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| John the Baptist -- triptych by Rogier van Weyden (early Flemish) |
Psalm 126 or Canticle 3 or Canticle 15
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28
John the Baptist features prominently in
the Gospel readings for Advent, and is the subject of the third Sunday’s Gospel
in all three years of the Lectionary cycle. He then reappears shortly after
Christmas on the first Sunday in Epiphany for the celebration of the Baptism of
Christ. The Lectionary thus does its utmost to drive home the key role that
John the Baptist has to play in understanding the significance of Jesus. He is
the link between the promises revealed to Israel by the prophets of the Old
Testament, and the message of salvation for “all the nations” which Christ
commissions his disciples to preach.
The image of John that these passages
paint is very much in accord with the prophetic tradition from which he springs.
Like so many of them, he is an outsider, roughly dressed, existing on a strange and meager diet,
and proclaiming his message in ‘the wilderness’, which is to say, on the edge
of human settlements, whose inhabitants must go beyond town and village limits
to hear him. He seems to fit Isaiah’s description so well -- ‘The spirit of the Lord
GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me’ -- it is only natural that
people should suppose that he might be the promised Messiah.
In this week’s Gospel they ask him outright
if he is – but he denies it, and famously points to ‘one who is coming after me’,
the thong of whose sandal, he declares, ‘I am not worthy to untie’. The true
Messiah, it turns out, is a very different kind of prophet, regularly depicted
in the heart of town life – conversing in busy streets, visiting houses, sitting at dinner
tables -- even to the point of being accused
of engaging too easily with its seedier side of urban life. His clothing, too, is fine enough to be worth wagering for.
In their depictions of John and Jesus, the
four Gospels all implicitly invite us to engage in a ‘compare and contrast’
exercise. It is one that can prove highly instructive and illuminating, especially if we dwell on the less obvious aspects.
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