Matthew gave no indication of how much time passed between Jesus’ going to Nazareth as a young child and the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist. He said nothing of Jesus’ boyhood, because he knew nothing about it. From the total absence of any references to Joseph in the later narrative of Jesus’ public life, it would seem that he must have died in the interim. Matthew refrained even from calling Jesus a carpenter, though he would note that carpentry was his father’s occupation; and according to the custom of the time, sons normally adopted the vocation of their fathers.
At this stage of his narrative, Matthew relied on the earlier Gospel of Mark, though he used it freely, changing the order for the sake of greater clarity.
[Mk 1:2-8; Lk 3:1-20]
1 The time came when John the Baptist appeared,proclaiming this message in the Judean desert,2 "Change your hearts, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near."3 He is the one spoken of through Isaiah the prophet in the words: 'The voice of one crying out in the desert: Get ready the way of the Lord, straighten out his paths'. 4 For his part, John wore clothes of camel hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.5 Jerusalem, all of Judea and the whole district around the Jordan came out to him. 6 Publicly acknowledging their sins,they were baptised by him in the Jordan river.John announced the imminent coming of the Kingdom of the heavens. Consistently throughout his Gospel, out of customary Jewish deference to the name of God, Matthew would use the term Kingdom of the heavens in preference to Mark’s simpler Kingdom of God.
Obviously, John considered the present social and religious structures as not reflecting the values proper to the Kingdom of the heavens The whole country was under Roman occupation, with Galilee administered by the Roman puppet, the tetrarch Herod Antipas. Peasants were crippled by heavy taxation and debts. Arbitrary violence was the norm, even though Rome boasted that it had brought the “Pax Romana” (Roman peace) to its subject peoples. Certainly, it was a sort of peace, but one that favoured the wealthy and powerful elites.
The oppressive poverty of the majority ensured that sickness and disease were widespread throughout the region.
The religious authorities collaborated with the Roman administration in the interests of preserving “peace”. There were constant calls for religious reform:
The ordinary people were regarded, generally, as sinners, and socially were relegated to the margins by the religious and social elites.
Contrary to general prophetic expectation, which saw Israel’s future tied to triumph and its vindication focussed on Jerusalem, John worked on the margins. He appeared in the Judean desert. Centuries before, Isaiah had proclaimed the return of the Babylonian exiles across the desert towards Jerusalem. Matthew (following Mark) interpreted the Baptist’s ministry in the desert as fulfilling the role of Isaiah’s messenger.
John called for change of heart in response to the imminence of the Kingdom. He challenged the nation as a whole, rather than specific individuals (though their cooperation would be critical for change to happen). Radical change was needed: God’s Kingdom needed to replace the present kingdom, not by a change merely of its leadership, but by a radical and generalized transformation in social relationships, values, customs and lifestyles. Assumptions needed to be questioned; familiar ways of relating in society needed to be challenged; the insights that were basic to Israel’s reality as a covenant people needed to be rediscovered; and people’s sense of God needed to be purified and deepened.
John’s garb was reminiscent of the prophet Elijah’s. Later in the Gospel [17:13], Jesus would remark that John was indeed “Elijah returned”, who had appeared again to prepare Israel for the imminent coming of the Day of the Lord. Reflecting on the significance of Elijah, the Book of Sirach declared:
Then Elijah arose, a prophet like fire...You were taken up by a whirlwind of fire,in a chariot with horses of fire.At the appointed time, it is written, you are destinedto calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury,to turn the hearts of parents to their children,and to restore the tribes of Jacob. [Sirach 48:1, 9-10]John’s ministry attracted considerable crowds. Contrary to the prophets’ dreams of people streaming across the wilderness towards Jerusalem, people streamed out from Jerusalem towards the desert to hear the message of John.
