Matthew 3

With the phrase, “In those days,” Matthew begins a new section that runs on to 4: 16. The verse after that, 4: 17, begins with “From that time on….”[1] Chapters 1 and 2, began with “An account of the genealogy (birth) of Jesus….” This section, 3:1--4:16, could be titled “A Prelude to Ministry” since Matthew moves quickly to the story of Jesus meeting John the Baptist.  

3: 1-2.  In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (is at hand).”

The scene shifts to Judea, out in the wilderness (rocky desert, not dense forest), on the banks of the Jordan River. Interesting, but the important part of these first two verses is John’s message. It both follows from the prophets and departs from the Law in some ways. It is clearly written to appeal to the hopes and expectations of devout Jews of the First Century. If John were following the Law, he would have required his audience to go make an animal sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. However, he does not send people to the temple in Jerusalem; instead, the people of Jerusalem come out to hear him.

John is more in the mold of the prophets, who themselves often shunned the rituals in the temple and called for real repentance that is confirmed by a change in behavior. Most of the prophets called on the people to make a decision about the path they would take.

Elijah: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (I Kings 18: 21).

Hosea: “Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the LORD; say to him, ‘Take away all my guilt; accept that which is good, and we will offer the fruit of our lips’” (Hosea 14: 1-2).

Isaiah begins by calling Israel a “sinful nation” (1:4). Then he tells them that they must wash themselves, perhaps an ablution or baptism. Isaiah is careful to tell the people that that is not enough. He goes on to instruct them to, “…cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah I: 16-18). Thus, they would fulfill the promise of the Law that came through Moses, which was that Isreal: “’…shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation’” (Leviticus 19: 6). So, the Jews knew what he was talking about.

Matthew uses only the phrase ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’ because he does not want to misuse the name of ‘God’, and in that he is being a good First Century Jew. Since we don’t have many kingdoms left in the world, perhaps today ‘the Reign of God’ or ‘the Dominion of God’[2] would be better phrases for us to understand what John and Jesus are talking about. There was a prophetic aroma in the air that an era was coming soon when the Lord would rule directly; John and Jesus both promised that that time was near and told the people to Repent and Prepare.

3: 3.  This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’.”

Matthew identifies John in this explanatory note,[3] while in Luke these words are spoken by Jesus after John has been arrested and put in jail (Luke 7:27). The reference is to Isaiah 40: 3, where the prophet is talking about God bringing his people back out of exile. Several prophets proclaimed that God would make a way through the wilderness and instigate a second exodus, this time from Babylon to the Promised Land (Jeremiah 23:7-8, Hosea 2: 14-16). As with royalty of old, a messenger would go first and prepare things for the arrival of the king, including improving the road on which the king would ride.  

3: 4. Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

After identifying John as that messenger, Matthew offers another hint about which prophet John was channeling. Jewish readers familiar with Scripture would immediately recognize the reference to Elijah since they knew Scripture. To wit: King Ahaziah had fallen and injured himself, so he sent messengers to inquire of the idol Baal-zebub whether he would recover or not. Elijah was instructed by God to meet the messengers and send them back to the king with his own message (Ahaziah would not recover) and rebuking him for not inquiring of Yahweh instead. When they went back, Ahaziah interrogated them.

Elijah: “(Ahaziah) said to them, ‘What sort of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?’ They answered him, ‘A hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist’. He said, ‘It is Elijah the Tishbite’" (II Kings 1:8)

The later prophets also proclaimed that the day was coming when Elijah, who was zealous for the Lord, would return.

Malachi: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6).

So, as many have pointed out, the Old Testament ends with a promise as well as a curse. The return of Elijah is a sign that the time is near. Thus, the appearance of someone with the same zeal for the Lord and message of repentance that Elijah had is a sign of the times.

3: 5-6.  Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

See why people were coming out from Jerusalem and the towns to hear John, then to confess their sins and be baptized? If God is really coming, then one wants to be ready. Right?  

3: 7-10.  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, and do not presume 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. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

John seems to be preaching a simple, even modern message: “Walk down the aisle, repent of your sins, ask Jesus to be your Savior, and step down here and be baptized (anointed, sprinkled, or dipped; we’re a full service church!).”

No, it’s not that simple. John knows better and Jesus knows better, as we will see later. Words that are unaccompanied by actions are worthless. Ask a battered wife, who gets battered again after a tearful cry for forgiveness lets the unchanged batterer back in.

What did John suspect? Pharisees and Sadducees had put their confidence in following the Law and especially in the fact that they were descendants of Abraham; they were circumcised and thus marked as God’s special people. So, why are they coming out? Perhaps because they are hedging their bets. If John is right, or if his preaching leads to a rebellion, they want to have the baptism card to play as well as the ancestry card. Who doesn’t like a hand full of aces? Thus, they are like snakes fleeing a field on fire,[4] or like a forest marked by lumberjacks for cutting.

Why is the ax at the root of First Century Jewish leaders? Their emphasis on the Law perhaps has blinded them to the warnings of the prophets about empty rituals. Remember that God has already said that he has had enough of token obedience:

Isaiah: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more! Bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me” (Isaiah 1:12-13).

What God wanted was a changed life where people acted in a godly Spirit-led manner. God did install rituals and washings, but they were also just outside signs of an inward grace,[5] and if that inward grace did not lead to a changed life, a more godly life, then the ritual was empty. Notice how quickly a changed life is supposed to follow a washed body.

