Grace Cathedral

“… Jesus’ name had become known… when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded has been raised”(Mk. 6).

I am standing at the edge, among dry broken reeds on a cliff hundreds of feet above the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. Brutal cold winds out of the Northwest whip the ocean into a frenzied chaos. Far below me olive-coffee colored waves pound the dirty sand. On the beach lie the carcasses of a seal and what looks like her calf.

But I smell only the ocean spray. I hear only the wind and the clanging of a heavily rusted section of chain banging into an old gun emplacement that is crumbling into the sea. I feel the emptiness of the sky and the distance of the horizon.

Then I see it, an osprey with wings extended, suspended in the air, completely stationary in the storm – perfectly still, at perfect peace in the gusting winds. And I think, “this is the image of holiness,” a peace impervious to the gathering storm. This is what it is like when I feel the Holy Spirit under my wings.

Suddenly a black raven materializes out of the black sky and strikes the bird. The osprey finds itself at every point under attack in the vast spaces of the empty sky. There is no safe altitude, nowhere for it to go.

This week in my preparation to be with you today I have been praying about John the Baptist. Usually during the season of Advent he just makes me feel guilty. He insists so strongly that we need to repent as if he knew all my shortcomings. In the Book of Matthew, John says, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance… Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every good tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt. 3).

This week instead of hearing him and feeling accused for not taking my faith seriously enough, I have been trying to imagine what it was like to be him. I wonder what it feels like to be inspired into such a spiritual ecstasy that I would leave everything behind and live in the desert. What would it feel like to rely so completely on God, that I would be confident even when I put my life in danger with every word that I spoke?

John is “[t]he voice of one crying in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mt. 3). John the Baptist is hovering above the cliffs with the Holy Spirit under his wings. John the Baptist knew what it was to be at every point under attack. His body was broken because of his love for the Father.

Today I want to talk about two criticisms of John the Baptist. Modern people might accuse him of fanaticism just as some of the people of his own time for failing to have the faith they believe he should have had.

1. One day after church, a woman who I like very much made the following observation. She said that John’s accusations and threats about the fiery wrath of God, make her deeply uncomfortable. “He is an extremist and a fanatic,” she told me. “He is like all fundamentalists…” I didn’t know what to say. Who is John the Baptist?

Perhaps the first thing to realize about John is that according to the Gospel of Luke he is Jesus’ cousin. His father Zechariah was a temple priest struck dumb by the angel Gabriel. His mother Elizabeth was elderly when John was miraculously conceived.

In Elizabeth’s womb, John jumped in the presence of Jesus’ mother Mary. The two boys were born only six months apart and lived in towns that were within sight of each other. Like Jesus, we know very little about John’s life until he began his public ministry at age 28.

John’s asceticism and spiritual discipline seem to contrast with that of Jesus. We know what he wore and ate because he shocked his contemporaries with his primitive homespun clothes and the way he scavenged for food in the wilderness.

In John’s time there were others who felt called into the wilderness by God. To understand John’s ministry many compare him with the monastic community at Qumran. These monks also denounced the sins they saw in the cities. They also had cleansing rituals that involved being washed in water.

The difference between John and these monks is that while they were exclusive, secretive and withdrawn, John was prophetic, public, missionary and inclusive. Through John, we receive baptism. Jewish circumcision is a ritual which is only for men and is in most cases prohibitively painful for adults and adolescents.

Baptism however is democratic. It is for men and women. In contrast to the washing ceremonies of the monks, baptism is not for priestly purity but so that everyone can participate in the forgiveness of sins. It is fitting that John baptized people in two places, one which was more accessible to Judea and one nearer to Samaria.

The monks fled to the desert to escape society, to separate themselves from it in order that they could be perfect. John brought ordinary sinners out into the desert. He promised that tax collectors and prostitutes and thieves and Roman soldiers and sinners could be saved. Like the Old Testament prophets John warns us to care for the sick and the poor. He gives us hope that even we can be saved.

John the Baptist preaches love for those who suffer and the hope that all things will one day be raised in Christ. He wasn’t trying to overthrow the Roman government. He didn’t advocate the assassination of the provincial governor or subversive actions against the state. Instead he gives us a baptism of forgiveness that even includes official tax collectors and Roman soldiers.

In our time we need to be careful not to become so tolerant that we tolerate injustice and suffering. We have to be careful not to confuse holiness and fanaticism. But critics from the first century faulted John for a completely different reason.

2. Matthew writes, “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” For second century Christians these were profoundly unsettling words indeed. Wouldn’t the primary witness to the Holy Spirit’s presence at Jesus’ baptism know that this was the Messiah? The first Christians actually argued that John knew it was the messiah and that he only asked this question for the sake of his disciples. Otherwise, they would have had to confront the possibility that this great prophet’s faith was wavering.

And I believe it was. John preached a gospel of repentance but sometimes this is just as dangerous as preaching subversion. When Herod Antipas, the king of this region of the Roman Empire, heard that John was denouncing him for marrying his brother’s wife, he had the baptizer imprisoned at the fortress of Machaerus, an isolated Hasmonean outpost east of the Dead Sea.

This is where I believe that the soldiers tried to break this great man down. This is where the eagle who soared over the wilderness of Judea was brought crashing down to earth. This is the place where a frightened John needed to hear that his cousin Jesus would soon bring peace.

Here on the outside we don’t think too much about prison life, but in America especially we should. From the early 20^th century to the mid-1970’s the US imprisoned 110 people for every 100,000. This figure doubled in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. It doubled again in the 1990’s. In 2001 441 of every 100,000 Americans was in prison. Today 573 of every 100,000 is incarcerated. This compares with 33 in Japan, and 108 in Western Europe.

California alone has more inmates in jails than do France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands combined. Gulags or Nazi concentration camps aside, the United States has a larger proportion of its population in prison or jail than any other society in history.

So imagine yourself in prison. Not an American prison but in the fortress of Machaerus on the Dead Sea. Imagine knowing that the king’s wife and daughter want your head on a platter, that the only thing which is keeping you alive is the king’s fear of the public’s response to your death. Imagine after feeling the spirit of God’s freedom in the wilderness, that you now find yourself being tortured in a cold and lonely prison.

Jesus could read hearts better than we do faces. He could read thoughts better than we do words. He doesn’t call attention to himself. He does not refer to himself as the Messiah here. Instead he says to the cousin whom he loves the words he knows will comfort him the most.

He says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” To the people who take offense at John’s fragile faith he asks, “what did you go out to the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?” The kings who are sure of themselves are in their palaces. You’ll find the prophets in the wilderness wavering but held up by the Holy Spirit.

In conclusion, of course you are not literally in prison. Sometimes you may even feel as free as an osprey in the silent air. But during those times when the walls of loneliness and despair and powerlessness close in around you, I hope that you will remember our companion John and the promises of his savior.

Let us pray: Loving Father you order all things for our salvation. Uphold us that we may bring hope to those who are poor in spirit and to those who are held captive. Help us never to confuse holiness for fanaticism or a wavering heart for the absence of your love. As we suffer in our own way, never take from us the memory of your children John and Jesus. And when our work here is done bring us into your heavenly kingdom where there is no pain or sorrow. Amen.

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  Joan Camay and Brownrigg, Who’s Who in the Bible, p. 211ff.

  The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce Metzger.

  William C. Placher, “You Were in Prison…” in the Christian Century, 9/26-10/3/02.

  John Donne, Sermon No. 4 (11/22/1629) in The Sermons of John Donne, vol ix, p. 109f.