Most readers’ attitudes to John are inevitably affected by Luke’s Infancy Narrative. There, Luke made a number of claims about John:
Against that background, it would be natural enough to assume that John was conscious of his unique role throughout all his life. But Matthew was not Luke. There is no particular reason to assume that Luke was conveying historical facts about John, rather than merely preparing his readers to understand him.
John’s insights and sense of personal authority must, therefore, have come from within his own spirit, triggered by:
At the same time, while sensitive to the prophetic tradition, he was not tied into the details of their prophecies. Rather, it was the prophets’ sense of the heart of God that he shared.
Perhaps he shared, too, something of the courage and hope of Elijah, who confronted kings and was not dismayed by the faithlessness which he saw surrounding him. John’s recognition of a similarity of vocation and of spirit may have been his reason for dressing like Elijah.
People expressed their openness to change by being baptised by John in the Jordan River. Mark had connected their baptism with the forgiveness of their sins. Matthew stopped short of making that claim. He simply commented that people acknowledged their sins. He guarded forgiveness as Jesus’ domain.
Ritual cleansings were common activities in the culture. John’s differed from others in that it occurred out in the desert, and seems to have been performed only once. More significantly it differed in its purpose and meaning.
7 When he saw crowds of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, "You offspring of snakes, who suggested to you to escape the fury that is coming? 8 Well then, produce fruit fitting a change of heart. 9 Do not think to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father’. I tell you that God can raise up children of Abraham from these stones.10 Right now, the axe is being laid to the root of the trees. Every tree not bearing good fruit is being cut down and thrown on the fire.Mark’s Gospel had given no account of the content of John’s preaching. For that, Matthew drew on another source which he shared with Luke. He modified it, however, to include Pharisees along with the Sadducees mentioned by Mark. Frequently in his narrative, Matthew would specify Pharisees and Sadducees for explicit condemnation. His attitude reflected the bitterness in his own community of disciples, occasioned by problems with the more argumentative members of local synagogues under the leadership of Pharisees.
John’s threats to the Pharisees resonated with Matthew’s own concern about the non-negotiable priority of action over other considerations of ethnicity, orthodoxy or status. Deep change, expressed through consistent behaviour, was critical. The present translation reads that the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism. Other scholars believe that the phrase could be translated as coming, not for baptism, but to oppose John’s baptism. That would serve better to explain his immediate verbal attack on them.
Given the general restlessness of the times, perhaps it was not surprising that some Jerusalem Pharisees and Sadducees, conceivably members of the Sanhedrin, came to examine John’s practice. Commonly, those in the corridors of power are sensitive to issues of authority, and resistant to what they perceive as possible challenges to it.
How do people generally assess the authenticity of otherwise competing claims? With the Pharisees, their criteria were authority and tradition. They were sons of Abraham, and they knew how things had always been done – their way.
John challenged them by another standard – their fruits. Jesus would use the same standard later in the Gospel. The issue would have retained its relevance for Matthew’s community of disciples in their arguments with members of their local synagogues. What mattered was, not external continuity with the way things had been, but inner faithfulness to the Spirit of God, a faithfulness that, of necessity, found expression in their actions.
The question retains its relevance in the Church today. How can new movements and practices be assessed? One instinctive response is to check “by what authority” and its conformity to the external shapes taken by the tradition. Another response might be to examine the inner truth of what is proposed - its relationship to the heart of the tradition - and to check its effects on the lives of those involved.
John referred to one who would follow him, one stronger than he. Actually, in the language of the Scriptures, to follow means to become a disciple [4:20,22]. It is not primarily a time reference. Though he might come as a disciple of John, this one’s ministry would surpass John’s in its power. He would baptise in the Holy Spirit and fire. Within the culture, water, fire and spirit were all seen as primal elements. John would seem to be referring to a baptism that would, indeed, be effective. Both spirit and fire could be connected with purification (salvation) and punishment. He left the outcome open. It would be up to people themselves to decide whether they associated themselves with the grain or the chaff. The outcome would depend on their active repentance.
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