December 12, 2004AD
Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)
A Reed in the Wind??
John the Baptist dominates Advent as we heed, with God’s Help, his call to “prepare the Way of the Lord”. He was known as the Precursor, the Forerunner, of Jesus. However, did he actually become a follower of his former student, Jesus of Nazareth?
Jesus’ answer in the Gospel today indicates that John probably did not become a follower of Jesus. John’s message was different. He spoke of impending doom and the possibility of God’s forgiveness. He did not, however, guarantee forgiveness.
Jesus did guarantee forgiveness from God. Someone calculated that almost 2/3 of what Jesus said in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke had to do with God’s forgiving us and the necessity of our forgiving one another, with God’s Help. Jesus teaches that we are already forgiven. It is up to us to accept this forgiveness and become people of forgiveness ourselves. (Therein lies the rub!!)
Jesus makes the statement that John did not buy into Jesus’ message when Jesus said, “No greater man has been born of woman than John the Baptist, yet the least in God’s Kingdom is greater than John.” John was not included in Jesus’ statement about who was of the Kingdom
Still, John fulfilled a mighty role. Recall that Jesus Himself had heard John preach and had Himself baptized by John at the start of His ministry. The praise that Jesus offered for His mentor came from His heart. Jesus spoke of the fact that John was “not a reed swaying in the breeze.” (This might be a reference to the fact that Herod with whom John fought a fatal verbal food fight had coins minted during his reign with a reed swaying on its back. Apparently, this might have been a term of contempt for Herod among his unhappy subjects.
No, John the Baptist was the than that. He, indeed, was faithful to his vocation to stir up the hearts of the people and “prepare a people disposed to meet the Lord (Jesus)”. However, John remained a pre-Christian figure because Jesus Himself said that John was not in the Kingdom. Earlier, in Jesus’ great charter of the
Jesus’ Vision was different than the Baptist’s. John expected people to go to him to listen to his alternate worldview that was quite one of gloom and doom. Jesus, on the other hand, went to the towns and villages proclaiming a message of the Forgiveness of God and the concomitant need to forgive one another as an expression of our gratitude for having gratuitously received this Forgiveness ourselves.
