Gospel Reflection on Matthew 3:1-12

December 7, 2025

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.”

Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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Advent begins with the Baptist's cry: "The kingdom of God is near." We might think of this as physical closeness, as if the kingdom is something that's not far away, and we need to move to get there. But the text actually reads "the kingdom of God is approaching." In other words, something or someone is coming to us.

Advent is not so much about us worrying about what we have to do, but an openness towards something that's drawing closer. And the something that's approaching us is unexpected. In fact, the strange appearance of the Baptist tells us that it is going to be unlike anything we've ever known.

He's pictured wearing a garment of camel's hair, leather belt, eating off the land, his food is locust and wild honey. His primitive garment recalls the clothing sown for Adam and Eve after they had made themselves naked by stripping themselves of their friendship with God.

John the Baptist is announcing a new beginning. In fact, dressed in this primitive manner, he is announcing that history is going to start over again. Creation is going to have a brand new beginning.

The truth of the fact is that God is in a sense is always creating, always putting into action our salvation, searching us out, and everything that happens to us, even the most difficult and painful aspects of our lives, are openings to salvation.

In all these things, God is knocking on the door. And even when we turn away or close our eyes or ears to what is being offered or what is being suggested or what we think we actually should be doing, it doesn't stop God.

Tomorrow God creates a new offering, a new possibility. That's the nature of God. God is always creating a new horizon, a new window, a new door.

Advent wants to transport us to a completely new beginning, a radical availability to what the future might accomplish in us, if we can be open.

There is the problem. We tend to make our own plans into a kind of destiny, future that has to unfold according to the way in which we've imagined it, to make an idol of our way of thinking. And so we remain closed to anything new. The new beginnings won't stop coming. How often does it happen that a moment of suffering or difficulty triggers a new way of life?

In these situations, often people feel helpless, as if they have no resources, as if they can't resolve the difficulty themselves. And so finally, in the end, almost against our will, we become open to what we can no longer ignore.

When John appears, it's in the desert, and he's dressed in the manner of a pilgrim. And he's inviting us to enter that desert. Let's go of what we don't need. There are many things in our lives that must be shed.

Those who have difficulty in discernment are those who are not willing to lose anything.

God is good and truthful and beautiful. So we should be ready to lose whatever is not good and truthful and beautiful, to shed what is ambiguous, be free from the chaff that doesn't bear fruit, let go of the branches that are useless.

Advent is the season to praise God who wants to do something in our lives that's good and beautiful and fruitful. And so John comes dressed as a pilgrim, inviting us to set out on a pilgrimage, to bring us into the desert, to bring us to the light of the kingdom of God.