For Sunday, December 8, 2013 – Matthew 3:1-12
What a commotion gets stirred up by just one person responding to God’s callings. Just one person blazing with spirit can change people’s lives. Wrapped in the hide of a camel, with the smell of locusts and honey on his breath, John comes romping out of the wilderness barking orders: Repent! Prepare! Bear fruit! And people flock to him in droves to be called on the carpet of repentance. They submit to his authority, even letting themselves be buried into the waters of baptism, into the radical depths of a new kind of kingdom drawing near. Not for the glory of John, or their own, but for the joy of heralding another.
The scene feels daring and risky, foolish, even dangerous. Who is this wild prophet named John? Dare we follow one who says he follows one who will follow him? Dare we let ourselves be part of this crowd, part of the longing masses, hungering for a more radical response to Love? Will we relinquish our rigidity, our false dignity? Will we let ourselves be lured out from the familiar barrenness of our lives? Will we allow ourselves to be swept up into hope, submerged in a vision beyond our own? Do we dare?
Daring to get drawn in, daring to let ourselves get stirred up, daring to make a scene for the sake of turning and walking another way are dangerous and not for solitary dreamers. The status quo might prefer that we stay in single file alignment and march along quietly, but John is announcing a coming commotion that’s too good to miss. Yes, it will be dangerous to be seen among this crowd, to be known as a risk taker, a questioner, a prodder and provoker. Yes, this is going to demand new depths. But when the calling comes to join the movement, to help make a way in and through the wilderness, what else can we do but respond?
