Luke is forcing us to reinterpret the meaning of John the Baptist, away from a prophet of doom, and toward a moral instructor. Luke is also forcing us to reinterpret the idea of the day of the Lord, away from an apocalyptic, immanent reality, toward an ongoing shift from the inside. Mark’s (and Matthew’s) account of the preaching of John the Baptist aims at the immediate arrival of the messiah, who will overturn the status quo. There is an element of fear in what he is preaching. The motivation for attending to his preaching is to escape the coming wrath.