Isaiah: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow” (Isaiah 16-18). Why is it a surprise that John is saying the same thing?

3: 11-12.  “I baptize you with (in) water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with (in) the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

This is why the Jewish leaders are coming. If John is right that God is ushering in a new age, then not only salvation but also justice is coming. There can be no doubt about the meaning of separating the wheat from the chaff, and what happens to each.

Those who are old enough can remember reapers in the field cutting down the wheat. That was step one of harvest. Step two involved separating the wheat kernels (or barley or rye) from the stem and husk that was holding them. The stem and husk are useless; they are chaff. During the First Century, sheaves (bundles) of wheat were brought to a large threshing floor. A tool called a flail, a pole with a short chain attached to another baseball bat sized piece of wood, was used to beat the sheaves to knock out the kernels. In the end, the chaff was thrown up in the air, remaining kernels would fall out and the very light chaff would be blown away by the wind. The wheat would be bagged and carried away for storage. The chaff that was still around the floor would be piled in a heap and burned. Chaff flares up and disappears in a minute; and it’s over.

That metaphor for the division of Israel, and of the world, is used repeatedly by Jesus; so there is no avoiding the implications. Those who repent and let grace change their lives will be separated from those who did not follow through or never repented. And, in a minute, it’s over.

3: 13-17.  Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Jordan River near Jerusalem (remember that the people came out), is about 65 miles from Nazareth. In Matthew’s text, just as John suddenly ‘appears’, see verse 1, so here the same Greek word is used[6] as Jesus ‘suddenly’ appears on the banks of the Jordan. Neither has a back story; there is about a 30-year gap since the birth of Jesus and John has not been introduced until now. This is probably more evidence that Matthew is working with several different traditions, including his own notes, but does have or use some material that Luke had. One story may be followed by another, but there is no compulsion to provide much of a transition.

When Jesus appears, John immediately feels the irony. Why? Perhaps it was the Holy Spirit revealing to him some of the nature of Jesus. Consider that Luke tells us that John was an older cousin of Jesus, born to Mary’s cousin Elizabeth; but Matthew doesn’t know or just doesn’t use this tradition, so he leaves the incident as a spiritual insight that is given to John.

So, why did Jesus come to be baptized, and why did John initially refuse? John has identified his baptism as a baptism of repentance, and presumably Jesus has no sin from which to repent. Yet, Jesus is on a mission to the Jews of the First Century. Currently, those people are participating in a spiritual movement that is initiated by God. Jesus is positioning himself to follow John, so he must identify with the movement in a way that the people will recognize.

When we were in Papua New Guinea as missionaries, we lived as much like the people as possible. When I preached in the United Church, I wore a formal black lapalap, or lavalava, or zulu.[7] Americans would think that it was a skirt. Why? Because the majority of the first missionary preachers (around 1900) were Polynesians, and that is how they dressed. Perhaps you have seen such a picture of me; my Sunday best was a black skirt, a white shirt, and a tie. The people were comfortable because that is what a pastor should look like. “No need to be distracted by what the pastor is wearing; now let’s listen to the sermon.”

It has not escaped the attention, from the earlier bishops to the most recent scholars, that Matthew presents a Trinitarian view of God: The Voice (God, the Father), the Dove[8] (the Holy Spirit), and the Son (Jesus, the Messiah). Each with a different form (epiphany), each with a different function, but all united in one purpose and one mission.

Jesus submits to his calling, condescends to be one with the people (fulfills all righteousness), accepts the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Though he has no sins, he takes on the sins of the world which he will bear to the cross. Jesus did not become God at that point, though some heretics have claimed this, but Jesus did assume his spiritual vocation in the world. Jesus chose the right path; but the pressure is still on to knock him off that path.

(Cliffhanger! See next week’s story; the Devil went down to the wilderness. “He was in a bind, 'cause he was way behind, he was willing to make a deal.” Will the Devil’s art of the deal persuade Jesus?)  

[1] Matthew tends to mark large sections with general time references; but marks smaller sections with a shift in location, for example, ‘He went up on the mountain’, ‘then he entered a village’, ‘he went to the Sea of Galilee’. By contrast, Luke separates sections by specific time references; for example, ‘on the Sabbath’, ‘on the next day’, ‘ten days later’.

[2] Do not confuse this with today’s ‘Christian Nationalism’. The Kingdom of Heaven is not the same as any earthly kingdom, republic, or democracy; thus, not the United States of America.

[3] Matthew, like Luke, occasionally inserts his own thoughts into the text. This statement is attributed to no one; it is the writer speaking directly to the reader to explain the significance of the situation.

[4] Suggested by Tasker, The Gospel According to Matthew, (1961), Pages 48-49.

[5] John Wesley’s definition of the sacraments.

[6] As is pointed out by Witherington, Matthew, (2006), Page 78.

[7] Maybe Americans know it better as a sarong or wrap-around.

[8] Take note thought that Matthew clearly says that the Holy Spirit descended “as if” or “like” a dove; thus, not a dove. Yet, Christians down through the centuries have pretended that it was indeed a dove. A similar mistake is made when people think that there was a “wind” and a “fire” at Pentecost. There was not. Luke’s text clearly says that there was “sound like a violent wind” and “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them…” (See Acts 2). What is the problem? The people who had the epiphany can only describe the feeling, sights, and sounds by analogy because they have no words for exactly what they are experiencing.