Saint John the Baptist: A Prophet and more than a Prophet

Even though our Church celebrates in the month of June the feasts of St Justin the martyr, St Boniface, St Barnabas, St Anthony of Padua, St Aloysius Gonzaga, Sts Thomas More, John Fisher and other English saints, St Cyril of Alexandria, Sts Peter and Paul, among them St John the Baptist stands out as a man of great boldness and veracity. He is a prophet with difference.  He is one of the major figures of our Church whose feast we celebrate with solemnity not once but twice. First being his birthday on the 24th June another being his beheading on the 29th of August.

However, there are a number of lessons that we can draw from him.

The Virgin and Child with St John the
Baptist by Sandro Botticelli probably
about 1482-98

John the Baptist – the John the Baptizer. John was a figure of transition, precursor of the Lord “the caesura between the Period of Israel and the Period of Jesus.” He belongs to both: to the Period of Israel by circumcision and incorporation into the Israel of God; to the Period of Jesus because he inaugurates the age when salvation was to be accomplished.  John’s whole life, John’s short life, was spent going before Jesus to prepare his ways. 

Gabriel had told Zechariah to give his promised son the name John (Lk 1:13). An appropriate name, for in Hebrew it means “Yahweh is gracious.” This child would “filled with the Holy Sprit, even from his mother’s womb,” would become an ascetic of Israel, would walk “in the power and spirit of Elijah,” would turn many Israelites to their Lord. (1: 15-17)

 In his canticle Zechariah sings of his son as Yahweh’s “prophet” (1: 76), a mouthpiece of God, a man who utters God’s word with authority to human beings. In preparation, John spent his youth in the  wilderness  of Judea, “possibly the Jordan Valley.” It may be that he was adopted by the Essences of Qumran, to be molded in their ways. 

When John appeared in the region of the Jordan, what the Jews saw was not a priest like his father, but a preacher clothed in camel’s hair, the traditional garb of the prophets. What was his message?  He saw Isaiah’s “voice crying in the wilderness” (Isa 40:3). His message was as stern as his garb and his diet: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2). Repent!  The Greek word means “change your mind,” “change your thinking”, “turn about,” “return”, “be converted.” John was telling his fellow Jews to reform their lives, to return to the way of life demanded by the covenant God and Israel, to be faithful to the promise of their fathers.  With him the kingdom of God was beginning to unfold. He preached a moral reform designed to prepare the Jews for the coming of the Messiah. Abraham your father will not save you; unless you bear good fruit, you will be cut down like a barren tree and cast into the fire. Interior conversion indeed, but visibly proclaimed by baptism with water and a confession of sin. 

Stern yes, but humane as well. No profession is denied salvation – not the tax collector, not the soldier. What is demanded is that they act justly, reveal love. And always, everywhere, “He who is mightier than I is coming (Lk 3:16); always  “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). It is a thesis inscribed in liturgical stone; for “just as the birthday of Jesus was fixed at December 25, the time of the winter solstice after which the days grow longer… so John the Baptist’s birthday was fixed at June 24, the time of the summer solstice after which the days grow shorter. 

And, like so many preachers of justice throughout history, John paid a price: imprisonment and death. This man whom Jesus declared Elias- come to life again, the one about whom Malachi wrote, “I am sending my messenger ahead of you, to prepare the way before you” (Lk 7:27; cf Mal 3:1), had frightened tetrarch Herod Antipas: This persuasive reformer might instigate a popular rebellion. More than that, he had denounced Herod to his face for his sinful marriage with his brother’s wife (Mk 8:18), had reproved him “for all the evil things that Herod had done” (Lk 3:19). And one more courageous head fell victim to injustice for Justice’ sake.

Secondly, this man whom Jesus had lauded as “a prophet and more than a prophet” (Lk 7:26) does not exist in splendid isolation. 

What manner of men were the Old Testament prophets?

How did they address the people?

First, the Hebrew prophet is extraordinarily sensitive to evil, to injustice – so much so that at times he seems to pay excessive attention to trivialities, to what we might deplore but have learned to live with.  “To us a single act of injustice… is slight; to the prophet, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.” (Abraham J. Heschel’s The Prophets). 

Second, and in consequence, this “man who feels fiercely”, who is stunned by human greed, whose prophecy is the voice God has lent to the silent agony of the plundered poor, this man in whose voice God rages, this man rarely sings; he shocks. Listen to Isaiah:

Tremble, you women who are at ease,

Shudder, you complacent ones;

Strip, and make yourselves bare,

And gird sackcloth upon your loins.” Isa 32: 11

Third: the Hebrew prophet is an iconoclast. He challenges sacred institutions, sacred beliefs, sacred persons. Those those who keep mouthing “This is the temple of the Lord” Jeremiah insists that the temple will not save; they must amend their ways, execute justice (7:4-5). As long as faithfulness is far from the people, frankinsense from Sheba makes no sense, sacrifice is unacceptable (Jer 6:20). The kings anointed to shepherd Israel Ezekiel cries: “The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.” (34: 4-5)

Fourth, the prophet is a man embarrassed, lonely, frustrated. Embarrassed because, while others are predicting peace and prosperity, he threatens disaster and destruction. Lonely because he alienates simply everyone: not only the wicked but the pious, not only cynics but believers, not only princes but priests, not only false prophets but judges. Frustrated like Jeremiah: “For 23 years… I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened” (25:3).  “To the patriots they seemed pernicious; to the pious multitude, blasphemous; to the men in authority, seditious.”

Fifth, the prophet’s words are charged with divine power because he has experienced God’s own pathos. He is not interested in God’s essence; his God is not the Wholly Other.  He has encountered the God of the covenant, involved in history, with a  stake in the human situation, intimately affected by events. He has experienced God “as living care”. He has seen not only as human failure but as divine frustration – a God not only loving and compassionate but disappointed, indignant, angry. He not only hears God’s voice; he feels God’s heart. How, then, can he ever speak dispassionately, serene and unruffled? How can his words be ever other than aflame, afire with a God whose living is caring?

The Hebrew prophets, like the Baptist, compel my third point: today’s prophet. Not one who predicts the future; rather, the primary sense of scriptural prophecy: the word of one inspired by God to speak in God’s name; How do John and his predecessors help us to uncover the qualities demanded of the prophetic priest in our time? 

A final word. Like John, we too are called to “go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” Two thoughts are pertinent for that privilege: the incredible intimacy of prophets like Isaiah, and John with their Lord, and their passionate concern for their people. To hear the word we must love the Lord who speaks it – love with al our strength and spirit. And to speak that word ourselves, to inflame the hearts of the faithful, we must love the Lord’s paradoxical people with a crucifying passion. Only if we love dare we address to them the word that sears as it heals. Only if we love dare we proclaim “hear, O new Israel! The word of the Lord has come unto me.”

(Originally, part of it was presented as a recollection talk to a teaching and student fraternity in Bangalore 2019)

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

24th June 2020, The Solemnity of St John the Baptist