“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard”

Sermon by Jamie Howison on Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-18.

We’re now on the second Sunday of the season of Advent, and we watch as the gospel text starts backing us toward the story we will tell on Christmas Eve. Last Sunday it was an adult Jesus issuing dire warnings close to the end of his ministry, and now this week we’ve moved closer to the beginning of the Gospel according to Luke, with the appearance of John the Baptist, speaking of the “one who is more powerful than I [who] is coming.” This is paired with a text from the prophet Malachi, and together the two readings speak with urgency of what is necessary for the people to do—essentially repent and put their lives in order—before any fulfillment might come.

Let’s start with Malachi, who writes sometime around the year 515 BCE, some seventy-five years after the leading citizens of Israel had been exiled to Babylon. They’ve now been given permission to return home, and a new temple has been built to replace Solomon’s grand temple. This one is more modest than the first temple, and life in general is a struggle. This is how N.T. Wright describes what prophets such as Malachi represent:

When Solomon built the Temple, “the glory of Yahweh filled the house.” The “glory” had departed when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple; but, even when the Temple was rebuilt, the glory did not come back. Post-exile prophets like Malachi saw the return of Yahweh to Zion as still in the future: “the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his Temple.” When that happened, the whole created order would, of course, roll out the red carpet. Valleys would be filled in, mountains flattened, and God would return in splendour to Jerusalem.

Malachi is awaiting the arrival of God’s “messenger” in the new temple, who will bring about these changes. “But who can endure the day of his coming,” Malachi asks, “and who can stand when he appears?” Much as the people long for the presence of God to be felt in the Temple—in their very midst, in fact—Malachi is insistent that this will not be an easy day.

For God is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; God will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

What is notable here, of course, is that for Malachi it is “the descendants of Levi”—the priests of the Temple faith—who will need this purification. In his view it all comes down to the purity and integrity of the Temple-centred faith of Israel, and so the priests must be—MUST BE—beyond reproach. No more half-baked priests looking out for their own well-being, Malachi insists. These priests must be priests for the people.

But did that ever happen? Perhaps to some degree, but anyone who recalled the word of Isaiah cited in the Gospel would know that there was yet a long way to go. Remember those words:

Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

For Israel the roads were never that smooth, the crooked paths never that straight. Anyone who stopped to consider these deep and ancient promises would have recognized that they were still waiting for their fulfillment. And in the days in which John the Baptist was pounding out his message, the land was occupied by the Roman Empire, and ruled with considerable harshness under the direction of Pontius Pilate. Lots of crooked paths and rough ways, to be sure.

So there’s John, standing in that prophetic tradition and proclaiming his message. It is sometimes said that the prophets comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable, and when you look at Isaiah or Jeremiah, you can certainly see that dynamic at work. But John? Rarely was there a comfortable word spoken by that wild man, in his camel hair garment and his diet of locusts and wild honey.

“You brood of vipers!” he cries out. “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” And don’t think for a minute that you can rely on your birthright as sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah… you must put your own lives in order!

Well, what does that look like, John? How are we to live? Just the fact that people come out to see him in the wilderness, seeking his counsel and submitting to his baptism says that he was more than just a little compelling. And so he answers them, saying first,

Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.

John is well aware that the system had made for rich and poor, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, so he cuts to the chase with that very straightforward advice. And in it, by the way, is a bit of that comfort for the afflicted that is so typical of the prophets of old.

But what do you know, there are tax-collectors coming out to see him. Remember, tax-collectors were Jewish citizens who worked for the Roman Empire, and who were notorious for taking too much money in order to line their own pockets. So they come and asked,

“Teacher, what should we do?” John said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

Simple as that! Similarly, when soldiers come to see him—most probably Herod’s soldiers, so themselves Jewish folks, and not Roman soldiers of the Empire:

“And we, what should we do?” John said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation and be satisfied with your wages.”

Measured responses, and not without comfort even in the challenges. John is sufficiently compelling that the people begin to wonder if he could be the Messiah, the promised one who might bring the sort of reality that Malachi had dreamed of into being. But John is clear: I am not Messiah!

‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

Now when Jesus does appear and begin his ministry, it is marked not so much by a winnowing-fork as it was by compassion. Again and again his heart is moved by the needs of the people, and again and again when he turns to teach them it is with parables; often grace-filled parables like the stories of the prodigal, the good Samaritan, and the labourers in the vineyard. No, there seems no winnowing fork in his hand, which will leave John wondering if maybe he’d been mistaken about Jesus. When he sends two of his own disciples to ask Jesus if he is the promised one, Jesus’ answer is simple: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” Tell John, in short, that while I may not be quite what he was expecting, everything I am doing is quite in line with what the prophet Isaiah had taught about the arrival of the Kingdom.

It is a paradigm shift, really, and one that shoots through the whole of the Gospel tradition. Listen again to N.T. Wright:

In none of these cases did the reality correspond to what first-century readers of the prophets might have expected. The priesthood remained corrupt. Tiberius and Herod still ruled, and ruled brutally. The Temple had not been filled with the bright cloud of God’s presence. Hills and valleys remained intact. Nevertheless, Jesus’ life, and supremely his death and resurrection, forced his followers to read the prophecies with new eyes. This, after all, must have been what the prophecies were about.

Indeed. And that is why we are here, two thousand years later, telling again these stories, and sharing again in the symbolic meal of bread and wine which Jesus gave to us. Yes, there is still corruption, and yes there are many who still rule with brutality and conniving. The Jerusalem Temple is long gone, but the hills and valleys remain intact. And yet the Kingdom of God is in our very midst, calling us to live more deeply into it, and inviting us to look forward to the day when it will all be brought utterly and entirely home. In the meantime, we come, we cry, we watch, we wait, we look, we long for Christ to be with us… trusting that he is.