John the Baptizer is one of the major figures of Advent. Along with the Blessed Mother, he dominates the Gospel readings of the season. John appears in the Gospel passage we hear today as well as the one we hear next Sunday.
Jesus is the only single person who receives more space in the Gospels than the Baptizer. He is present more than Peter or any individual disciple; his actions are given a prominence of position greater than that of anyone else. There is a reason for that, and I will examine it shortly. First, let’s look at some of the things the Baptizer was and did, especially how this touches the ministry of Jesus.
John the Baptizer came first. Not only did he appear on the public scene before Jesus, but Luke reports that the two were kinsmen, related through their mothers, and that John was first-born by a few months. Not only did John precede Jesus into the public eye, but he also was the first to see the world.
It isn’t clear how long John preached before Jesus arrived. He had many followers, some of whom remained his disciples even after his death, so there probably was a good long period for him to preach and baptize.
His surname, “Baptizer,” is a fine descriptive. John was the first recorded person who offered to act as an intermediary in the performance of baptism. The Jews knew forms of ritual washing which were done by the person alone. They might receive the prompting of a preacher, but the washing was done as an act of self-surrender.
John’s baptism was different. It was for discipleship. John called people to himself, to hear his message and act on his preaching. They were to repent so their sins could be forgiven. Then they were to act in a way that was approved by their master, John, pointing always to what was to come, waiting with great expectation for the imminent Messiah.
The theme of waiting was a unique feature of the Baptizer’s ministry. He didn’t claim to be the Messiah; in fact, he clearly refused the honor. He didn’t even claim to be Elijah, the prophesied forerunner of the Messiah. True, he did dress as Elijah, but in the only instance in which he was asked directly, John denies being Elijah or one of the prophets. He said he was waiting for the one who came with the power of God. This modesty had its reason and place.
So here, finally, is the reason John the Baptizer got so much “ink” in the Gospels: his followers thought he was the Messiah.
That’s quite true. The Acts of the Apostles reports finding a group of believers in the Baptizer in the city of Ephesus [Acts 19:1-7]. Early Christians had to move strongly and diplomatically in order to resist the claims of John’s disciples while bringing them to faith in Jesus, the true Messiah. It wasn’t an easy task.
In Mark, it was enough to identify John as fully as possible with Elijah. If John is the forerunner, he can’t be the Messiah. The other Synoptic writers disagree on John’s role. Matthew follows Mark in making him Elijah. In Luke, no such identification is made, and John is not even explicitly noted as the one who baptized Jesus. The Gospel of John, written in Ephesus according to tradition, goes even further. It does not even report that Jesus was baptized. To do so would have given the Baptizer power over Jesus, and this he did not have. In fact, John is given a vision, a revelation that shows him truly that Jesus is the one for whom the people have waited.
As time passed and theology developed, it became more and more apparent that Jesus was the Messiah with John as forerunner and prophet. Still, some groups of believers in the Baptizer have lasted even into modern times, mostly in the Middle East. I apologize for not knowing more about them, but they have incorporated elements of other faiths, especially Christian and Moslem beliefs, but their overall faith is in John as the Messiah. You begin to see how important it was for early Christian writers and preachers to put the role of John in perspective. They were battling a movement that could have crippled the early church before it got rolling.
John is given great prominence in the Gospels for what he was as well as what he could have been. He was the prophet of the Messiah. He would have been hailed as the Messiah if he had only asked. It is a mark of his acceptance of the will of God that he refused, that he kept his place as prophet without greater claims for himself. This is why he is so important to our celebration of Advent.
God bless you!
Fr. Phil Cyscon
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