3rd Sunday of Advent 2020
Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11; 1Thess 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28
I have a friend who has a unique way of finding directions. He rules out the places he doesn’t want to go, and so, by excluding them, he is, in theory at least, left with his destination.
For instance, if he is travelling from Blackpool to Lancaster, he will see signs for Lytham and St. Anne’s and say to himself “I don’t want to go there”: consequently, he will find himself on the M55. As he approaches Preston, he will consider that he doesn’t wish to go to Preston or Birmingham, and so will head to the M6 northbound. At Junction 33, not wishing to continue to Barrow, Carlisle, or the Lakes, he will take the slip road which leads him to the A6 for Lancaster. I exaggerate to a certain extent, but he genuinely does work on the exclusion of negatives. I should perhaps add that he has a tendency to arrive late and rather breathless.
John the Baptist takes a similar approach when questioned about his identity. He establishes first that he is not the Messiah (the Christ) or Elijah or the unnamed prophet. What then are we left with? He is the fulfillment of Third Isaiah’s prophecy of the voice that cries in the wilderness, the forerunner who makes a straight highway for the Lord.
Once we have ruled out what John the Baptist is not, we can see more clearly what he is. He is, as we have already been told, a witness to speak for the light: he makes very clear what the Evangelist has already declared—that he is not the light, not the central figure in salvation history, but the one who points to that figure. He could have got away with making all sorts of exaggerated claims about himself, including Messiahship, but he is at pains to rule all of them out, to point to the one who is coming after him, and not to himself.
What about us? Clearly, we would claim to do the same, to point away from ourselves to Jesus, to direct people to Him, and yet…..Is there not in all of us a desire, sneaking or evident, for the limelight? We may hide under a cloak of modesty, but is that cloak at times a little threadbare?
I have known priests who sincerely believed that they were the right men to be bishops, and who were deeply miffed when they were passed over; or who actually became bishops, and who turned into Prince Bishops, drawing glory to themselves. Even those of us who are not that way inclined may want to be thought of as “good priests”, as the “go to” people in our particular role within the priesthood. There may be a temptation to want people to focus on us, rather than on the Lord. For the religious and the laity among you, transfer that notion as best you can to your own vocation in life, and ask whether any of that clings to you.
Perhaps the most important lesson tht John the Baptist teaches us is to remember who and what we are not. We are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet. We are not the light, but witnesses to the light, and we must never thrust our own light forward so as to obscure the true light, Jesus who is the Christ.
And yet, whilst we are not the Christ, there is a sense in which we are. “The least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than [John the Baptist]” said Jesus. Why? Because we are the Body of Christ, and what is said of Jesus the Christ by the prophet applies to us. In and through Christ, the spirit of the Lord has been given to us. We have been anointed to bring good news to the poor, and so on; to exult for joy in the Lord, to rejoice in our God.
The prophecies in the Book of Isaiah are to be fulfilled in us, because we have been baptised into Christ. They are to be fulfilled, though, not for our benefit, but for the glory of God. They are to draw people, not to us, but to the Christ who has anointed us. People may see us as signs on the way: they must never see us as the destination.
