He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire

 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.'  For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.  And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.  Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

- Matthew 3:7-12

In yesterday's reading we were given the beginning of Matthew's Gospel, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and the beginning of chapter 3, the mission of John the Baptist, heralding the fulfillment of prophecy -- the advent of the kingdom and the Christ.   The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:  Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.  Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram.  Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon.  Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king.  David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.  Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa.  Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah.  Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah.  Hezekiah begot Manassah, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah.  Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.  And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor.  Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud.  Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob.  And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.  So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations. . . . From chapter 3:  In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"  For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying:  "The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  'Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.'" Now John himself was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.  Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"  The Sadducees were members of the high-priestly and landowning class.  They controlled the temple and the internal political affairs of the Jews.  They did not accept the resurrection of the dead, and they had no messianic hope beyond this life, as my study bible describes the party.  The Pharisees were a formation of lay religious movement; theirs was centered on the study of the Law and on the strict observance of its regulations and what was called the tradition of the elders, a "code" built up around the Law.  They did believe in the resurrection of the dead and cherished a messianic hope.  But theirs was a righteousness attained by works according to the Law.  In their expectation, the Messiah would be purely a glorious man.  The Baptist calls them "brood of vipers" here, which Jesus will also use for them later on (12:34, 23:33).   It's an indication of their deception and malice, also connecting them to the influence of Satan.  As used here by John in this particular context, it's a scathing indictment of the practices and perceived corruption of the leadership.

"Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.'  For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.  And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees."  My study bible says that repentance, confession, and baptism lead to fruits worthy of repentance.  That is, a way of life which is consistent with the Kingdom of God (see Galatians 5:22-25).  If a fruitful life doesn't follow, then sacramental acts and spiritual discipline are of no use.  In many icons of the Baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan, there is an ax pictured chopping a fruitless tree.  (See. for example, the lower left corner of this icon.)  John echoes the words of the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew (in yesterday's reading, above), reminding the leadership that genealogy is not enough for salvation.  John's warning here is a play on words:  from these stones (Hebrew 'ebanim) God can raise up children (Hebrew banim).  God will not admit fruitless children into His house, my study bible says, but adopts other children from the Gentiles.

"Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."  My study bible reminds us that Christ baptizes in the fire of the Holy Spirit, the power and grace of God divinely poured out on all believers at baptism.  In John's culture, it notes, a slave would carry the sandals of the king.  John here is declaring himself to be even lower than a slave of Jesus.  His inability to carry Christ's sandal has another meaning as well, because carrying another's sandal once meant taking someone else's responsibility (Ruth 4:7).  Here we're being told that John could not have carried the responsibility that Christ carries, and that the Law could not redeem the world as Christ has come to do.  Winnowing the threshed grain from the chaff is separating what is useful and healthy for human beings from what is not.  The chaff would be burned in common practice.   Winnowing is a metaphor for divine judgment, which will separate good from evil.

In these last verses spoken by John the Baptist, we're given several images of fire.  He first speaks of the trees which do not bear good fruit.  John says that every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  It's a warning to the religious leadership if they fail themselves to produce fruits worthy of repentance.  They are not above such a command, even as descendants of Abraham.  This is a fire that burns what is not useful to a purpose, what is "not good."  Then John uses another image of fire, one in an entirely positive sense.  That is the fire with which Christ will baptize, together with the Holy Spirit.   In the next sentence, he returns to the image of the burning and even unquenchable fire, which burns the chaff, an image of hell fire.  To us these images of fire which are positive and negative seem contradictory.  But John's images, given together, correctly give us a picture of God's love as energy.  It is a fire which both consumes and purifies, taking away that which is not good, burning what is evil, and purifying in its baptism.  These images of fire give us the true picture of hell, which is not a place but a state of mind, depending entirely on our orientation toward this holy fire of baptism and the Holy Spirit:  we are either going to be transformed and purified in that fire -- and therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, or we are going to resist its energies and therefore feel its burn.   To stand in this flame is to attune to its energy or to be at odds with it.  And lest we forget, flame is akin to light.  The metaphors for light in the Gospels frequently are those of oil lamps that burn with a flame that illuminates or gives light.  See, for example, Jesus' comparison of His followers to lamps meant to be put upon lampstands in the Sermon on the Mount (5:14-16).  Those whom He calls the light of the world are those who  partake in this holy fire, sharing it with the world by burning with it openly to illuminate all that is around them.  Ultimately, fire is an image of energy; that is, of God's energies at work in the world and in us.  As used by John it is a question of faith as to whether or not we will burn with this energy and so illuminate as a lamp or simply be consumed by its power through our failure to embrace it.  In the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, given in Matthew 25, the wise are those who remember to carry oil for their lamps; the foolish those who do not.  "Oil" in the Greek sounds the same as the word for mercy, also indicating the fruits worthy of repentance that come from acceptance of the energies of God which are mercy, the fire of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Notably, in chapter 25, this parable is followed by the parable of the Talents (also teaching about fruitfulness) and a description of Judgment.   John the Baptist speaks of the fire of God, which the Christ will give as baptism to the world.  How do we accept these energies?  Do we allow them to illuminate us, and share them with the world?  Can we stand in that truth and allow it to burn away what is not useful nor digestible nor good and healthy for us?   How do you see by that light of illumination and partake of it?  The saints have been spoken of as beings who are all fire, notably from the example that Jesus Himself gives in His statement to the leadership about John the Baptist as witness to His truth (John 5:31-35).  Jesus says of John, "He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light."  Let us consider how we, too, may become such a lamp, burning and shining, bearing light as witness to truth, being made of the same substance as the flame whose fuel is mercy and whose effect is true justice.