John the Baptist
In seventeenth century England there were a number of religious sects in opposition to the Church of England. One of these was a group identified as "Seekers." Rufus Jones in his introduction to the autobiography of George Fox describes them this way:
They were serious-minded people who saw nowhere in the world any adequate embodiment of religion. They held that there was no true Church, and that there had been none since the days of the apostles. They did not celebrate any sacraments, for they held that there was nobody in the world who possessed an anointing clearly, certainly and infallibly enough to perform such rites. They had no “heads” to their assemblies, for they had none among them who had “the power or the gift to go before one another in the way of eminency or authority.”
Many groups shared the attitude that the official leadership of the church was corrupt and that there was a need to break away and form groups that would seek to restore the true meaning of worship and serving God. These people often engaged in extreme acts of rebellion against the mainstream institutions. You could tell them by the way they dressed and how they acted, as well as by their harangues against the establishment. The time was right for rebellion and reformation.It was much the same way in the first century in Palestine. Besides the humiliation of Roman domination, their king was not of the line of David and the high priest was a political appointment. The pharisees were much criticized for their extreme and exageratted interpretations of the law that had the effect of ostracizing most of the jewish society. There was another group of men known as Essenes. We know of them from several historical descriptions: they were mainly a communal group who had removed themselves from the impurity of the world and to devote themselves to prayer and scripture. It is still debated whether or not the group that lived near the Dead Sea were Essenes. In any case, here was another group that had severed itself from the ruling authority and the institutions of society to form a separate community governed by its own rules of purity and devoted to the prophetic teaching that the end of the age was soon to come. It is from within this context that we find the beginning of the story of Jesus. It is a beginning that begins not with Jesus, but with a relative of his. All four gospels tell of the pivotal role played by John, the one who would be known as "John the Baptist" or "John the Baptizer."
The Gospel of Mark, considered the first of our written gospels, begins with telling about John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke even tells the story of John's birth. It's a story that reminds us of the Old Testament and how God would bless a childless elderly couple with the birth of a special child.
Zacharias and Elizabeth were godly people, both from priestly families. While Zacharias was away in Jerusalem performing his duties in the temple, an angel came to him and told him how Elizabeth would bear him a son who would be the one to prepare the way for the coming of the messiah. When he returned home, Elizabeth did indeed become pregnant.
Six months later the angel Gabriel appeared to a young girl named Mary. She was to bear a son who would rule on the throne of David and would be called the Son of God. When Mary asked how this could all happen when she was still a young girl, a virgin, the angel responded, in effect, nothing is impossible with God, He will cause you a young virgin girl to be with child, and he has already blessed your relative Elizabeth with a child in her old age." Mary then left Nazareth to visit Elizabeth.
A most unusual thing happened when the two of them met. Women who have been pregnant know what it's like when the baby kicks or moves around. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb for joy. Elizabeth was convinced that Mary was to be the mother of the promised messiah. Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months before returning home. Elizabeth and Zacharias gave their baby boy the name John as they had been instructed by the angel. John would be the one to prepare the way, to turn the hearts of the people back to God.
John grew up strong in spirit and lived in the desolate areas of Judea. It is said that he was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist. He was known to eat locusts and wild honey. John called on people to repent of their sins and in a symbolic act of cleansing to be washed in the waters of the Jordan River. Part of his message was to say that while he baptized them with water, there would be another who would come who would be far greater, and this one would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
According to the gospel writers, many people were coming to see John and to be baptized in the Jordan. Once when John saw some pharisees, he yelled out to them, "Hey, you bunch of snakes, who warned you to slither away from God's wrath." John attacked the people for thinking that just because they had Abraham for their father, it didn't matter how they lived. They wanted to know what they should do. John told them, if they had more of something and another person had less, to share with that person. He told the tax collectors not to gouge people with higher taxes than they are required to. He told some soldiers not to take money away from people by force, not to trump up charges against people, and to be content with their wages.
The apostle John tells about a time when the Jewish leaders sent an entourage to find out what John was doing. They asked him, "Are you the Messiah." "I am not," he responded. "What then, are you Elijah," they asked. He answered, "I am not." Again they asked, "Are you the prophet?" Again he said, "No." He explained simply that he was, "a voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said."
