John the Baptist with Rev Jo Winn-Smith
Introduction
John does not arrive quietly. John is not subtle or lovely, encouraging or enthusing, John arrives and breaks through complacency, comfortableness and self-satisfaction.
This morning, as we reflect upon John the Baptist, we have an opportunity to look at the whole picture, as well as to zoom in on the some of the details. Usually with sermons, we have just one little passage – and there is, usually, still plenty to say, even more than enough to say – but we don’t often step back and look at the whole picture, the overall context, and do a wider bible study, whereas today we get to do that.
I want us to look at John in three parts, before we come back to the whole. We’re going to consider his birth, his life, and his death. All three having quite details descriptions in the scriptures, which helps us to frame an understanding of who he is and his significance.
John’s Birth
The very fact that we have the story of John’s conception and birth is auspicious, in and of itself. This tells us that John comes for a purpose, and God has very clear intentions in his regard. This is a reminder that the Psalmist tells us that God knows us from the very beginning and that this is in the sense of a very deep knowing that comes from love.
And God’s plans for John’s life are mapped out from the very beginning. They are intentional and details, they are not left to chance or in any way slapdash. John is born to Elizabeth and Zechariah, an elderly, to date, infertile couple, of whom the man is a priest in the temple. What kinds of people are they then?
As a priest, and his wife, they are dedicated, worshipful, educated. They carry the wisdom not just of years, but hewn in the furnace of dashed hopes that remain steadfast in the Lord. Sometimes the pain and, in many senses, bereavement of childlessness can push people away from God, but they have not allowed this to get in the way. They still go about their duties, they still turn up, and hope and expect God to too. Their hearts have been refined by fire, but they still burn faithful and bright.
A child coming to a couple like this will be loved with a deep passion. A profound love that knows the precarity of life. They are also people who have many years of spiritual discipline woven into the core of their being. But there’s one little hurdle, when the news is first announced to Zechariah. As a priest at the Temple, Zechariah was one of several thousand, it’s thought anywhere between 7 and 20,000. The chances of him being the one to light the incense in the Temple, where God told him about their child to come, was extremely low. Those thousands of priests were in 24 divisions or families, which served a week each, and therefore only twice a year. So the hundreds in his division, would then throw lots to undertake various duties. Offering the incense was so holy a task, that a priest could only ever take up this lot once in their whole life. And it falls to him, and yet despite the extreme unlikeliness of this, he wavers on hearing God’s declaration. This is why he is struck dumb.
And then we have two beautiful stories, one about Elizabeth’s pregnancy and one about his birth.
First we hear how Mary comes to visit her relative, Elizabeth, when she is newly pregnant, seeking solace and comfort, reassurance and support. Both women are in shock at their conditions, despite their faithfulness, but they are also joyful, and see in the eyes of each other another woman who has had a profound experience – spiritual and physical, intellectually and emotionally challenging, impacting them on every level.
And as they meet, the children in their wombs somehow seem to know. I don’t know if you’ve been pregnant – well, with some of you I know you haven’t – but those first stirrings your child in your tymmy are the most curious and awe-inspiring, exciting and unfathomable. You know your child is both a part of you, but also despite this intimacy and closeness, this symbiotic and utterly interdependent reality, they are also separate from you, self-willed and different.
People love to impute meaning to their child’s movements. If the child moves to specific music or kicks in a certain way, they say ‘she’ll be dancing to Abba, just like her mum when she’s out’, or ‘he’s a little fighter, he’ll be scoring goals for Arsenal before you know it’.
But in the gospel we’re told that John is independent, responds, by the grace of the Spirit, of his own volition. John, even in utero, knows he’s in the presence of the Messiah, the chosen one, the one whom he is to declare.
