Today is a special day, for we celebrate the only saint whose birth is recounted in the New Testament. This account is paralleled in Luke’s Gospel with the birth of Christ, but as God Christ is not to be classed with the merely human saints. So St John receives this unique honor in the pages of the new covenant of the word of God. It behooves us, then, to look more closely at who this great man is: the greatest, said Jesus, of all those born of woman.
We first see that, like some Old Testament precedents, John’s conception and birth were announced by an angel to a couple who were unable to conceive. Right from the beginning there are extraordinary circumstances surrounding his entry into the world. But the most important thing is not that his conception from aged parents was a miracle, nor even that this conception was foretold by a heavenly messenger. What matters is most is the content of the angel’s message, that is, who this child would be and what he would do, and why.
Like all the saints, even the Mother of God, St John’s glory is not so much in himself as in his relationship to the Lord. He is the greatest of men born of woman because of the greatness of his mission, which was to be the forerunner of the Son of God made flesh, He whom the Father would send into the world to redeem and save it.
The blessing of a son in their old age was the Lord’s gracious gift to Zachariah and Elizabeth. Perhaps that is why the angel said his name was to be John, which means “the Lord is gracious.” His birth, said Gabriel, would be a cause of joy and gladness for many. Now that could be said about almost any occasion of childbearing, but as the angel goes on, the message becomes more specific to John and his mission.
First, he situates John’s life in the context of the consecrated ones, the nazir of the Old Testament, by saying, “He shall drink no wine or strong drink.” Then he says something that expresses the uniqueness of the Lord’s forerunner: “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.” We can’t assume that Zachariah understood precisely what was meant by the Holy Spirit at this “pre-dawn” stage of the New Testament, but he at least would have understood that the child would be chosen and blessed by God for the whole of his life.
Now we come to what the mission of this forerunner would be. Most appropriately, he would “go
before” the Lord, preparing the people to receive the revelation of the Messiah who would come shortly afterward. The people’s hearts would have to be “turned,” that is, converted, from disobedience to wisdom, if they were both to recognize and receive the One who was to come after John. This was the task of the forerunner, but this turning of hearts to wisdom would not be effected through mere teaching, a kind of Socratic dialogue with seekers of wisdom. No, the model that the angel gave for the forerunner was not Socrates but Elijah, the fiery and uncompromising prophet who called down divine wrath from heaven and stood up fearlessly for the absolute rights of the Lord over all false gods, denouncing all infidelity to the truth.
So, a new Elijah was foretold by the Archangel Gabriel. The fact that Gabriel used some of the same words for the coming of John that the prophet Malachi used for the “second coming” of Elijah makes this identification clear, and it would strike fear into the hearts of the pious, and fill them with trembling expectation. The very last words of the whole body of prophetic literature in the Old Testament read thus: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).
We know that St John the Forerunner fulfilled well the role of the return of Elijah before the Day of the Lord. Jesus Himself confirmed it when He told the crowds, “if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Mt. 11:14; see also 17:12-13). The Forerunner would call the people to righteousness and faithfulness just like Elijah did. He didn’t call down fire from heaven, but he didn’t have to: his words were enough to put the fear of God into the hearts of the people and bring them in droves to confess their sins and receive a baptism of repentance at the Forerunner’s hands.
But today’s feast is not about fiery preaching or threats of divine judgment. We’re still in the mode of rejoicing over the birth of a child, one specially blessed and destined by God for great things. The first prophecy of Gabriel was fulfilled at the moment of John’s birth, for he had said, “many will rejoice at his birth.” Forty-some verses later we read that when she gave birth, Elizabeth’s neighbors and kinsfolk indeed “rejoiced with her.”
Yet stranger things were about to happen and, almost as a prophecy of John’s own future prophecy, the fear of God was put into the hearts of the people when Zachariah indicated that the boy would be called “the Lord is gracious,” and suddenly the curse of his muteness was lifted and he himself began uttering prophecies! “Fear came upon all their neighbors,” says St Luke, “and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, ‘What, then, will this child be?’”
Well, Zachariah, having heard the words of the angel, knew what this child would be, and he told him so: “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, and you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.” These three elements—preparation, knowledge of salvation, and forgiveness—concisely describe John’s mission as forerunner, preacher, and baptizer.
So, maybe we get all that; we understand something of who John was and what he was called to do, how his coming was prepared and how he prepared the coming of Christ. But does he have anything to say to us today? Is his story just one element of the Gospel, and is the Gospel just another “epic fantasy,” a stirring drama that has little more than entertainment value, with perhaps a moral to the story?
The world does need to hear the message of John, the new Elijah who speaks of uncompromising faithfulness to the Righteous God who is coming to judge the world He has made. John’s style of preaching perhaps would not be well-received today, and no one wants their day ruined by talk of unpleasant things like divine judgment. Yet his message is timeless and its truth unchanging. Like it or not, there is a God who is coming to judge the living and the dead, and, like it or not, we are accountable for our choices and our actions.
Perhaps this is why the Epistle reading from Romans was chosen (13:11 – 14:4). It is literally a wake-up call: “It is high time now for you to wake from sleep… the day is at hand… cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light… put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” St Paul sounds a lot like St John in this passage, and this message is echoed throughout the New Testament.
At the same time, we know that Jesus, when He was at last revealed, was something of a mystery to St John, who even had to double-check and to make sure he got it right that Jesus was the Messiah after all (see Mt. 11:2-3). Jesus did in fact begin just like John, with both barrels blazing: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Mt. 4:17). But then he began to heal the sick, to change water into wine, to eat with tax collectors and prostitutes and to forgive them, and to speak about laying down his own life as a sacrifice for sinners. No fire from heaven, no laying waste the whole earth, as the ancient prophets repeatedly predicted for the coming Day of the Lord. Rather, the divine voice was heard saying things like, “her sins are forgiven for she loved much,” and “the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.”
So, as always when we approach the things of God, we are confronted with a mystery, one that is too profound to be expressed in a simple catchphrase or an either/or proposition. We have the mystery of the incarnation of the eternal God whose holiness and majesty make the world tremble, announced by an angel and a fiery prophet. This incarnate God then sets about quietly healing, forgiving, and inviting people to a change of heart, a new perspective and a more fruitful way of life—and He even gives up his own life in reparation for their endless crimes. Yet this same gentle Master is coming back to judge the living and the dead, and nothing of his awe-inspiring holiness and glory will be diminished before the eyes of all people of all ages, who will give an account for their deeds and receive their reward or their doom.
As the Gospel for this feast showed us both joy and the fear of God, let us try to integrate these into our lives as we try to grow in understanding and love of God. His righteousness is everlasting and his word is truth—and his mercy endures forever. So let us ask John the Forerunner to intercede for us, that the Lord may be gracious to us. Thus may we serve Him in holiness all the days of our life, while He gives us light in the darkness and guides our feet into the way of peace.
