Birth of John the Baptist
John the Baptist is a key figure in the Biblical stories of Jesus Christ. According to the Gospels, John's role was to announce the coming of Jesus: John's gospel, the Baptist tells interrogators, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord.'" According to Matthew, he wore clothing made of camel's hair and ate locusts and wild honey, and baptized people in the river Jordan. (It was after being baptized by John that Jesus was led to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.) John later was executed by the ruler Herod; as told in Matthew chapter 14, Herod granted the demand of Salome to "give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter."
In Christian tradition, John is the only figure (apart form Jesus himself) who is honoured with a feast both for his birth and for his death. Today, June 24th, we celebrate the feast of his birth; on August 29th, we celebrate the feast of the beheading of John the Baptist. This demonstrates the enormous status of the Baptist in the early Church.
All four Gospels put a stress on John the Baptist fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah which we read about in to day's first reading. This seems to have been John's own view of his mission and role. "And now the Lord has spoken, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant..."This prophesy is echoed by the Baptist's father, Zechariah. He addresses his infant son with the following words: "As for you little child, you shall be called a prophet of God the most high; you shall go ahead to the Lord to prepare his ways before him;"
As the Church grew, it claimed John the Baptist as its own. Many Christians probably came to Jesus through John. In all probability John had already built up a considerable following long before Jesus began his public ministry. He had been an itinerant preacher, working in the desert on the shores of the Dead Sea. John initiated his followers into his religious group through a 'baptism of repentance', one of the many purification rites belonging to a Jewish monastic group called the Essenes. Jesus comes along to John and submits to his baptism. It is probably at this point that John redirected his following towards Jesus, with the words, 'He must increase and I must decrease'. I am the lamp, not the light. The messenger fades; the message abides forever. He prepares the way for the Lord. He begins his life as a prophet and ends his life among the highest ranking witness we have: the martyrs.
So the gospels show John as a model Christian. The Church has always seen in John a means of setting out its own part in the preparation of the way of the Lord. John the Baptist is an image of the Church as a herald, proclaiming the good news of Jesus to the world, often too a voice crying in the wilderness.
The wilderness was the setting for John the Baptist, the prophet. As a prophet, John was courageously able to speak the word of God to the people of his generation. He was not part of the system of government or the establishment. On the contrary, he kept independent of it and was prepared to denounce its excesses. This resulted in his arrest and execution. John the Baptist calls us to work for social justice in our world today. We have to be prepared to stand back from human institutions. We must withdraw to the metaphorical wilderness in order to see clearly the message, the values of news.
Even so, what will happen will be unexpected. John had to change his attitudes because the Messiah who came was not what he anticipated. "Are you the one who is to come or wait we for another?" he sent his disciples to ask from prison. Go and tell John what you have seen: "The blind see, deaf hear, lame walk, lepers cleansed, and the poor have the good news preached to them. John came preaching repentance and the need for moral rectitude. Jesus came, healing and extending mercy to all and sundry. The compassion of God is boundless.
We will finish with the high estimation Jesus himself had of John:
As they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, "What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: 'Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way before you.' Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist;"
There is no higher endorsement of any human being in all the scriptures that that. We are lamps reflecting the light of Christ. In this way the Church becomes a beacon of hope for the whole world.