It’s thought that John the Baptist entered the desert as a hermit after the death of his parents. We recall how Elizabeth and Zechariah were an aged couple when they conceived, birthed, and raised their only son. Once he was grown and they had gone to God, he was as it were free to enter the wilderness to be alone.
And there, alone in the wilderness, he has the religious experience which is common to all the prophets: the Word of God came to him. But it’s all a bit in-house, a bit ethereal, this profound religious experience which is given to just one person in obscurity. How do we get a hold of this ourselves without suspending our usual critical eye and sound reason? How do we make this real for our family and friends who don’t share our faith?
Luke gives us three groundings to help us grasp John’s religious experience for ourselves.
Firstly, he gives us some history. Luke prefaces John’s appearing in the wilderness with the names of seven people who were prominent at that time. These coalesce to give us a range of historical dates, roughly AD 28 or 29. History is one of our verifiers. Often grieving families will tell a second well-known story to ground a first one. A similar thing is going on here: people well-known to history are turned into important witnesses to the historical event of John’s receiving the Word of God.
Secondly, Luke gives us a little geography. The Word of God came to John in the wilderness, sure, but then empowered by that word John takes off into the Jordan district – not a large area on a world map but nevertheless a distinct one. John’s field of mission can be visited, stepped out. It’s not a private experience that John has: the Word of God set him to work in a place where other people came to see him. And more than this, the Jordan district is associated with the great prophet Elijah. It was there that he was taken up in a fiery chariot. And so, the Lord Jesus during his public ministry will clarify for us that John is another Elijah, the new Elijah, who was also preparing the people to worship God alone.
Thirdly, we have ancient prophecy to ground us. John didn’t change his religion after he received the Word of God. The son of a priest, he knows very well that offerings for sin are made in the Temple under the twin tyrants, Annas and Caiaphas. But here, John enacts another way of forgiveness, well apart from the Temple, which was foreseen by the prophet Isaiah. Eight centuries before John, Isaiah foreheard the voice in the wilderness: prepare the Lord’s way, make a straight way for him to come through the desert (Isa 40:3). The newness of John’s preaching is the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy: here is forgiveness without the clamour and corruption of the Temple.
Where do these groundings leave us? What do we make of John’s preaching?
They give us every reason to regard John’s preaching as historical and valid also for us. The things Luke is recounting for us actually happened in a certain time, place, and context. And so, what the prophet and the One whom he foretold tell us is pressing. John’s message of urgent repentance is one we also have to hear and heed.
The sacrament of Reconciliation is how we answer John’s call to repentance. With a little more than a fortnight left before Christmas, we have to consider how to be well-prepared for the Lord’s coming. There’s nothing we can cook that is adequate to the feast; the Lord already knows the state of the house, so don’t bother cleaning necessarily. One by one, the Lord is snatching souls to heaven and we might well be next.
All these centuries later, John is calling us to the same repentance for our misdeeds. Our sins need to be absolved, washed away in God’s mercy by the Blood of the Lamb.
Thanks to our knowledge of history, geography, and prophecy, we know John truly received the Word of God. He truly preached the coming of Christ and the need for repentance to prepare. His voice, the message of urgent repentance, resounds once again in the Church and all the world.
Fr Paul Rowse, OP
Parish Priest
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