{"id":2439,"date":"2023-03-14T07:47:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2439"},"modified":"2023-03-14T07:48:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:48:44","slug":"luke-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/14\/luke-316\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 3:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.

Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th<\/sup> verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books. <\/em>
 
\u201cJohn answered them all, \u2018I baptize you with water.  But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.\u2019\u201d (Luke 3:16)
 
Despite what many of us learned in grade school, Paul Revere didn\u2019t really go on a solo ride shouting, \u201cThe British are coming! The British are coming!\u201d on the evening of April 18, 1775. 
 
Revere was one of three primary riders \u2013 who were ultimately joined by as many as 20 others \u2013 who galloped through the countryside of colonial Massachusetts warning patriots that the King\u2019s army was on the move.  Even though the silversmith wasn\u2019t able to finish his 10-mile route \u2013 British troops arrested him and confiscated his horse \u2013 his mission proved to be a success:  A small cadre of Americans was ready to resist the redcoats the next day at Lexington Green, where someone would fire \u201cthe shot heard \u2018round the world.\u201d 
 
Eyewitness accounts (including Revere\u2019s own journal) make it clear that his message that night was, \u201cThe Regulars are coming out!\u201d  The vast majority of the residents whose homes he alerted, after all, thought of themselves as citizens of the crown.  So it wouldn\u2019t have made much sense to declare that the British were coming.
 
So who put the words \u201cThe British are coming!\u201d into Paul Revere\u2019s mouth?
 
That would be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose 1861 poem Paul Revere\u2019s Ride<\/em> \u2013 published 30 years after the patriot\u2019s death \u2013 exhibits considerable artistic license.  Longfellow came to the conclusion that, \u201cThe Regulars are coming out!\u201d wasn\u2019t sufficiently poetic.  So he changed it.  Here are his memorable opening lines:
 
Listen, my children, and you shall hear<\/em>
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere<\/em>
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five<\/em>
Hardly a man is now alive<\/em>
Who remembers that famous day and year  <\/em>
 
Did the real-life Paul Revere alert the sleepy countryside that something incredibly important was happening?  Absolutely. 
 
That\u2019s why Bible scholar Dale Bruner suggests that John the Baptist might be considered the Paul Revere of the New Testament.  He alerts the spiritually sleepy nation of Israel that, \u201cThe kingdom is coming!  The kingdom is coming!\u201d 
 
The Baptist\u2019s ministry kicks off all four gospel accounts of the life of Jesus \u2013 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  We can\u2019t experience Jesus, in other words, unless we go through his Advance Man.  And as Bruner points out, we won\u2019t accurately hear the Good News of Jesus \u2013 his description of the true nature of God\u2019s reign on Earth \u2013 until we first hear from John. 
 
Or we can put it this way:  We won\u2019t really \u201cget\u201d Jesus\u2019 message of grace unless we take in John\u2019s reminders of God\u2019s law. 
 
If you ever have the chance to invite any Bible character to a cookout, you might want to pass on John.  He is the New Testament\u2019s original \u201cwild and crazy guy\u201d \u2013 a camel-skin-wearing, locust-eating, speakers-on-high-volume Voice of Godly Conscience. 
 
John preaches with urgency.  Act now, before it\u2019s too late.  <\/em>The kingdom is sneaking up on you, so turn around and face it.  Rethink your whole life in light of this new opportunity. 
 
John is the prophetic voice \u201chowling in the wilderness\u201d predicted by Isaiah.  Bruner asks, \u201cWhy do people speak loudly?\u201d  We speak loudly when people are distant, deaf, or angry.  \u201cAnd the human race is all three.\u201d 
 
John holds the entire nation of Israel accountable.  Before we hear the Good News, we need to know why it\u2019s such good news.  Unless we have some serious self-awareness of our own sickness, we won\u2019t seek the Physician.  Bruner observes, \u201cA coming of the kingdom without judgment for evildoers does not exist except in the minds of the sentimental\u2026. The wrath of God is not the irritability of God.  It is the love of God in friction with injustice.\u201d
 
God, in other words, is going to deal with injustice.  He\u2019s going to set things right. 
 
That\u2019s right, Lord.  We\u2019re with you all the way.  Take down all those wretched people living such wretched lives.<\/em>
 
To which God replies, through John, \u201cI\u2019m glad you grasp the plan.  So let\u2019s begin with<\/em> you<\/em>.\u201d  In straightening what is bent and repairing what is broken, God begins with his own people.
 
That\u2019s the gist of Luke 3:16. John declares that he\u2019s been sent to baptize.  Since baptism is never mentioned in the Old Testament, it\u2019s worth noting how this practice arrived on the scene.  During the 400-plus years of the so-called Intertestamental Period, Jews had begun to welcome pagan converts.  How could a non-Jew (who might previously have been dismissed as a \u201cfilthy Gentile pig\u201d) ever become part of God\u2019s sacred community?  After months and years of preparation \u2013 which included studying the Torah and adopting the special dietary restrictions, festivals, and purity codes of Jewish life \u2013 converts were ritually washed.  They were plunged into water to be cleansed of their old life, rising into a new kind of existence. 
 
Now we can see the subversive nature of John the Baptist\u2019s preaching.  He is saying to his fellow Jews, \u201cYou\u2019re so far away from God that you\u2019re like pagans who need to start from zero.  You yourselves<\/em> need to be baptized!\u201d  It\u2019s not just outsiders who need to rethink their lives, but spiritual insiders, too. 
 
For many of his listeners, the idea that \u201cI need to be baptized\u201d must have been shocking.  Insulting.  First century Jews took comfort in the truth that as the children of Israel, they were the inheritors of God\u2019s great promises to Abraham.  But John is having none of it.  He insists that even the chosen people need to make a dramatic re-entry into God\u2019s family.   
 
The gospel writers tell us that John becomes a national sensation.  Crowds are drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet.  It\u2019s clear that people are desperate for a do-over. 
 
The revolution of God\u2019s reign on Earth is beginning.  But John is just the forerunner.  John is Paul Revere.
 
The Messiah is coming, the Messiah is coming<\/em>. 
 
\u201cAnd he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,\u201d says John.
 
Which is where we\u2019ll pick things up tomorrow, in Matthew 3:16. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.  \u201cJohn answered them all, \u2018I baptize… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[571],"class_list":["post-2439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-316-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2442,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439\/revisions\/2442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}