What an amazing foretelling, right from the start. And God trusts Elizabeth to nurture and encourage him in this way from the very beginning – after all, Zechariah has been struck dumb, from when his faith wavered – it is Elizabeth who is trusted to nourish John in body and spirit. If we think about it, I’m sure like many women, she spoke to her bump and gently and lovingly rubbed her tummy in quite moments, whispering words of love and encouragement to him. She knew that God had a plan for him, and so were the words most likely that she would have been soothing him with, as she lay on her pallet in those long nights, particularly towards the en of pregnancy, when you don’t sleep quite so well, and you’re just a little bit uncomfortable with the size of you bump, and so the sleepless night have already started.
And then there is the naming of John. Tradition runs strong in the community. Zechariah is old, and maybe they suspect won’t live much longer, and so his name must live on. But God has told them what John is to be called. It’s not the ubiquitous name it has now become. It carries a meaning, a precious sign and promise and it means God is gracious. And Zechariah knows this most profoundly, and trusts it most deeply, now that God’s promise has been fulfilled in Elizabeth and Zechariah has born this slight penalty for the duration of the pregnancy.
But God is gracious. And so he asserted it nonetheless I wonder if the listeners on hearing it, even if they were affronted by the rejection of the tradition, thought is was some kind of response to the late pregnancy. I wonder if they blamed Elizabeth, even though Zechariah inscribes it on the tablet. But God is gracious forthtells us of his purpose. And God is gracious perhaps even helps us to understand better the call to repent.
The birth of John is wondrous. And there is much therein to guide us, regarding God’s intentions, to helps us know more about Jesus, and also to ponder on the direction and plan for our lives. What strikes you as we think on these scriptures?
John’s Ministry
When John appears as an adult the scene is dramatic, even alarming. Emerging out of the desert, wiping the remnants of honey and locusts from his lips, John wears ragged camel hair robes, and a trusty belt sits on his waist.
This is the sign for which the people have been waiting. John evokes Elijah, the prophet forewarning the judgement of God and the coming of the King, the chosen one, the Messiah of God. Imagine: generation after generation being given the message to hand on – this is what it will look like, this is what you need to know. Be ready, it could be any time. And then here he is: a fearsome, wild, dynamic prophet, eye’s blazing and he’s calling for repentance.
John looks and acts like Elijah. Commentators have wondered whether he want to Qumran and was one of the Essenes. That community, around the time just before Jesus, were an ascetic sect or hived themselves away from the rest of society, trying to practise utter purity, in the hoping that it would bring about the kingdom. We have their writings, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they too practised baptism. Was John with them, when he went to the desert? Did he feel his parents didn’t go far enough, that the Temple rituals were simply hollowed out traditions, which despite any sincerity or piety on behalf of the individual practitioners, were insufficient to deal with the extent to which the people had gone astray from the ways of God? Alternatively, they are known to have adopted orphans – did his elderly parents die when he was still young, even send him somewhere to keep him untainted?
Yet despite his similarities with them he’s clearly acting on his own. They had withdrawn to escape what they perceived as the hopelessly corrupted Jewish community, whereas John comes out to meet them, calling them till his voice is hoarse. Urging them to repent.
And so John comes, drenched in Scripture, propelled by the spirit. And people come to him in their droves. If you think about it, they had been waiting at least 400 years.
No prophets of any significance have spoken for centuries. It feels like, and in some ways it has been the case, that God has been absent all that time. The last vestiges of prophetic warning cried out for justice, mercy, care for the poor, the widow and orphan and stranger, yet Israel meandered off, was laid waste by various different kingdoms, and has mired in vassal status for centuries, lost and faithless. Sure, they’ve gradually put some things back together, and they’ve worked out how to grudgingly rub along, now with the Romans, the religious authorities compromising and hedging their bets with political power and arguing amongst themselves over purity laws and casuistic interpretations.
But John appears on the scene and cuts through the nonsense and human accretions of rules and laws, like thick sediment, bogging down ordinary people from achieving true freedom and justice, and the poor and oppressed ever getting so much as a look in.
John appears and it’s like all the lights switch on, and many are struck to their core, and they know they need to repent.
