Brief synopsis of the readings: The prophet Zephaniah speaks in the first reading. He proclaims that the “Lord has removed the judgment against you” and “you have no further misfortune to fear.” Furthermore God “will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals.” Our Gospel comes from Luke and describes John the Baptist teaching the crowds. When asked what is expected of them, John commands them to share their surplus with those who do now have enough. Tax collectors were told to “[s]top collecting more than what is prescribed” and soldiers were ordered not to “practice extortion,” and not to falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.” The crowd was pleased with this and asked if John might be the Messiah. John quickly denied this. “[O]ne mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.”

We are well into the season of Advent and we continue our tour of Old Testament prophets who proclaim the end of their exile. The return from exile appears to have caused a near blizzard of writing to celebrate this and much of it appears to have found its way into our Scripture. This makes sense on a few levels: times of great suffering and times of great joy tend to create literature. Suffering causes a society to reflect on its core values and future with an eye to survival. Celebration causes a society to revel in feelings of security and love. Both are worthy of a documented record.

But let’s move to Luke, and I promise to return to Zephaniah.

I’ve said this before but we find in John a character that fascinates us much beyond the words he is given in Scripture. Perhaps only the mother of Jesus provides us with more fascination with fewer words.

Today’s scene can only be described as astounding. Jesus spends much of his ministry teaching social justice and is roundly criticized or ignored. Here John tells tax collectors and soldiers to stop abusing their offices and they actually listen to him. And while it’s easy to pile on these two groups, they really weren’t bad as they look here.

Tax collectors were tasked with collecting taxes, but often had to make their living on collecting more than they were required to turn in. Their profit was often seen as extortion and tax collectors were often paired with sinners. Certainly some were greedier than others but none of them were well thought of. Soldiers were seen as foreign invaders who relished in bullying the locals and stealing what they could. But they were often conscripts from other parts of the Roman Empire who really didn’t relish being there at all. Some of them bided their time and others took advantage of their power but none of them were there voluntarily.

And yet (according to this reading) they liked what they heard. Perhaps John spoke to the better angels of their nature. Perhaps he spoke words that made their time among the Jews more palatable. Regardless, John spoke compelling words.

Given that, we can see how the listeners looked to John as the “Christ,” the “anointed one.” And we can imagine how tempting it must have been for John to get caught up in their enthusiasm. Most of us will never experience great crowds proclaiming us “the one who is to come” but I think we can agree it would be hard to have the wisdom to dissuade them. Our history explodes with those who got caught up in the swell of pledges of support and love and see these swells as affirmation of ourselves as the Messiah.

My respect for John lies in the reality that he was not swept away by the enthusiasm of his followers. At the point where he could have easily built a cult of personality, at the point where he could have advanced his own brand, he took a step back.

Against much of human nature and natural ambition, he reminded his followers of who he was. He told his gatherers that he was not “the one.” He explained that his role was simply this: to proclaim the entrance of one who is greater.

John knew who he was. He knew he was not the Messiah, not the Christ. But he knew that he had an important role to play in our salvation history. We revere John because he didn’t elevate his role but he also didn’t diminish it. He knew that his role was to raise awareness and focus the light elsewhere. He knew that his place in history was best done by letting Jesus take the main role because only Jesus could redeem us. If John had proclaimed himself the Christ (as those around him encouraged him to do), none of us would recognize the names of either John or Jesus. And in much the same way we wouldn’t be the people we are had John not done his job.

And, ironically, this loops back to Zephaniah. He and, the other post exile prophets, proclaim a message that we find hard to hear.

The idea of guilt/punishment/redemption confounds us even to this day. For all that is good about us we still have the capacity for sin, and we still struggle with the place it has in our life. Are we judged by the best of our actions, the worst of our actions, or the average of the two?

When the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Egypt in the Book of Exodus, God clearly demanded that they live in a way that was worthy of their exodus. Clearly they didn’t. Much of the Old Testament tells the story of how they did well and how they did poorly. When they were conquered by the Babylonians they saw this as punishment from God. When Babylon was conquered by Persia they saw this as redemption from God.

But what now? Zephaniah clearly tells us that their punishment was over but I think this reading speaks to us today because we have a hard time truly believing this. God speaks through Zephaniah and tells us that we are forgiven. His words can’t be clearer: “The Lord has removed the judgment against you.” But we still find it hard to accept this forgiveness.

The community that Zephaniah wrote to may have had difficulty accepting that their exile was at an end, but God knew they would live their best lives if they knew who they were. They were, first and foremost, a people chosen by God with no explanation why it was them and not someone else. They were a people who had, at best, a mixed history of faithfulness to the God who had chosen them. And they were a people with a future in God’s love.

And so are we. We get ourselves into trouble when we don’t know who we are. We get ourselves into trouble when we think our success was self made and believe only the best things we hear about ourselves. But we also get ourselves into trouble when we believe only the worst things about ourselves and think God choose poorly when we were chosen.

I spoke about this last week but it bears repeating: God doesn’t hold grudges and doesn’t keep a tally of forgiven sins in case we keep committing the same sins.

Advent is soon coming to an end but let us spend these last few weeks recognizing that we are who we are because of (and only because of) God’s love and that this love allows us to be who we are called to be, even on our worst days.