#13: John the Baptist

Do biblical prophets tell the future?  Is there a reason John the Baptist is so prominently featured in our Advent readings?  

John the Baptist reminds me of that classic John Shea line: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”  This gruff, gaunt,  “in-your-face” “call em as you see em” prophet dressed in a ragged camel hair, reeking of bug breath and the poverty of desert discipline isn’t exactly the cozy Christmas character we might expect at this time of year. 

He isn’t the subject of our cheery ceramic decorations or pre-lit lawn ornaments.  You won’t find him featured in heart-warming holiday films or as a sugar cookie figure.  And though he visits us in the scriptures each Advent, you won’t receive any Hallmark cards depicting him in your mailbox this season.  Can you imagine?  “Greetings from our house to yours!  Our thoughts of you are best expressed in the words of John the Baptist:  ‘Repent!  You brood of vipers!’…. Merry Christmas from the Browns."

So often when we hear the word “prophet,” images of soothsayers with a crystal ball come to mind.  But that image is light years away from what it means to be a prophet in the biblical sense.   A prophet is simply someone who points out things we may miss or overlook; someone who, in his or her words and actions, calls people to pay attention to God in our midst.  

The closest a biblical prophet will come to “foretelling the future” is when they simply read the signs of the times and proclaim the obvious results of current behavior, not unlike someone saying “If you smoke cigarettes you are likely to get sick” or “If you keep eating all that cheese cake this holiday season you are going to resemble Santa Claus in more ways than just his generous spirit.”  A prophet, in the biblical sense, is someone with common sense and great courage who is not afraid to point out the obvious, even if it’s an unpopular observation (mind you, this is not to say you should tell Aunt Sally to lay off the cheesecake…).

John the Baptist may seem bizarre to us.  Some may even say he is profoundly off-his-rocker.    Safe to say he is not the vision of religious propriety.  He is an unlikely prophet; an unexpected instrument for God’s voice….But so are we.  And so is the story we are bid to keep alive. 

Every faithful Jewish believer, including all Jesus’ disciples, fully expected that God’s kingdom would come in the traditional display of power and glory; the ancient version of ‘shock and awe.’   But instead God came in the weakness and vulnerability of an infant…and then in the end did not strike back but rather loved and prayed for us as we put him through unimaginable violence on the cross.  Very unexpected. 

Perhaps John’s bizarre ways are our cue to keep our eyes and ears attentive to the unusual ways God is still acting and present…and perhaps the unusual things God is calling us to do and become.  We are God’s ongoing and sometimes rather “odd” incarnation. 

So John the Baptist is really a perfect companion for us during Advent.  His “strangeness” and the urgency of his message startle us.  “Reform your lives!  Prepare the way for God!  Make straight your paths!  Envision anew!  Take time to reflect on your priorities.  Think about how your actions reflect your values!   What if this is your last Christmas?   Do you want to spend it racing around from store to store, stressed out and harried?  Is that what really matters to you?  Repent! 

John is a man who lived what he preached, a prophet whose integrity & zeal demands a hearing and haunts us in our complacency.  God’s voice in one wild package….

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