No longer preparing the way! Matthew 3:1-12

Matthew 3:1-12 Gospel reading for Sunday 5th December 2010

Since this is an almost identical parallel reading to the one for this time last year, we will not go back over the same ground (see Gospel reflections on Luke 3:1-6 and the following week Luke 3:7-18).

I want to simply run with what comes to mind here for us now. Is there anything that we can learn from this reading that speaks to us about our role in Lutheran Schools for the second decade in the first century of the third millennium?

There is a sense in which we are the John the Baptists of this era. We are the people who are crying in the desert. In many ways our schools operate in a spiritual wilderness. While we are very much an integral part of our society, it is a society that has in the main chosen to walk away from God.

Yet while our catch-cry is still arguably similar, it should however ring out with a very different chorus line.  While the people then were grappling with the question "Is this Jesus the real Messiah?" ... we have the significant advantage of seeing "runs on the board" (with the score pasted above the empty cross and tomb.) We are no longer preparing the way! We can proclaim the good news that Jesus, Son of God, has already come and is with us now ... no more waiting, its all a done deal!

Praise His holy name!

Nev