You can almost sense the excitement of the people coming to the River Jordan. This John the Baptiser is quite radical. Is he the Messiah? Is he the long awaited one? His message is clear, and it is ‘good news’ for people who, for too long, have suffered oppression. Many would have heard the words of Zephaniah proclaimed in the temple. “The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.” Is this hair matted, locust eating baptiser the one?

So often, the people have read about and heard about a God who ‘will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in his love’. This warrior God will surely free them from poverty and oppression.

Then, they encounter John and are caught up in his message of liberation. ‘What should we do?’ John’s reply mirrors the Kingdom of God message that marks Jesus’ teaching and the early Church’s life described in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘Whoever has two coats must share with the one who has none – do likewise with food, leave no one hungry and cold’ (Luke 3:13). The tax collectors and the soldiers whom Jesus also encounters, they too are invited into the same mindset of compassion, love and justice. So, is this the one?

No, one is coming whose passionate embrace of love, radical solidarity with the poor and courageous challenging of injustice, will be like a fire burning brightly in the darkness. This one will, consumed by the power of the Holy Spirit, breathe that same spirit into all who follow him.

In great humility, John knows that he is not even worthy to untie the thong of the anointed one’s sandals! Paradoxically, this same anointed one will bow low in the waters of the Jordan and ask John to baptise him.

by Br Damien Price cfc