Understanding John's Prophesy
We can look back, after the fact, and understand what John prophesied
I want us to look at today’s Gospel. Notice toward the end, we see these stark words of what the coming Messiah will do. Now, these sound like words of judgement and calls to repent or else there will be consequences and many will preach on this.
If John the Baptist is going to predict what the Messiah will do, we will only have to see what the Messiah actually did to understand the context of these words. So let us do this.
Change is coming to First Century Judah
I always remind you, that the minute you see John the Baptist arrive on the scene, you know that the Jewish world as was known at the time has only 40 more years left. Forty years later, the Romans will wipe the Jewish state off the map, not to exist again until 1948 and the temple will be destroyed not to be rebuilt again. The sacrifices in the Temple which began before the temple was built in the time of Moses, come to an end. You read all through the Old Testament of the animal sacrifices to God; the whole line of sacrifice ends forty years after John the Baptist arrived on the scene never to exist again.
So, when John the Baptist talks about this radical change, he was not kidding. There is a sifting out, a harvesting and a separating of the wheat from the chaff. So what happens next is the next stage of God’s salvation.
The Jewish nation was to be a witness to the pagan world that there was only one God and they were to witness to the wisdom of this God and of his truth. Now, in the fullness of time, the Christians rooted in Judaism have a call to bring this same message into the whole world to transform the world.
The coming of the Messiah changes the nature of the faithful person. Now he or she receives the mission to bring His message and salvation to the whole world. The measuring stick is not how faithful one is to the law but what is fruit of his or her faithfulness produces. It is not about being good or bad but in bearing fruit for the kingdom.
Christ changed the mission
In Christ, we now become children of God and ambassadors of His kingdom. So not only has the Messiah brought a harvest, he has sowed new seeds for the next stage of salvation turning each and every one of us into ambassadors to serve others. We are all empowered to do this within our own life.
What is the defining point for this role. How well we represent God’s kingdom and presence to the world as his ambassadors which we became at our baptism.
What is the defining point of this position: Matthew 25. When I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink. In other words, how do we act as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to others.
Jesus’s action empowers us to live in this way. However, currently, our system reduced this to focusing on not sinning, instead of focusing on doing God’s will as his agents which is a bigger picture.
Real life example
Let me give you an example. You saw the case in court this week in the death of Jordan Neely and the acquittal of Daniel Penny. Now the court case is a legal issue out of my jurisdiction. I am not going to comment on this. However, we heard many stories of Jordan Neely, describing not only his actions that day but also his history.
These were good Catholics who justified the action taken and it is all based on good and bad behavior. People found him threatening and they were afraid which led Daniel Penny into action.
Jordan Neely was mentally ill, homeless, scary. He came onto the train car that day saying things people took as threats. People described him as someone who had been in and out of jails over and over again.
You are an ambassador for the kingdom of God, what is the right response? What did he really need? He needed what no one was supplying. Apparently, he assaulted someone several months earlier and was ordered into a treatment facility which he left before his treatment was up. He just walked out. That is common behavior among the homeless. Even if they are informed that the condition they have is life threatening, they must remain in treatment or they will die, they will still leave in many cases. So, the treatment facility was the wrong one, he needed a locked treatment facility.
Ironically, what was he looking for when he said he was willing to go to jai? A locked facility. According to reports: He clearly was saying at the point that he would rather be in jail than on the streets.
Why did he end up in the wrong facility, because a faceless bureaucracy put him there.
Pope Benedict XVI once explained that the real problem with socialism is that it creates a system that is nothing more than bureaucracy.
If you want to know the cause of what happened on that subway train, it was he was absorbed into an uncaring bureaucratic system years ago.
John the Baptist preached the coming of a new revolution. A new kingdom based on love of God and neighbor, not rules and regulations. Its success is based on how much fruit its members bear for the kingdom. You and at our baptism became part of that revolution.
How do we respond as ambassadors of the kingdom?
We can judge someon
e actions by how good or bad he is but God judges us by how much our ambassador ship bears fruit. This radical change is what St. John the Baptist predicted was coming.
A new system based on creating a nation of ambassadors for God’s kingdom whose mission is to bear fruit in the hearts and minds of others.
This is the new system we in the Church need to get back to because if we don’t then in the next stage, we too will be left on the threshing room floor.
Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
The parish podcast is at CatholicAudioMedia.com
The newest edition of Fr Robert J Carr's latest book is now available. Christ in Our Humanity. You can find it here.