Luke 3v10-20

"What should we do then?" the crowd asked.

John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

When you turn toward God and hear the good news that His Kingdom is near...that the justice and peace you have longed for your whole life is coming, just round the corner... you have to "do" something. How does one respond to such great news! We automatically know we need to worship...to change something to express our gratitude...to celebrate and start living in that new reality right now!

We need to put in perspective how much the people of Israel desired to hear that YHWY was going to finally act on behalf of His people in the face of the oppression of Rome, the filth and corruption of Herod and the twisted Temple regime. We have known very little of real political and economic suffering in this country for quite some time, praise God...I'm talking about starving for justice, thirsting for things to truly be set right, being under the literal boot of evil day in and day out...militarily, economically, religiously and politically.

When you live under that kind of leadership you learn to behave like your leaders...you reflect their leadership...you consume more than you should, you take advantage of the weak and it's business as usual, you use your skills and authority to steal and its all ok because that is how the system works, you are sexually immoral and adulterous because money, sex and power are the things that we lust over and we can indulge. It's the way of the world.

John says to these people that if they want to express that they are part of the covenant renewal, part of the New Creation getting ready to burst forth into this one then they need to take the first step and come through the waters and out of slavery to the world that is passing away...then they will find themselves in the desert of Sin (see the Exodus) they are a redeemed people, but now they need to learn to be a new creature if they are to live in this New Creation...and that means reflecting the new leadership. YHWY is becoming King again and He will rescue His people in and through the coming Messiah, the Son of God.

John's baptism deals with the obvious stuff, the common sense right and wrong...and he knows it...but the baptism of the One who is coming will make them agents of New Creation...just as the pillar of fire lead the mixed people group after they left Egypt, so the Holy Spirit, God himself, will be upon them to lead them, dwelling in them, brooding over the chaotic, fallen creation and reshaping it with the trans-formative power of self-giving, self-sacrificing love...acting in the role humans were always intended to, bringing God's glad and wise order to creation...the Word made flesh.

This type of activity will set the Christian up in direct conflict with the powers of that old world...John as with all the prophets, Jesus himself, the Apostles, the Early Church Fathers and countless martyrs since then would find that this Christian life is a very dangerous vocation at present...We like to see Herod as this evil man and we would like to point the finger...the fact is he is just like so many of us when confronted with our own evils, who would use all our power to shut that voice up if we were not prepared by suffering and transformed by hope. If it were not for grace, we would lock that voice crying out in the wilderness away and so in our ignorance we could get on with our deathly existence.