The first we hear about Jesus as an adult is when he comes to Judea to where John was baptizing in the Jordan. According to the Gospel of John, when John the Baptist saw Jesus, he exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The other gospel writers go into detail of how Jesus came to John to be baptized. Matthew tells how John refused at first, saying that he should be baptized by Jesus. All of the gospels relate how that when Jesus arose from the water, they saw the Spirit of God descend upon Jesus like a dove. They heard the voice of God speak the words of Psalm 2, "Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well-pleased."
John's work was still not finished, for he continued his work of calling people to repentance and baptizing them. He understood his subservient role in the plan of God and never tried to take away the honor due to Jesus. In return, Jesus extolled John as the greatest of all men.
John not only spoke to the people who came to him, but apparently he also voiced his opinions to King Herod. John criticized him for marrying Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. For this he landed in prison. Herodias hated John the Baptist and plotted her revenge.
It came about on Herod's birthday when he held a great banquet for all the local dignitaries. The daughter of Herodias, Salome, danced for Herod and his guests and so pleased him that he offered her anything she wanted up to half of his kingdom. At the prompting of her mother, she demanded the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod sadly complied with her wishes and John was executed that day.
From his birth, to his baptizing, and in his beheading, John the Baptist fulfilled his role in salvation history. John was the intermediary between the old and the new; he was the witness to God's light; he was the forerunner to announce the coming of God's kingdom.
Perhaps we should redesign our nativity scenes. The Christmas pageant could have two parts. First there could be Zacharias and Elizabeth, an elderly couple living in the hill country of Judea. To them is born a baby boy whose name was to be John. The angel Gabriel first comes to Zacharias and then to Mary and Joseph. What a scene it could be to have Mary come to visit Elizabeth. Before Jesus is born in the obscurity of an animal pen, John is born among family and friends.
The birth of John the Baptist has many lessons for us. We see how God worked in the lives of men and women. Mary and Elizabeth were more than props in the drama of Christmas. God also blessed the lives of old and young alike. Elizabeth and Zacharias were at the end of their lives, but God had a special task for them. Mary and Joseph were just beginning their lives when God revealed their special role. We can see too that God deals with people no matter what their circumstances of life are. Zacharias and Elizabeth were "insiders." They lived near Jerusalem and Zacharias served as a priest in the temple. Mary and Joseph were "outsiders." They were northerners, living up in Galilee where many of the foreigners lived. Joseph wasn't a religious type, it would seem, but worked with his hands as an artisan. The parents of John felt privileged that they were chosen, not as the parents of the messiah, but as the parents of the one who would announce the coming of Messiah. They played second fiddle and played it well. Even in his ministry, John the Baptist accepted his role as the forerunner. His words to his disciples were that Jesus should increase and that he should decrease.
John understood his role as a prophet like Elijah to be restoration, not just destruction. He wanted to tear down the walls of hypocrisy and the religious facade of those who claimed superiority merely by their ethnicity or their religious associations. The ultimate result, however, was to cleanse the nation, to repent of their sin, and to seek God's blessing by restoring Israel to its "most favored nation" status. When we criticize others or complain about what's wrong with churches today, we need to do it in a spirit of restoration, not just destruction. Finding fault with something or someone is easy to do, but coming up with the solution and putting in the effort to rebuild takes creativity and commitment.
John's death was a tragic end, but was the impetus for Jesus' ministry. It was after Jesus' baptism by John that he was anointed for his ministry and it was after John's imprisonment that Jesus began his public ministry. The work of John the Baptist was not an end in itself, but was part of a greater goal. John understood his part, it would seem. He was the last of the prophets of God, and he was the first to announce the coming of God's kingdom in Jesus the Christ.
There are groups that call themselves Baptist and claim a connection back to John the Baptist. There are also those Baptists in America who claim a connection back to Roger Williams. But what Roger Williams was a "Seeker" more than he was a Baptist. And John the Baptist was also a "Seeker." He understood that the established religion was empty of God's Spirit and that people needed individually and collectively to repent and to seek God's will. It was true of Roger Williams, it was true of George Fox, and it was true of John the Baptist. We seek God's spirit and God's leading as more fundamental than liturgy, creed or architecture. We stand in the tradition of John the Baptist as those who call people to seek the Spirit of God, to renew themselves, and to announce the day of Christ's coming.