Repent? What does it mean, what does it entail? Repent, he declares, repent for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. The kingdom of heaven. The reign of God. The authority and rule of the divine monarch. John knows they need to respond, turn around, renew their minds and eschew the ways of the past, for Jesus is coming, and the ways of kingdom are antithetical to how they’ve been behaving up until now.
It is the prefiguring of judgement. It is urging them to renew their oil stocks so their lamps don’t run dry. For in his declaration that Christ will baptise with the spirit, he’s warning of the immanence of judgement. This is the message he urgently proclaims, and with all they see and hear, people respond in their droves. No wonder their hearts and minds were turned when Jesus was next on the scene.
But perhaps let’s pause here. What is it you see and notice.
John’s Death
John’s death arises following a dramatic turn of events. Herod is clearly becoming agitated by the impact of John on peace in the region. Just like as would happen with Jesus, the political instability of the area is a half whispered factor in many incidents in the gospels, and how much this is not an interest of the writers, or simply taken for granted, is hard to tell. Suffice to say, Herod seems to fear that a social uprising might be on the cards and John is imprisoned to seek to quell any unrest.
However, there’s more than politics going on, as far as the gospels are concerned. In his call to repentance, John has clearly spoken out in far more detail about the state of the nation. And one particular situation drawing his condemnation is Herod’s marriage to Herodias, who was originally the wife of his brother. The gospel of Mark then goes on to describe the dramatic scene of Herod’s bacchanalian birthday celebrations, where is step daughter – unnamed, but identified elsewhere as Salome – is made to dance in front of the inebriated lords. Herod, in the sloppiness of inebriation offers her whatever gift she craves, in response to her show. In a brutally cruel act of spite, Herodias directs her daughter to request the head of John the Baptist. Herod, the cretin, having previously shown curiosity in John’s preaching, almost despite himself, is now in a tight corner, and shamefully and cowardly accepts the proposal not wanting his foolhardy declarations of being willing to gift up to half his kingdom, make a reversal of his vow seem cowardly.
This whole situation reeks of power and corruption, greed and folly. The exploitation of the girl now seems Epstein-esque. Herod, weak and venal, Herodias, scheming and conniving, the whole culture of power based on puffery, opportunism and unscrupulousness.
John is helpless. No prison doors mysteriously unlocking and being flung open in the night, nor angels to lead him to safety. Despite his moral integrity and clear message of warning and where and how to find hope and a way back to God, he becomes merely a pawn in a political game of wicked tit for tatting.
John’s end is a pointless snuffing out of life, for the sake of a single man’s pride in front of drunken others. The sheer waste and banality of evil is laid out before us, and we read with horror and frustration, as this is not the treatment of heroes in our novels and epic ballads. This is one where we pray fervently for justice in the ever after, as God’s direction and God’s plan seems to have been swept aside in a moment of tawdry senseless evil.
Conclusion – Stepping back
And so, as we come to the end of John’s life, we are perhaps left with the memory of Jesus’ parable echoing in our ears. In the parable of the master’s son, Jesus is quite clear in this that the prophets were the forerunners, and the tenants of the vineyard treated them increasingly badly, even killing some. John is not the master’s son, but as a relative and prophet was the next closest thing. I wonder how those who had been baptised by John felt when they heard that parable?
And how does John make us feel? What do we think of his death, and how do we see him fitting into the gospel story, and how does he speak to us today, particular in this time of Advent?
Do we like him? Are we drawn to him? Or does he scare us and make us feel uncomfortable? This prophet, this new Elijah warns of the wrath to come, the need for repentance, demands a response and yet his name also means grace. How are we meant to respond to him? I’m not sure we’re supposed to like him, but he is certainly supposed to provoke a reaction. How do you feel as you reflect upon his life? What are your thoughts as we sit in this liminal time of advent, awaiting both the Christ-child, and Jesus returning in all his glory? Talk to your neighbour and we’ll come to a plenary shortly.