Gospel

A reading from the holy Gospel according to            Matthew 3:1-12

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea and this was his message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ This was the man the prophet Isaiah spoke of when he said:

A voice cries in the wilderness:

Prepare a way for the Lord,

make his paths straight.

This man John wore a garment made of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit, and do not presume to tell yourselves, “We have Abraham for our father,” because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’

Gospel Reflection

When John the Baptist performed baptism it was for the forgiveness of sin. The baptism he gave was a mark of the desire to enter into a new life of right action. It was not a baptism of initiation into community that is the case today. John had two key words that he is recorded as preaching: repent and prepare. His call for repentance was a call to turn away from sin; a call to have a change of heart; a call to turn one’s life around and make a fresh start. His call for preparation is in the long line of prophets that includes the great prophet Isaiah from whom we take today’s first reading. All of the prophets urged the people towards hope in the future. Isaiah and others spoke specifically of a person – a Messiah – who would bring that hope to reality. But the tradition demanded a readiness for the Messiah and that was the call to preparation that John the Baptist echoed at the beginning of the public life of Jesus.

John’s taunting of the Pharisees and Sadducees is an indication of this need for preparation and readiness. He accuses them of being too confident of their own rightness. He demands proof from them of their honest repentance: ‘but if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit’. Rather, he suspects that they think that salvation is assured for them by virtue of being a Jew; a son of Abraham. He warns them that an axe hangs poised to cut down any part of the Jewish tradition that is failing to produce good fruit. This is a theme that is picked up later by Jesus himself; you can’t be complacent about your own position, you have to welcome the new truth revealed by Jesus and give yourself wholeheartedly to God.

Living the Gospel – Prepare Ye!

John the Baptist’s call to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ is a summary of the purpose of the season of Advent. Every year, as we celebrate the Nativity, we celebrate once again the presence of God in our world. God became incarnate in the world through Jesus but also always was and continues to be incarnate in the world through each person. If we are to accept this reality and live it out, we need to remind ourselves this Advent to prepare the way for the Lord to be present in and through us every day of our lives.

Gospel Focus – Out of the wilderness

The wilderness holds a special place in scripture. Time spent in the wilderness is associated with a time of preparation for undertaking a special purpose. When Moses led the people from Egypt they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. This was a time of renewing themselves after their time in Egypt and rediscovering their covenant with God. After his baptism, Jesus retreats to the wilderness to prepare for his public ministry. It was also out of the wilderness that a lot of rebellion and unrest emerged. A desire for change and action is what comes out of the wilderness.

Scriptural context – Brood of Vipers!

The gospel of Matthew in particular casts the Pharisees in a very dim light. John’s insult to them, calling them a brood of vipers, is indeed echoed by Jesus later in this gospel. In this gospel, Jesus describes the Pharisees as hypocrites and blind guides. The community for whom this gospel was written were predominantly Jewish Christians. However, at the time of writing serious cracks were appearing in the relationship between the Jewish community and the Christian sect. This gospel aligns closely with the Jewish tradition but is very critical of the inflexibility of the Pharisees.