The word “repentance” has become familiar to us. We repent simply because we are supposed to. We repent of many sins, but does our life change as a result? If we bear no fruits of repentance, we may safely apply to ourselves the Baptist’s words about a “brood of vipers” and the “axe laid to the root of the trees.” It is clear what fruits tax collectors and soldiers should bear. But what if we belong to neither group? What are we to do?

To understand this, we need to work seriously on ourselves, pay attention to our lives, and resolve to live differently. Then the possibility opens before us of being baptized with the Spirit and fire and of following the beloved Son, and we may hope to hear the cherished words: “In you I am well pleased!”

What city is being spoken of here? Of course, first of all Jerusalem, for Zephaniah addresses its inhabitants directly. Yet one gets the impression that not only Jerusalemites are being discussed here, and it is hardly by chance that prophecies of retribution for the sins of the Judeans alternate with rebukes of their pagan neighbors. So we can apparently apply what is said both to the former and to the latter.

But precisely for this reason it is useful once again to reflect: is the prophet addressing only his contemporaries, or do his words also refer to people of other ages, right up to our own time? Around us even today we can see the same lawlessness as thousands of years ago, and not only see it! We ourselves have more than once taken part in it, so even now woe to the sinful and defiled city...

But even after the prophecy has announced the coming outpouring of the fury of the Lord's wrath, we hear an astonishing promise of pure lips that will be given to all peoples so that they may praise the Creator. In His wrath the Lord destroys every impurity, but He also cleanses from it all who turn to Him. Before us is an important witness: the sentence against a sinful people can be canceled if the people leave the paths of wickedness.

Today's reading brings us back once again to the figure of John the Baptist. Here again we encounter the different visions of the evangelists Matthew and Luke, this time regarding John's ministry. Unlike Matthew, Luke, in addition to the general content of the prophet's preaching (vv. 3-9), also mentions the advice John gave to people of different professions and social groups (vv. 10-14). This advice differed in different cases, but it also had something in common: all of it, in one way or another, was connected with the question of keeping the commandments given by God. Clearly, when John recalls Isaiah's words about the need to "prepare the way of the Lord" (v. 4), he has in mind first of all the importance of following the Torah. It would seem that there was nothing fundamentally new in such an appeal: all the Old Testament prophets spoke about this. Yet there was also something unusual in John's activity.

It is no accident that the evangelist's account mentions tax collectors ("publicans") and soldiers (vv. 12, 14). Both groups were outcasts in Jewish society in Gospel times. Publicans were seen as collaborators, working with the occupiers and robbing their own people. As for the soldiers, the reference here is probably to Roman soldiers who were either pagans, which is improbable, or proselytes, former pagans who had converted to Judaism. The social position of such proselytes was rather ambiguous: they were not considered full members of the Jewish community, only their children became such, while to their fellow tribesmen they were outsiders, and often traitors.

John, however, evidently accepts everyone regardless of social or religious status. He obviously did not think that the coming messianic Kingdom would be given only to orthodox Jews. The way was open even to those whom the people of God considered lost, and lost forever: the publicans. For they had committed their sin consciously and freely, and from the consequences of such a sin, it was believed, one could not be cleansed, even if later the sinner sincerely repented of what he had done. God could accept his repentance, but the defilement left by the sin would rest forever on him and on his descendants.

Meanwhile John did not push away even the publicans, requiring only that after the cleansing washing ("baptism") they should no longer violate the norms of the Torah (v. 13). For him, evidently, cooperation with the Roman authorities was not as terrible a sin as it was for most of his contemporaries. But of course that was not the only point. For John, as no one else, understood that the Messiah whom he awaited and whose coming he testified to would bring into the world the Kingdom where everyone would be given the chance to begin life with a clean slate. And his own task was to prepare the people of God for this new life. A life in which, after repenting, even the most terrible sinner can share, if only he is able to accept the chief gift of the Kingdom: the gift of God's love.