Desert John the Baptist Confronts Town Folk

 2 Advent  Cycle C     December 5, 2021
Malachi.  3:1-4      Song of Zechariah  
Philippians 1:1-11     Luke 3:1-6

Lectionary Link

What does the record of John the Baptist in the Gospels indicate to us?

It is an indication about the diversity of religious parties and sects within the Judaism of the first century in Palestine.  John's early life is shrouded in mystery because we don't have a record of it.

What we know about John comes from the aftermath of his life, particularly as he is used to highlight and tell the story of Jesus.

Since John gets so much ink in the Gospel, it indicates to us that his community was significant.  He had faithful followers who were devoted to his witness and teaching after he died.  Some of his followers became followers of Jesus, but there probably was not an en masse switch of all members of John's community to follow Jesus.  So, the Gospels targeted loyal members of John's community, showing them how important John was in the succession, the development of the life of Jesus, with John being the officiant at the baptism of Jesus, perhaps being an indication that John had been a relative and mentor for Jesus, before the distinction of the ministry of Jesus came to fore.

The Gospel writer used the metaphors from the prophet Isaiah to explain the role of John the Baptist vis a vis Jesus of Nazareth.  The Isaian metaphor explicates what we might call in highway building terms, a bulldozer or earth mover.

What is the quickest route to any destination?  A straight line as the crow flies.  What hinders getting to a destination in the quickest way?  The high terrain of the mountains and the low terrain of the valleys, which also prevent visual access to the desired destination.

If the Jesus Movement believed that identity with Jesus was the spiritual destination, then what would be the quickest route to get to Jesus?

John the Bulldozer and his program were the best and quickest and most direct set up to come into an identity with Jesus the Christ.

After reading the writings of the prophet Isaiah that are used to characterize John the Baptist, I respectfully rename him, "John the Bulldozer."

Winding roads made straight.  Valleys filled in to be made level.  Mountains and hills leveled to get rid of the climb.  All the work of a bulldozer.  And that is how the writer of Luke's Gospel used the prophet Isaiah to describe mission and work of John.   And what if you level the mountains, take away the curves, and fill all of the valleys, you not only have a straight level and direct path, you also have clear vision.  Now for people who like to go camping in the mountains the thought of such major bulldozer work seems destructive.  One must appreciate ancient people who had to spend so much time trudging on foot to get long distances to new places with fear about thieves and wild animals threatening their arrival to their destination.  The prophet Isaiah was wanting a direct and clear path to what is most desired.

John the Baptist was regarded by the Jesus Movement as the perfect set up man for Jesus.

And what did John do to set the stage for Jesus?   What do coffee and wine tasters do between sips?  They use a drink of water to cleanse the palate so that the previous tastes do interfere with an assessment of the new beverage sample.

How did John the Baptist clear the religious palate of his time?  To say the very least, he had simplified and downsized.  John the Baptist brought the desert tradition into contact with the people of civilization.  It could be that the lost years of John the Baptist and Jesus were spent in the desert among the semi-monastic group the Essenes, perhaps remnant of the Qumran communities famous for the Dead Sea Scrolls.  These communities lived apart from the world; they also were apocalyptic because their writings indicate anticipations of final battles and the coming of a new Messiah.

Perhaps John and Jesus sat in their desert lodgings where they had learned the Torah from the teachers in the Essene community and they thought, "We live in a small community here with a message that most people will never here because we're too exclusive here.  Is it right to keep our message exclusive."  And so John the Baptist had a vision to bring the desert piety of simplicity to the poor people of Palestine who lived on both sides of the Jordan River.  The Jordan River was the last obstacle which the people of Israel crossed to get into the Promised Land, and when Joshua crossed over, the waters parted and so the River Waters were like a baptismal initiation into the Promised Land.

John set off in his ascetic simplicity to make the desert piety accessible to people in Palestine who did not find the main stream religious parties of the Sadducees and Pharisees to have an accessible message with what they had to do in their lives.  Many of them had to interact with the Romans and the foreign occupiers, and so they had to live "ritually" impure lives.  "How can I be accepted by God, if my lifestyle does not allow me to be completely adhering to the ritual requirements of Temple and synagogue.  How am I supposed to live in practical excommunication from my faith community?"

John the Baptist arrives to simplify.  "Folks, I'm going to make it simple.  Prepare for your very last day, as if the end is near.  And this is how you do it.  The question is not whether you or I are perfect, because we're not.  So the question is this?  Are you and I committed to a path of being better today than we were yesterday?  That is all that is ask of us.  And to mark this commitment to be better, I am going to have you re-cross the Jordan River in a baptism of becoming better, a baptism of repentance, a baptism of continuous renewal of your minds and resulting behaviors."

Can we appreciate how John was the palate cleanser for people who were uncertain about their religious standing with God which had been put into question by the official religious leaders?  John simplified and made Torah living accessible.  "Don't worry about the book learning, just get better, just publicly in my baptism make the commitment to get better."

And this was the set up for Jesus and the Jesus Movement.  How so?  It is one thing to commit to getting better, but it is another thing to come to know habitual behaviors which have addictive powers which present a obstacle to becoming better.

The program of John the Baptist is like the pre-higher power phases of the 12-Step program.  It is the honesty about wanting to become better and becoming aware of the power of habit which prevents it from happening.  The John the Baptist program is important phases of spiritual life.  We have to want and will to be better, we have to want and will what is really good for us even when it seem almost impossible.  Why?  Because this is the set up for the experience of grace.  The grace of being helped by a Higher Power.

So John the Baptist was the Water and Repentance phase, a willful and public commitment in wanting to be on the path of betterment.  A willingness to fail on this path but not give up the willful commitment.  And on this path of willful commitment with many failures, the ego of thinking that one is in control get cracked, and the experience of humility can happen when the higher power of the Holy Spirit can be known to carry one to the places that one could not seem to go.

John the Baptist is Water and Repentance set up person for Jesus the one who baptizes, initiates those in repentance into the power of the Holy Spirit.

We still need the program of John the Baptist; we can get stuck in places that even God's Holy Spirit brought us to and we can think that we arrived.  But we haven't; we still have to be on the willful path of further renewal because there are always more Higher Power, Holy Spirit Events to take us to new heights of renewal.

Are we getting bored today in what once seem fresh and joyful?  Then we need to be in an Advent John the Baptist phase of new commitment on a path of further renewal, so that the Risen Christ can give us further Holy Spirit insights of what we yet need to become.  Amen.