“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness”
“Christianity,” Ignatius of Antioch observes in his letter to the Romans, “lies in achieving greatness in the face of the world’s hatred.” He was on his way under Imperial Guard to face martyrdom in Rome in the first decade of the 2nd century. He was no stranger to the world’s hatred. Yet he understood something greater than the powers of the world, namely, the power of God’s Truth and Word Incarnate in Jesus Christ.
He exemplifies something of the prophetic qualities of John the Baptist who in the great Gospel for The Fourth Sunday in Advent reveals the true nature of his ministry and life. He does not live for himself but for another, “the latchet of whose shoes,” he says, he is “not worthy to unloose.” He points not to himself but to Christ, to Christ as the Lamb of God, the one whom, he says, “takes away the sin of the world.”
It is a powerful testimony. Known as the record or witness of John, there is poignancy and an intensity to what we hear and see. In the to-and-fro of questions with the “Priests and Levites from Jerusalem,” we glimpse a spiritual tension and frisson belonging to cultures in their moments of crisis and uncertainty. Who are you and what are you about? they ask, in genuine puzzlement, it seems to me. Their questions serve to bring out the truth of John the Baptist and even more the truth of Christ which he serves. Nowhere is the ministry of John the Baptist more concentrated for us; nowhere does prophecy point us so directly to Christ. In the Christian understanding of things, prophecy finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus. He is Immanuel, God with us, and that essential insight changes everything.
It turns, of course, on our understanding of two things: God and us. The concept of God and what that means in relation to us, to what it means to be human, is the primary question that John is suggesting, I think. The quest for righteousness is the burden of John’s message of repentance. It is about the awareness of how far we are from what we most truly seek. Such a gospel, the gospel of repentance, is a true gospel precisely because it acknowledges our own short-comings; only so can God be believable and, by extension, only so can God be with us.
This is not to turn everything upon human perception and understanding but to underscore what John is saying about his ministry and which points out so wonderfully the truth of what Jesus has said about John. Last Sunday, for instance, Jesus teaches us about the ministry of John; this Sunday we see that ministry in its fullness. Vox clamantis in deserto, a voice crying in the wilderness points us to the vision of salvation in the one who comes, the one who is “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” That is the ministry of John the Baptist. The barrage of questions simply serves to underscore the marvel of this moment about the truth of Christ. John points us to Jesus.
The sense of wonder is brought out in the powerful reading from Philippians. The intensity of the Gospel is complemented by the strong, strong note of rejoicing. The idea of God being with us as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is the greatest occasion of rejoicing. “The Lord is at hand!” Suddenly the wilderness begins to look like paradise! Suddenly alienation gives way to redemptive communion and fellowship and the prospect of a whole new way of living and being.
“Let your moderation be known unto all men.” Wow. What does that mean? And how does it relate to the ministry of John the Baptist and the advent of Christ? It might seem a first glance to be the exact counter to both the intensity of the Gospel and the high note of rejoicing which immediately precedes it. At first glance. But no. Our inner joy at Christ’s birth translates into modesty and maturity, into moderation not excess. Actually the word signifies mediocrity, not in the sense of something pathetic and poor, as we commonly mean by it, but in the sense of modest restraint. A kind of humility which stands in contrast to our vanities, our pride and presumption.
Our merry-making, let us be honest, often turns to excess. We live in a culture of excess. Everything has to be about superlatives – super, more, fantastic – as if every moment in our lives was the absolute and ultimate, The Best ever, as if we were all Olympian wannabes. The problem is that making everything depend upon such expectations of our experience undermines the truth of human experience. It becomes our wilderness. The moment for us is not and cannot be everything. I am sorry but it really is not all about you or me or even us. It is about God’s embrace of our humanity which alone makes us something precious and worthy, not in ourselves, but in the eye of God. This is what changes everything. This is about living for another; for God and for others.
Paradoxical as it may seem, we need to embrace our common mediocrity in order to discover our true excellence in Christ. This is the message of John the Baptist. He is the voice in the wilderness, to be sure, the voice which awakens us to the wilderness of ourselves in our preoccupations and busyness that distract and keep us from what truly and really matters. It isn’t found in our running around distracted and anxious. It is found in our rejoicing in the coming of the one who is greater than you and me, and not just greater in the way the world counts greatness, but a greatness of another order. Through the ministry of John the Baptist we discover our own wilderness. But, even more, through his voice crying in the wilderness of our hearts we discover the paradise of God! Far more than the paradise of Eden, this is the paradise of our humanity restored, restored to our proper and true end. And what is that? Fellowship with God and with one another through the One who comes. It is the very meaning of our liturgy, the very meaning of “our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.”
John the Baptist points us to Christ as “the Lamb of God,” the Lamb “which taketh away the sin of the world.” His voice awakens us to paradise but only through the wilderness. He points us to Christ whose coming is all our joy even “in the face of the world’s hatred.”
“I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness”
Fr. David Curry,
Advent 4, 2013