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Advent Quiet Day on John the Baptist Saturday 13 December at ElsieshieldsSecond AddressIn the first talk on John the Baptist we spent some time thinking together about John the Baptist’s early life and then looked at his ethical teaching. When we consider what he has to say about social justice and morality we find that John’s message is absolutely relevant and directly challenging to our world today. In this second address we shall focus instead on the ministry of baptism that John came to bring, and his spirituality. John the Baptist came to offer a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. You are one of a great many in a crowd who have been drawn to this region to hear what John the Baptist has to say. As you get nearer the River Jordan you find John is standing up to his waist in the river as one by one those who are being baptised wade out to him. He spends a moment or two reminding each person what the action of baptism signifies. Then as a sign of repentance, John would put his hand on the initiate’s shoulders and immerse them fully in the water. I’m trying to get your imagination to work a bit here. The practice of full immersion in water is the symbolism that underlies the understanding of Christian baptism today, namely the idea of a going down into the water in an act of dying, then emerging from the water in a life shared in union with the Risen Christ. When we look at John’s baptism, however, we must not invest it with a symbolism which is as rich or profound as sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ. John’s baptism precedes all that. Quite simply, what John was offering was a baptism of repentance. It may be helpful to consider what lies behind the meaning of “repentance”, when this is used in the New Testament. The New Testament was written in Greek, and the word that is used for repentance is the word “metanoia” The best way to describe this is that it means a complete change of heart. Put radically, in terms of movement, it suggests the kind of direction that is involved in a 180 degree turn. It’s as if we have been travelling north all the time and then realise that we should have been journeying due south. Baptism, then, for John the Baptist, was no mere formalistic ritual. It marked in reality the most decisive action in a person’s life. It meant much more than simply saying sorry to God for past sins. It was a radical change of direction turning the whole of one’s future life to God who was the source of all truth and goodness. The climax of John’s ministry of baptism was, of course, the baptism by John of Jesus Himself. This was the moment when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove and Jesus’ Sonship of the Father is confirmed. “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” It seems though, if you read behind the lines of St Matthew’s record of this incident, is that he and other early Christian writers were quite sensitive about what this implied. John, recall, offered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, so why was Jesus coming forward to receive this? Did this mean that He too along with the rest of us needed to repent of sin? You will see the reason for St Matthew’s prickliness on this issue because one of the tenets of the gospel tradition has always been that Jesus Himself was without sin. He was a lamb without blemish, as it were, when He offered up His life on the Cross. So we may suspect St Matthew is being a little bit coy when he makes explicit the dilemma. He writes, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptised by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me? The answer Jesus gives him is “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” But here we leave the first 3 evangelists and now turn to the record that St John provides of John the Baptist. Perhaps more than the other gospel writers, the intention of the writer of the Fourth Gospel was to keep the importance of John the Baptist safely in check , so that Jesus appeared in the spotlight throughout. There is a puzzling little bit in the Prologue to St John’s Gospel. You know the piece, one of the best known of all the passages in the Bible, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God etc.” Well here in the central section of the Prologue which celebrates the Eternal Word existing beyond time taking flesh in the Person of Jesus, we are made aware of the connection between Jesus the Word, and John the Baptist. “There was a man sent from God,” St John tells us, “whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.” I referred a moment ago to the puzzling bit of the Prologue and this is it, why does the writer of the Fourth Gospel need to assert here that John the Baptist himself was not the light, he was merely the witness to the light? There are commentators on the New Testament who have drawn attention to the fact that there may have been certain Christian communities who were overplaying the role of John the Baptist in the Christian story, and on this interpretation, John the Evangelist was setting the record straight, maintaining a sharp distinction between the herald, God’s Forerunner, and the Word made flesh Himself. What is known more specifically is that there was a sect in Iraq connected with Mandaean Christians, who celebrated their connection with John the Baptist and his importance in the Christian tradition. Now it is not known whether some were going so far as to base their faith on John the Baptist himself, rather than Jesus, but there is certainly this evidence that John the Baptist was a figure of special importance to them. If they were overplaying the significance of John the Baptist in the Christian tradition then this may be why St John the Evangelist makes this seemingly pointed assertion, “he was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.” A lot hangs on how strong the original Greek is here in its context, and we are starting to move down the road of speculation if we become overconfident and assert with too much certainty what were John the Evangelist’s exact original motives. In the final section of this address I want us to consider what John the Baptist has to teach us about spirituality. John the Baptist was clearly an enigmatic figure to the Jewish authorities and a delegation was sent from Jerusalem to ask him about his true identity. Was he Elijah, was he the prophet or even the Christ? John was unequivocal in his response and told them no. Who was he then? John the Baptist told them that he was simply the voice of one crying in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord”. Quite simply, John the Baptist did not harbour any illusions that his importance was greater than it actually was. He seems content to regard himself simply as a herald who would proclaim the coming of the Kingdom. I think that John the Baptist acts a little bit in the New Testament narrative like a signpost. We find Jesus Himself approaching John and what does John say and do? He says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” and what he does in saying this is to point away from himself to Jesus who had come into the world as the Christ. Here John the Baptist surely provides us with insights concerning our own relationship with God, and suggests that our own focus should also be Christ-centred. John the Baptist actually casts himself in his relationship to Jesus in the form of a slave or a servant. He is not worthy, he maintains, even to untie the strap of Jesus’ sandals. Putting it more symbolically, whilst John has baptised with water, Jesus, the Anointed One of God, would baptise with the Holy Spirit. The relationship between John and Jesus is, if you like, a little bit like the moon and the sun. During the hours of darkness the moon casts its far paler light over the earth. With daybreak, however, the moon all but disappears and we live in the light and warmth of the sun. The moon, in fact, serves as an image of John the Baptist in more ways than one. Not only does it offer a contrasting image to the sun, but it also goes each month through its lunar cycles. The moon, we observes grows full. It waxes, so we say. Then it gradually reduces in size until only the faintest crescent is visible. When it is diminishing in size in this way we say it is waning. This is just how John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel regards his own ministry in relation to that of Jesus. His own ministry in the New Testament record is almost complete. Now that the Bridegroom has come it is principally a time of rejoicing, and as the friend of the bridegroom he can only celebrate the fact that the day now belongs to the bridegroom himself. So John says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Here, therefore, in a nutshell, John the Baptist again shows us how relevant he is to us if we are seeking to nourish ourselves within a framework of a Christian spirituality. “He must increase, but I must decrease”. This is how we grow in God if our lives become more Christ-centred. We are not too far from the spirituality of St Paul here too where St Paul declares, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” We can learn a great deal from John the Baptist therefore, and if in our lives we are content to point to God rather than ourselves we will not go so far wrong. So the figure we focus on today to inspire us in our prayers and meditations is John the Baptist. I have always been fascinated by this New Testament character because he has as much to say to us in the 21st century as he ever had in the 1st century of the Christian era. In the next two weeks leading up to Christmas you may wish to take the time out to consider the teaching and spirituality of John the Baptist in more depth, and if you do this, John’s purpose will have been well served, because he aimed that when the Lord came he would find a people prepared. I shall close with the words of Jesus Himself, in his own estimation of John the Baptist. “What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who are gorgeously apparelled and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.” |