When is the last time you held a winnowing fan in your hand? What does it even look like? How as it used? And how is it good news that John prophesies that the Messiah is coming to separate the wheat from the chaff by using a winnowing fan?
First, a winnowing fan could be either a type of basket weaving in a fan shape, or a type of pitch fork. The idea was to go to the threshing floor where all the newly cut wheat stalks would be gathered after being cut from the field. Threshing was the process of separating the kernels from the wheat stalks by pounding them, say, with a rock. Once the kernels were separated from the stalks, then the workers would pull out the wheat stalks from the batch of what was left. Then the workers would dig into the remaining mixture of wheat and chaff (or straw) and toss the batch into the air. For this part of the process to work, there had to be a goodly breeze happening because the breeze would carry off the lighter chaff, leaving the wheat kernels to fall to the ground.
This is the image John the Baptist uses to describe the coming of the Messiah. What are we being told here?
Remember that John had been telling the people to repent for the
So, in effect, John is telling us that the coming Messiah would usher in the Kingdom of God where what has been sifted and found worthy will be included, whereas the unworthy will not be included.
How is this Good News? And why is this Gospel selection combined with the joy and happiness of the readings from Zephaniah and that famous passage of Paul in his Letter to the Philippians? Where is the joy in knowing we will be sifted and found to be either worthy or unworthy of the Messiah?
Here’s the answer: this image is a message of joy because it helps us understand the difficult moments in life. Don’t be thinking that this is an image about the saved and the dammed. This, rather, is the way life is. We have our splendid times and we have our terrible times. We have our times of nobility and our times of sin. Sometimes we feel like we have been picked up and tossed into the air – by the winds of temptation, or the winds of trials that leave us exhausted, or by the headwinds of sorrow, loss, pain, illness or grief. These times are times of sifting in our lives, times of conversion, and times of great grace. In other words, what seems to be a difficult moment in life is actually a great grace!
A time of difficulty is, yes, a time of great testing; but it is also a time of great blessing. What is truly valuable in our soul, in our character, is tested to see if we have enough virtue, enough stamina, enough heft, that the core substance of who we really are, stays put while the meaningless, the worthless, and the useless elements of our lives are taken away by the wind.
The Messiah, the Christ, is coming into our lives to set us free from being the mixed bag, the mix of good and evil, from the confusion of not knowing if we are hot or cold, from mediocrity, from selling our souls for the sake of greed, or our abuse of power or our selfishness.
So, “rejoice in the Lord always! I shall say it again: rejoice!”
We have no reason to be afraid or anxious. Even when what seems to be the worst comes upon us, “On that day, it shall be said:
Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love,
It is our deep down conviction as Christians that assures us that even when bad things happen, the Lord is still in charge and is using his winnowing fan to purify us. So, “have no anxiety. The Lord is near.”
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