Advent's Third Sunday Burns...

*What might Luke 3.7-18 sound/look like today?

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The video has gone crazy viral, like Susan Boyle viral.  It has passed a million views in only a few days.  It is known online only as John.  The rough footage captures a man on a dusky hillside with the muted lights of a city in the background.  He looks like Viggo Mortensen's character from that new movie The Road.  And he is screaming.

You arrogant bastards!  You think this economic downturn is bad?  Hell and death are coming to eat your children while you're perched on the Tweet deck.  You're a fatherless generation that's constantly seeking the hard edges of a sign.  Well here's your sign.

The dusk is cut with a point of light as John raises a lit cigarette lighter above his head.

You don't give a damn but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

John stops screaming and the camera comes close.  It is now only a whisper.

Be good to one another.  You have to carry the fire.  He is coming.

And then the moment that no doubt slacks the voyeur's thirst. John lowers the cigarette lighter and sets his feet ablaze.  He must have soaked himself prior in some kind of accelerant; the man becomes a literal ball of fire in the span of a breath.  Finally, mercifully, his face is engulfed; his visage is transfigured, now an angel of flame.  John cries one final time.

He is coming.