What's There to See in the Desert or at Church?

Third Week of Advent - Thursday

Isaiah 54:1-10 / Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b / Luke 7:24-30

What’s There to See in the Desert or at Church?

When they went to the desert to see John, many went to see someone confronting demons – someone telling it like it is. And they found it! They went to have their hearts revealed. And they repented. They went to have their lives renewed. And they were changed.

The Pharisees seem to have gone to the desert to see what everyone else was going for. They went self-assured that they knew what ought to be done by any self-respecting Jew. They were not open to John, but maybe a little curious about him. Jesus was not only open to him, he was schooled by him. Some scholars say that Jesus’ baptism by John implies that at one time he was a student (a disciple) of John’s, that he learned John’s understanding of God and what God was doing now. Jesus bought into it. The Pharisees did not.

Jesus, like John the Baptist, his teacher, expected that God would soon judge the world. Both Jesus and John announced that judgment. And in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that judgment was executed. That judgment was forgiveness. Perhaps John didn’t fully expect that to be what God’s winnowing fan would do. Or that mercy would be the result of God’s ax being laid to the tree trunk. The austere John may have reacted with surprise to the fullness of God’s plan, but the Pharisees could tolerate neither Groom Jesus nor Best Man John; they could not rejoice in the wedding of the Creator and creation in Jesus. 

• When you go to Church, what do you go to see – what draws you there – what motivates you to go? Are you ever surprised by what you see at Church? Is this surprise part of the Good News that the Pharisees resisted, and that surpassed even John’s expectations for what God was (and is) doing in Jesus? As you reflect on today’s readings, do you identify more closely with John, his listeners, or the Pharisees? Why?