised the real arrival of the Messiah, the one who must be more powerful than him.

“Baptize” is “¦Â¦Á¦Ð¦Óί¦Æ¦Ø (baptizou)” in greek which literally means ‘ dip in water , or liquid ‘. John was baptizing people by dipping them in the water of the Jordan River. Act of being immersed in and getting out of water symbolized death and resurrection, more exactly the end of sinful existence and beginning of a new life tending toward God.

So what is the baptism with the Holy spirit and with fire ? ” Spirit” is ” ¦Ð¦Í¦Åῦ¦Ì¦Á (pnyoomah) ” in Greek which signifies ‘ wind, or breath ‘ , too. And ‘ wind and breath ‘ should be a metaphor of the judgement of God. The verse 17 implies that ; - His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. ”

“To winnow” is to blow a current of air through grain in order to remove the chaff. In a similar way, the judgement of God selects repenters from sinners. John compelled thus the people to repent before the ultimate judgement .

In contrast to John, Jesus did not acted as a judge of God on the earth. In reality, aim of his ministry was to give forgive humans’ sins in the name of God. John was not sure that Jesus was the Savior because Jesus’ conducts were so different from what John expected. Due to his severe criticism against the Jewish ruler, Herod Antipas*, John was in a prison at that time .(see Luke 3:19-20) So he sent his disciples to Jesus to clarify the matter. ;- John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’ ” (Luke 7:18-19)

So Jesus replied to the messengers, ; - “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.(Luke 7:22)

Without judging Jesus gave forgiveness to sinners and burdened their sins on his won shoulder by dying on the Cross. Thus our sins are forgiven, too, and through that fact our life was changed. Therefore we must live by gazing God, instead of our ego. That is the very baptism with the Holy Spirit.

3. Worship, or to love neighbors as ourselves

Today’s invocation verse is Matthew 25:40 ; - “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Jesus told his disciples those words which concerned the last judgement just before the Cross. The phrase came after those verses ;- “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.(Matthew 25:31-33)

Jesus continued ;-"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’(Matthew 25:34-39)

However the crowd could not understand what Jesus meant exactly because they had never fed or invited him. Today’s invocation verse is the explanation for them.

The expression ” fruit in keeping with repentance ” by John the Baptist was represented in this passage in other words. John had taught the crowd, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”, “Don’t collect any more than you are required to” and “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

With the word “fruit in keeping with repentance” John signified a daily life in accordance with God’s will. Matthew gave more details, like supplying the necessities to those who lacked for food, cloth, lodging, etc. He taught thus how to behave to love neighbors in daily life.

A. Schlatter*, a German theologian explained the notion of act of love this way:
– Those who have more than enough and had ignored poverty of neighbors commence to care about deprived ones. That the very repentance. –

If we pay attention to poor neighbors and intend to share our daily food with them we are already about to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. That might signify say that we received the baptism with the Holy Spirit and became ready to meet Jesus. Practicing acts of love is the most suitable conduct for the period of the Advent in waiting for Jesus.
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* AD and BC : In recent years, some writers have begun using the abbreviations CE (of the Common Era) in place of ad, and BCE (before the Common Era) in place of BC, in consideration of a more secular and international readership.
* Herod Antipas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Antipas
* Adolf Schlatter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Schlatter