Word to the Wise
Sunday, June 24, 2007 - Nativity of John the Baptist
[Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80]John heralded his [Jesus] coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel; and as John was completing his course, he would say, 'What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.'
The birthday of John the Baptist is important enough to displace regular Sunday scriptures! Not even the birthday of the Blessed Mother (September 8) can do that! So, the feast commands some attention! The biblical mathematics determines the date. At the annunciation, the angel says Elizabeth is in "her sixth month." Since the church decided to celebrate Christmas on December 25, that settled the date of the celebration of the annunciation: March 25 (nine months earlier!) and the birthday of John the Baptist, June 24! After going through all that, one wonders why all the fuss? It seems clear from the gospels that John the Baptist was a very well-known figure. There is some evidence that Jesus may have even been a disciple of John's at some point before beginning his own public ministry. When John was imprisoned, we are told that he sent emissaries to ask Jesus about his (Jesus') ministry! John's own ministry was that of a preacher of reform and repentance within Jewish tradition. He practiced a form of water baptism which seemed to have continued somehow since we read in Acts of households that believed in Jesus but had received only the baptism of John! The Gospel of Luke structures the early chapters to show great parallels and similarities between Jesus and John but in each case, Jesus comes out on top! Yet Jesus speaks of him in this way: "Of man born of woman there is none greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he! The early church continued to venerate him as the last of the great prophets and the precursor of Jesus. Wearing animal skins and eating wild locusts and honey, etc. made John an eccentric figure. But his efforts to proclaim the coming Messiah remain a challenge to all of us on two levels. First, that proclamation may come to us in an unusual person or manner. Second, what are we doing individually and as a community to spread the word? AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
63 ms
4
