Friday of the Fourth
Week of Advent
(Malachi 3:1-4.23-24; Luke 1:57-66)
In Luke’s gospel John the Baptist clearly takes the place of
Elijah, the prophet of fire. At one point, John warns the people that unless
they reform, they will be cut down like trees and burned. In this way John goes before the Lord, as his
father Zechariah proclaims in his song of jubilation at his naming, “to prepare
his ways.”
Jesus will not take up John’s message of the primacy of divine
wrath. Rather, his preaching will center
on God as the human’s benefactor.
Although Jesus will not shrink from mentioning God’s power to cast
sinners into hell, he will stress God’s tender mercy. God, he will say, has counted the number of
hairs on each faithful person’s head to insure her or his total salvation.
Since love can be looked upon as a kind of fire, we might contrast
John’s theme with Jesus’ using the same image.
Fire can destroy dispassionately as well as purify with all
compassion. John, following Elijah, will
use the threat if not the force of a blazing fire to warn us of the danger that
dissolute living incurs. In contrast God’s
love, incarnate in Jesus, burns like a surgeon’s laser beam not harming but
healing us.
