Thoughts for the Day

Luke 3:7-8 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptised by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not begin to say, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’  For I tell you that out of these stones god can raise up children for Abraham.”

To suggest there is something uncompromising about John’s call to repentance is an understatement.  Just imagine starting our baptism services in this way!  But, to return to my question at the end of yesterday’s ‘thought’, ultimately God sent John not because he needed to but out of his mercy.  Throughout the old testament, God sent his prophets to remind his people of their God, his covenant with them and their obligations under it (hence, presumably, John’s comment that simply being descended from Abraham is not enough).  Those who responded were blessed, but woe betide those who rejected his prophets. Israel was looking forward to the great ‘Day of the Lord’, the restoration of Israel and an in-gathering of nations – right back to Abraham, God’s plan always had a global dimension – and logically the restoration of Israel would come first.  This may be a little simplistic, but, in a sense, John begins the restoration of Israel with the restoration of its relationship with God, through a ‘baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’.  Sometime later, we don’t know how long but long enough for John’s ministry to have achieved popularity with the crowds and misgivings from the leaders, Jesus steps in and is baptised by John.  And this endorsement of John’s ministry, for that it clearly is, becomes the launchpad for Jesus’s own.