Matthew
3:1-12 (NRSVue)
1 In
those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom
the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The
voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare
the way of the Lord;
make
his paths straight.’ ”
4 Now
John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and
his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the
region around the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him
in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism,
he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming
wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, 9 and do not presume to
say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is
able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is
lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good
fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Reflection
Fire
dramatically alters life. From fires
that destroy all you have to fires that burn within your soul, fire
dramatically alters life. And the power of
fire is ablaze within John the Baptists imagination as he declares that “every
tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in to the fire”
(Matthew 3:10). He talks of fire as
if it is some sort of tool used by the Holy Spirit to clear out the dead branches
and useless weeds of our lives. He says
that the powerful one who is coming separates the wheat from the chaff, and the
useless chaff “he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). John expects that fire will be used to
dramatically alter people’s lives.
Fire changed a woman’s life. I read about her a few years ago. I read that fire changed everything about her. Not only did she lose her home to an arsonist who set her home ablaze, but she also lost her face.
Before the fire, she was beautiful. She was beautiful in the ways that models are beautiful. She was make-up commercial beautiful. But after the fire, when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was misaligned, plastic textured skin, filled with scars. All she saw in the mirror was the woman who kids pointed at, and around whom mothers steered their children, as if she were able to spread the devastation to their little ones like a disease. She rarely went out after the fire. When she did go out, it took so long to get ready. She caked on makeup and even needed to draw eyebrows on her face because they had burnt away for good. The fire was devastating. It changed her life.
Still, she discovered that there was a life after the fire. It was a life that she had never known before. She discovered that there were people who did not look away or walk away when she came near. There were people who were drawn to her. There were people for whom her face was an invitation to get closer, both physically and emotionally.
These people were those who the Bible would describe as outcasts. They were the people for whom connecting with others was hard because they too were not beautiful, or they had a disease, or they had an odd tick, or they just did not know how to relate to others in the same way as everyone else.
They were the people with whom Jesus hung out. There were the people with whom Jesus poured his attention and care. They were the blind, the sick, and the lame. They were the socially awkward and the chastised. And they were the first people to invite the woman over to their table at the coffee shop, so that she would not have to enjoy her tea alone any longer. They were a gift from Jesus Christ to her.
Life after the fire seemed to be so much more…authentic than life before. It was less about looks and glamour and more about love and laughter with faulty but lovable people. The fire had taken so much from her, but on the other hand the fire ended up providing so much more. It provided the people of God. It provided love. It provided a seat with Jesus Christ at the table in the Kingdom of heaven.
Fire does that. It burns away all that you have previously known. And that either drives you into complete hopelessness, or it shows you what this life that God has given us, is truly all about. It is this purifying fire, where all of the impurities are burned away until all that remains is pure and good. John the Baptist talks about this fire when he says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11).
This fire, which stands as a kind of wall between the common and the divine, is a reality that is very, very ancient. Way back in Genesis, at the beginning of creation, after the first man and woman had been thrown out of the garden, removed from the presence of God because of their failure to trust God, there was a sword of fire stationed between them and God. The fire separated them, and if they ever dreamed of returning, they would have to walk through the deadly fire. (Genesis 3:24).
Some have walked through the fire and stood with the Divine. Moving in a reverse direction, back toward the Garden of Eden, stepping through the cleansing waters of the flood, and then stepping through the all-consuming, purifying fire at the gate of Eden, Moses steps through the fire when as he climbs God’s holy mountain. He survives. He encounters God. He is given wisdom, the Ten Commandments, all because he steps through that dangerous and holy fire.
Job also encounters fire. It falls from the sky and destroys all that Job once had. Job goes through a fiery ordeal, much like the woman with the burned face. Only after the fire, only after refusing to break his trust in God, does God restore Job to a new life.
God comes to give wisdom to Job, but only after he had gone through a fiery ordeal.
And only after the fire did the woman with the transformed face find the community of Jesus’ beloved outcasts. Only after the fire burned away her idealized life of beauty did Jesus give the woman a real, authentic community of love, all drawn together by the Holy Spirit.
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).
I have something to admit to you. I do not find stepping into fire to be all that comfortable. In fact, I tend to avoid stepping into fire and teach my children the same. Fire is uncomfortable.
Yet, John the Baptist is out in the wilderness preaching a fire-filled word that is similarly uncomfortable to hear. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” John shouts (Matthew 3:2). He screams that it is time to change your mind completely. It is time to prepare a highway for the Lord to come. It is time to clear out everything that is getting in the way of the Lord’s arrival.
“Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John shouts at the Pharisees and Sadducees. “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:8-9).
He wants us to learn not to put our faith and trust in the things and in the people that we have trusted before. We do not put our trust in Abraham! We do not put our trust in governments! We do not put our trust in our beauty or success!
God can take it all away or replace it any time that God wants! “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10).
This fire seems threatening and fearful, because it is. This fire seems full of death and destruction, because it is. And this fire seems like it will change everything for good, which it will. It will change everything for the sake of all that is good.
It is God’s fire, after-all. It is the fire that Jesus carries with him and pours over the heads of those he loves, just like John pours water over the heads of those who desire more than anything for life to change.
It is the fire of the Holy Spirit which destroys all that we have previously known but is also the purifying flame at the gate which allows us to pass through the door, back into the garden, to walk and talk with God.
It is the fire that God uses to open the gate of the kingdom to us. It is the refining fire that burns away all of the injustice, hatred, unfaithfulness, violence, apathy, misdirected loyalties, cold, unforgiving hearts, and sin which keeps us from life in the kingdom of heaven with God.
It is an uncomfortable fire. It is a devastating fire. It is not what you sign up for if you are looking for a day at the spa. But, the Bible seems to be saying that the only way that Jesus has to draw us to him, to draw us away from the kingdom of this world into the kingdom in which he stands, is to drag us through the cleansing water and pull us through the purifying fires so that we can finally be cleansed of everything that tugs at our trust and love. After we are pulled through the fire, we can trust in his love.
Only then, stripped of the old, can we live in Jesus’ new kingdom of love and peace, where “the wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). Children will be able to play near snakes and not get hurt because, in God’s kingdom, on the mountain of God, in the land of Eden, there is no attacking one another and there is no destruction. There is just the peaceful life that the Lord our God has given as a gift by his own blood on the cross.
This purifying fire is what death and new life in Jesus Christ is all about. All of this is what faith and grace looks like when we encounter it. All of this is being loved by God and then shaped into the person we were created to be. All of this is being given the gift of living in the kingdom of heaven…the kingdom which has come near.
