Kingdom Prayer: The Gospel of Luke With N.T. WrightSample

The Benedictus, sung about John the Baptist by his father, lays out John’s vocation as the one to go before Jesus preparing the way. Luke uses clear echoes of Old Testament passages in which God tells a prophet to prepare the way since God is coming afterwards. First century Jewish readers would hear this and recognise Luke setting Jesus up in the role of God. This sets up Jesus’s later dealings in Jerusalem as exactly what it looks like when the Lord comes to his temple.

So where do we see the themes of the Magnificat in John’s ministry?

Even the way Luke sets up this passage highlights the reversals summarised in the Magnificat. We start with a list of all the great rulers of the day and then contrast them with John, a lowly man. Guess who receives God’s word.

We get the sense that some may have thought God’s wrath was just in the past. John puts them straight, warning that wrath is very much present for those living carelessly and unconcerned with God’s mission. Simply claiming the pedigree of Abraham isn’t enough. The covenant must be lived. The powerful can’t behave on their own terms and just get away with it.

At the same time as John’s message is one of warning, his baptism is one of forgiveness, but not only in the individualistic sense we think of it as today. In the context of his hearers, this forgiveness would have to do with Jubilee, the concept instituted in the Torah of periodic reset. John is declaring that this time has now come. In a symbolic re-enactment of the Exodus, the people undergo communal rescue, take on God’s forgiveness, and then embody its mission in the world.

To their credit, the crowds ask for specific actions to undertake. John’s answer is exactly in line with the Magnificat vision of Judgement and Mercy. Generosity. Basic social care for the outcast. All of this requires personal and communal sacrifice. It’s a call to organise society in a way that allows us to do this basic thing more effectively. Crucially, this is not the final stage of this call. John cautiously directs his followers into what amounts to a holding pattern. He doesn’t command the tax collectors and soldiers to leave their jobs, knowing this might cause undue social unrest, but instead commands them to continue as ethically as possible, not giving in to the temptations of power and money. Jesus will come later with a deeper command and a greater call to die to the self.

Reflection:

What kinds of people does John the Baptist (and Luke as narrator) emphasise in his warnings? What kinds of warnings are given? What does this indicate about God’s Kingdom?