In basing himself at this point along the Jordan, John takes the Church back to its roots...  to square one.  The story of Joshua leading the Church of his own day into what should have been a life that was compelling to the nations echoes in the background.  The stones John refers to (v.8) weren’t just the debris of a river bank, but those lifted out of the Jordan by the elders of Israel (Josh.3-4) that bore testimony to the Lord’s powerful working to deliver His people into the New Creation.  Everything about the way Luke tells this story is meant to evoke this sense of new beginning.  We are being invited into the life of God... to re-learn all it means for us to be created in the Image and Likeness of God.  We are standing on square one.

But as we gaze into that future, we realise we can’t see anything!  Not because there is nothing to see, but because we don’t have the categories, the spiritual imagination to see what is there.  The life of God is so breath-takingly different to anything we have experienced that we actually can’t envisage what it’s like.  We’ll see that increasingly as we watch the life and listen to the teaching of Jesus in the chapters ahead.  How much of Jesus simply doesn’t make sense to us? 

Those listening to John are having the same sense of destabilisation.  time and again they come to John with the simple question:  What should we do?  They can’t see for themselves what this life of repentance and forgiveness of sins could look like.  It is something that goes far beyond simply the best of the fallen life of sin and death that we are trapped in.  Far beyond it. 

Stepping into an unknown future is a frightening prospect.  It’s easy to step back from the precipice, and retreat into simply being the best at the life you already know.  But that whole way of life is simply ‘chaff’.  John is relentless in his call not simply to elevate that life as high as you can, but to turn away from it in its entirety.  Turn away from death to life.  That’s repentance.  Anything less simply falls short of Christianity.

Questions:

Do you do follow either of the directions laid down by John in 3:11?  Why / why not?  Is this still relevant to Christians living today?

Why do John’s examples revolve around financial issues? 

What do you think John means when he says Jesus will baptise with ‘The Holy Spirit and fire’?  Do you have anything in your experience of being a Christian that corresponds to this? 

How do you feel about Jesus’ coming with His winnowing fork in His hand, and the prospect of separation this image captures so powerfully? 

What does the parable mean?  Who is ‘chaff’?  Who is ‘wheat’?  How are they separated?  What is the barn? ...and the unquenchable fire?

How does an image like this constitute ‘good news’ (3:18)?

Why did John attack Herod in this way?  How could he have justified staying quiet?

Should Christian preachers call out public figures and leaders on questions of immorality today?

Is it a tragedy that John’s ministry is cut short by his imprisonment in this way?