Out of the Wilderness

The wilderness appears in many stories, also translated as desert. It’s a place where intense things happen, and it often symbolizes isolation from God or a need for spiritual sustenance. There is a longing and a searching that’s implied. During Advent, people talk about repentance as a way to prepare for the coming of Christ. And in the second week of Advent we usually read a passage about John the Baptist, because it is said that he preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, preparing the way of the Lord. Some toxic forms of Christianity use this word “repentance” as a weapon against us, but let’s break down what the word actually means. It’s not about shame or self-flagellation, it is more about counteracting the feeling of isolation from God. 

Baptism has its roots in Jewish ritual practices, such as ceremonial washings for purification. Typically, the Hebrew equivalent is translated as “repentance”, but it literally means “return”, as if turning back to something you've strayed from or looked away from. God’s love is like the sun, it doesn’t waver or change, but as humans we often do turn away. Repentance is about turning back. About realizing that our deepest desires for our lives are not different from God’s deepest desires. God wants to hold us in our struggles, and sees that even our worst choices are usually made out of fear or pain- a need for connection and hope. 

In the classic Disney rendition of Robin Hood from 1973, there is a character who is a snake, and his name is Hiss. He is a servant of Prince John, who claims to be the king while his brother is away. Prince John regularly wacks Hiss on the head when he is frustrated and the snake says, “Thank you, Sire” afterward. But one time Hiss ducks as Prince John’s fist is coming down on his head and the Prince is outraged. He says, “Hiss, you deliberately dodged.” Our family thought this was hilarious when the kids were younger and we quote it often. You deliberately dodged. The Prince thinks he has the right to wack someone on the head whenever he feels like it. And for him, it’s utter insolence when someone tries to avoid his fist. As he’s raging about Robin Hood says, “I’ll show him who wears the crown.” It’s a reflection of the arrogance of power and its demand for us to take punishment we don’t deserve.

I couldn’t help but think of this scene when I read our passage this week because John the Baptist says to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Which sounds a lot like, “Hiss, you deliberately dodged.” He calls the people who have come to be baptized by him, the offspring of snakes. These are people who have come to turn toward God, and away from sin, but it is a particularly surprising group of people for John. Among them were tax collectors and soldiers, people who worked for the Romans. The tax collectors and the soldiers were people who had aligned themselves with the imperial power structure. At first it sounds like John the Baptist is like Prince John, saying how dare you escape your punishment, but actually he’s flipping that concept on its head. He’s rooting for them, he’s saying, you people are waking up to the consequences of participating in injustice. There is a coming wrath for those who align themselves with empire. If you don’t want to get the consequences of injustice, you have to stop serving those who are so willing to be unjust. You reap what you sow. Produce good fruit or the farmer will throw you into the fire. He isn’t rebuking Hiss for dodging, he’s saying, Hiss stop hanging out with Prince John, you can see that he’s wrong but it's coming back to wack you on the head. You’re feeding the flames of injustice by serving him. If what you serve doesn’t contribute to life then it will lead to death, not because God is vengeful but because that’s what happens. When you align yourself with injustice, even if it is out of fear or self-preservation, you become the victim of injustice.

So they ask well what can we do? And he says stop doing that stuff. Stop extorting money from people, impoverishing and falsely accusing them of things because you are aligned with power. John doesn’t condemn them, he sees that they are people worthy of redemption just like everybody else. They are people who are metaphorically lost in the wilderness, and John offers them a way out.