AS in the first Sunday of Advent, we are admonished to be watchful and prepared for the coming of the Lord. But for this very purpose, we are now confronted with a voice of one to whom we should all listen (Matthew 3:1-12).
A voice in the desert
The figure of John the Baptizer is center stage in the second and third Sundays of Advent. In Saint Matthew’s schematics of the history of salvation, John represented the final voice from the old dispensation while signaling, at the same time, the inauguration of the new and definitive era founded on Jesus Christ. John personifies the attitude proper to the coming of the Kingdom of God. He was the precursor then, as he is now our Advent precursor, calling the people to prepare and receive the one who comes. John was a prophet, therefore, a voice of God and the conscience of the people.
In appearance, John reminded the people of the austere Elijah (2 Kings 1:8), corresponding to the widespread expectation among the Jews that Elijah would return in order to prepare Israel for the final manifestation of the reign of God (Matthew 11:14; 17:11-13). His food of locusts and wild honey recalls the desert days of Israel, poignantly stressing expectation and hope for deliverance. This entire atmosphere is summed up by the evangelist’s conclusion that John was the fulfilment of the prophecy by Isaiah (40:3) that a voice would be crying out, “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths.” A new exodus was being evoked by Isaiah that the survivors of the Babylonian exile would be led back by God to Israel. The
repunctuation (“a voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way…”) neatly fits the background of John in the desert and hints of him as the voice of the friend of the bridegroom calling the bride into the desert.
A baptism of repentance
John’s call to conversion and his baptism of repentance were preliminary and preparatory. His baptism with water was only to indicate longing and readiness for God’s kingdom. He attested that one mightier would be coming after him, and this would be the one to bring baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire. The baptism with the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ would actually impart the Holy Spirit whose return signals the establishment of the reign of God. The conjunction with fire underlines the fact that acceptance of the kingdom of God involves judgment. Fire will probe and prove the sincerity of one’s conversion and return to God.
John’s call to conversion is radical like a new exodus and intimate like a nuptial. For conversion means that one who is lost has realized his fatal deviation from the right path and now returns wholeheartedly to God (Jeremiah 7:5-11; Isaiah 2:6-22). Metanoia is a dynamic and determined assumption of a new way of life, not merely a static remorse for the past. That is why John was so very frank with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who need to “produce good fruit as evidence of repentance.” A tree that does not bear good fruit must be cut down.
Alálaong bagá, now also the proofs of fidelity to the gospel of Jesus sift and identify peoples as to whether their conversion is authentic. The ax and the winnowing fan tell us that lineage and purely external, ritual piety cannot substitute for or simulate true change of heart and conversion, which, alone, will be blessed with salvation. John the Baptizer’s call to repentance and radical change applies now to us Filipinos most specifically, if we ourselves are not to be called “a brood of vipers”. We have to return to the Lord, “making straight his paths” so that we really receive him and live according to his gospel. It is not enough to claim we are Christians; we need to show that we are.
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