When the Baptist is asked about what the people should do he immediately points to justice… and repentance… 

Justice is a basic ingredient in love. It is an expression of love.

If we try to live in a love without justice, what’ll happen? The love will break down or it’ll crucify us.

Justice is an essential part of God’s love, of the Kingdom of God, of Heaven.

This is so important on so many levels and for so many people, for us all.

And it is Good News.

It means that sickness and death do not have the last word.

The stroke, the cancer, the Motor Neurons, the MS, the disability, the dementia – whatever – does not have the last word.

But it also means that the tyrants in this world do not have the last word.

That the Hitlers of this world will not have the last word.

Think of the women who’ve disappeared in Ireland, think of their families, and their quest for justice but for whom the justice system is unable to secure a prosecution…

This horror will not be the last word and those responsible will not have the last word.

Think of the criminal gangs and their hired assassins – even if they escape justice by destroying every trace of evidence – that will not be the last word, they will not have the last word.

This Justice operating within God’s love ensures there’s a putting to rights, in ways beyond all human imagining – the closest human experience is the pain forgotten in childbirth when a child is born – a separating of sheep from goats, wheat from chaff… which is why Jesus always calls us to repentance…