Luke 3: Unquenchable fire and Christ's saving mission

John the Baptist is not what most people would call a "nice guy." He's a prophet, which means he tells you God's truth about yourself even if you'd rather not hear it. He's fiery.

He proclaims "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (3:3), and then when people actually show up to be baptized he calls them a "brood of vipers" and warns them to "flee from the wrath to come" (3:7). This may seem rude and bizarre, but his message is crucial: The water is not enough. You must turn you lives around and act justly.

John points beyond himself to Jesus, whose baptism "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (3:16) will be far more powerful than his. The portrait he paints of Jesus is one that would make many people uncomfortable: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (3:17). We don't like to think about that burning-with-unquenchable-fire part, but it is undeniably part of the biblical message.

But ultimately, both John's message and Jesus' mission are about salvation. As the quote from Isaiah says, "all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (3:6). The universal nature of Jesus' saving mission is highlighted by Luke's genealogy of Jesus (3:23-38), which I'm often tempted to skim (or skip) over. While Matthew traces Jesus' lineage only from Abraham, the forefather of Israel, Luke traces it back all the way to Adam, the father of the whole human family.

For though we may make chaff of ourselves by rejecting him, there is no one for whom Jesus did not come.

(Image: Titian, "St. John the Baptist," 1542)