John the Baptist appeared; he preached in the wilderness of Judaea.
It’s hard to think of any figure in history who could compare with St. John the Baptist. John was a complete outsider. He remained always on the margins of civilisation. He did not go to the people: they had to come to him. John sought no political power. He never raised an army. It seems that he never tried to make himself pleasing to anyone, and had no time for tact or diplomacy. Yet clearly he had a massive impact on the whole society of his time. No one could ignore him, from the highest political and religious authorities, to the lowest of the common people. He must have had quite extraordinary charismatic appeal.
All four Gospels quote the text of Isaiah in reference to St. John the Baptist: A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight (Is 40:3).
That is: John preached deliberately not just as one of the prophets, but as the last of the prophets. What all of them had proclaimed, each in his own way, was now on the point of being fulfilled. Israel’s history was reaching its completion. God, cried John, is coming; his Messiah is coming. Prepare then to meet him! Repent of your sins now, while there is yet time! If he finds you ready, happy are you. If he finds you turned away from him, and still in your sins, then woe, woe, woe!
The Pharisees and Sadducees also came to John. They had to: everyone else was going; they couldn’t be left out. Like everyone else in Israel, they were open in principle to some new and definitive manifestation of God; open to the idea of a Messiah; not surprised that a great prophet like Elijah should appear in their day. But these men were not sincere. They were proud, obstinate, hypocritical: tenacious of their own influence, prestige and power. They were definitely not open to Jesus. Formerly at enmity with each other, soon these two groups would be plotting together in order to have Jesus crucified.
John’s response to them still sounds shockingly violent to us. Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Three times here, in St. Matthew’s account, John speaks of fire. Those who fail to welcome Christ will be attacked as with an axe, cut down and thrown into the fire. They will be blown away like chaff, and consumed in the fire that never goes out. And the one who will do this is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
John’s message continues to resound for us in our own day, and especially now in the season of Advent. His task is not to console us, but precisely to jerk us out of our comfortable complacency. No less than the Israelites of old, we need to repent of our sins, in order to enter Christ’s Kingdom. We may already have accepted him fully, and been baptised into him; we may often listen to his word, and receive his Sacraments. Still, we remain sinners, always in need both of repentance and of mercy. We are not immune even to the particular sins or temptations of those John so fiercely condemned: presumption, dishonesty, self satisfaction. Today then we reflect with a renewed sense of urgency on how Christ’s coming is both wonderful and terrible. The prophecy from Isaiah Chapter 11 we heard in our first reading has such beautiful things to say about the Messiah, but it also has this verse:
His word is a rod that strikes the ruthless,
his sentences bring death to the wicked (Is 11:4).
In the Apocalypse St. John saw him, God’s Word (Apoc 19:13) incarnate, as a Rider on a white horse, symbol of victory:
His eyes were flames of fire.... his cloak was soaked in blood.... From his mouth came a sharp sword with which to strike the unbelievers. He is the one who will rule them with an iron sceptre, and tread out the wine of Almighty God’s fierce retribution (Apoc 19:15).
The Letter to the Hebrews has this to say: You may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the blood of the Covenant which sanctified him as if it were not holy, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far more severe punishment... It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hb 10:29ff.).
Today is 8th of December. Today then we hear St. John the Baptist bearing witness to the Incarnation, and therefore also to God’s Mother. John prepares us for Christmas, and also for the Immaculate Conception. Prepare a way for the Lord, he cried. The Immaculate Conception was Our Lady’s own perfect preparation. She alone had no need of John’s baptism for repentance. For her, the Kingdom of Heaven was not so much close at hand, as already in possession. Mary certainly did produce good fruit: not only by her own holy life, but also and supremely the most blessed fruit of her blessed womb, Jesus Christ our Lord. John said that he himself was not fit to carry the sandals of the Messiah. Mary Immaculate was fit: not just his sandals, but all of his clothes also, and his food, and his person. Mary already possessed the Holy Spirit, and was already on fire with divine love. In her there was no chaff to be blown away: only good wheat, fit to adorn God’s heavenly barn. While still in his mother’s womb, St. John the Baptist had danced in the presence of Mary. May he then help us to understand ever more deeply her dignity, her beauty, her purity, her holiness. And may our Lady help us conform our own hearts according to the pattern of her Immaculate Heart: that with her we may receive Jesus, and with her rejoice in his presence.