Through the Garage and Over the Bridge
Luke 3:1-3, 7-18 (NRSV)
The Proclamation of John the Baptist
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins ...
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
One of the things I enjoy most in life and ministry is being with groups of folks who are curious about the Bible. This has been excellent in my time at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, with a weekly Bible Seminar each Fall and another in the Springtime. Fall 2012 has been especially enjoyable because we have had two groups each week, Tuesday mornings in town in my HNEC conference room Through the Garage, and Wednesday afternoons Across the Bridge, hosted by St. Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach. Our final Fall meetings are this week, in town yesterday morning and at the beach this afternoon.
We shall have a “semester break” through the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, then a Lent 2013 seminar will be offered starting the first week of February and going about until summer vacation starts for schools.
We explore and discover together, with group members deciding along with me, what to discuss, all more or less anchored in the lectionary. This fall we’ve done historical criticism of the Gospel according to Mark, discussed a Minor Prophet or two, including Micah, and finished up in the Third Gospel as the Church moved to Luke for Advent, Lectionary Year C.
There are lots of ways to do Bible study, so instead of historical-critical for Luke, we’ve tried a study comparing Luke to Mark and Matthew and sometimes John. Differences and similarities are striking.
For the passage above, which is our Gospel reading for Advent 3, Sunday, December 16, we would find that this material is not found in Mark, but is almost identical in Matthew, indicating that those two evangelists got it from the Q Gospel. Wondering why reporting this was important to Q and Luke and Matthew, we might conjecture that after Mark wrote his gospel, a cult of John the Baptist may have grown up asserting John as Messiah. So, a key agenda of this Q passage seems to be not only to acclaim Jesus, but to show John the Baptist himself personally and specifically renouncing any claim to messiahship.
Whoever later wrote the Gospel according to John underscores this by avoiding saying that John the Baptist baptized Jesus, by having John the Baptist point to Jesus as the Lamb of God, and by reporting that some of John the Baptist’s disciples leave John to follow Jesus.
Our Bible seminars are generally quite enthusiastic, and there’s no telling where discussion is going to take us.
Through the Garage and Over the Bridge to Bible study we go
Tom Hairston knows the way to drive my sleigh . . .
and i've been very grateful.
TW+