John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance,
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize 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 his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Today’s passage starts with a direct quote from the book of Isaiah: “A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” So who was this voice? Many believe that because of the old age of his parents that John was sent as a very young boy to live with the Essenes. They were several religous sects in practice during this time. We hear about the Scribes, Pharisees, and Saducees, in the bible, and there were other radical sects like the zealots, but there was at least one other we know of (from the dead sea scrolls) called the Essenes. The Essenes, were what you would call today, religious fundamentalist.  They believed that the temple had been completely corrupted by the Pharasees, and Saducees, and so they lived in the desert, and litterally lived out the words from Isaiah, waiting for the signs of the coming of the messiah.

The Essenes were a cloistered society, and they were segregated by sex as well. The men of this community would prepare all of their own food, they would carry their own water, and they would do all of the things that were traditionally done by both men and women. In community, they wore white like the temple priests, and ate only food that was provided from the community in which they lived. But when outside of the community, they would only use what was provided by nature, wearing animal skins, and eating things like locusts, and wild honey.

It is believed though that John did not agree that the essenes should be totally insular, and not preach to the people about the truth of the temple and the coming of the lord. The average jew was left with only the temple, and the corrupt leaders running it. And the Gentiles had no one to preach the truth to them. So John began teaching and proclaiming outside his community, and as such it is beleived that he was excluded from the essene community, sent out into the desert alone. But because of his pius faith, he maintained his essene religious practices and was thus forced to wear animal skins and eat locusts and honey.

John began his ministry, by setting up camp in the northern area of the dead sea near the Jordan river. This location was pilgrimage route for many jews coming to the temple in Jerusalem.  It was also a major trade route, that gentiles of all kinds would use to trade with the romans and jews in Jerusalem. So John began proclaiming the coming of the lord, and preparing them all for that moment through baptism.  

The essenes had a daily practice of washing (baptizing) for forgiveness, but what John offered in the desert was different, He gave a one time baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins. A clear precursor to our current sacrament of baptism. But this was a big deal, for a jew to wash his whole body in baptism, because it meant your whole body was ritually unclean… not something many jews would readily confess, because it required a humiliating public display of guilt and a similar public admission of sin. This kind of ritual washing was only ever done by a jew at the temple, and was performed with a temple priest, and only done so that one could enter the temple, and obtain forgiveness of sins.  But John was offering this same forgiveness, as a stand-in for the priests at the temple, because the pharisees and saducees were so corrupt. It is clear to see why those temple leaders were so upset with John for doing this.

Nevertheless, many flocked to John, and sought his baptism. I think that this points to the fact of how corrupt the Pharisees and Saducees actually were, and to how much the average jew yearned for the temple sacriafices of old, and it also points to the general understanding that the coming of the messiah was imminent. The people knew even if the temple leaders refused to recognize it.

But this reading from Matthew, has a really intersting extra little peice of information. It says that the Pharasees and Sadducees had also come out to John’s Baptism. Seemingly to see what was going on, and what all the hub-bub was about. But John is not having any of it, he presumes that they too were coming out for baptism. But because of their corruption and the public sin, John excoriates them. He calls them a brood of vipers. Vipers are a very interesting animal, when the baby vipers are hatched from their eggs, they immediately turn on their mother and kill her and consume her body as their first meal. And so the analogy is apropos, because that is what these pharisess were doing, they were slowly killing the mother church and consuming it for their own benefit. This was no small insult, it was a cutting public critique of the state of their sin, and the rampant corrupution happening at the temple due to their actions.

So what is the message for us today. Simple, that the lord is coming symbolically at christmas, but also bodily, when he comes back to render his final judgement. The question is, are you ready? Are you prepared to welcome Him when He arrives. That is what we need to ponder during this season of advent, and to make straight the paths in our own lives for Him to come into our own hearts. Start today, the time is growing short, He will be here before you know it.

Oh lord, help me today in my studies to find the true meaning of your word, so that I can share it with others.