John the Baptist, appealed to some people of the time as a far more remarkable character who seemed to step right out of the Old Testament looking, speaking and behaving like a proper prophet should. He was much admired and taken very seriously by the Jews in his day; he was even written up in a secular history book of the time. The only authentic reference to Jesus in the same work merely notes Him as the brother of James who was unlawfully put to death. This suggests that John Baptist made more of an impact on the wider audience than did his Divine Cousin. John figures in all four gospel accounts and his conception, birth, work and death are recorded in scripture (though the account of his death, sensational as it was, did not have the same thrilling back story in the history by Josephus). And just by the way, in Britain there were more churches dedicated to him than to any other saint, barring the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What makes this John so enduringly significant?
That is an interesting question.
He conformed to the proper idea of a prophet. He warned of disasters to come if the people didn’t behave themselves, confess, honour God, promise to be good and thoroughly amend their lives. This is what people expected of a prophet along with the assurance that the promised Messiah was coming and woe betide if you haven’t reformed. John lived as a proper prophet should too, living in the bush alone, neglecting his body but for the bare essentials, no thought for his clothing, utterly basic diet and pure spring water to drink, definitely no alcohol. His pleasure in life was condemning wickedness and bringing people to repentance.
On this score Jesus was a bit of a disappointment when you look at it from this angle. His message was no less serious, though probably harder to maintain, being a requirement of a lifetime of positive other-centred loving. Such loving is much more demanding than the negative concern of not doing the wrong thing and not getting into trouble. Jesus went towards people, rather than withdrawing, apparently loved parties with ordinary folk, and goodness, He liked women! Some of His best conversations were with women, (which could make His mates a bit po faced!) Most of all He numbered women among His closest friends; definitely not the behaviour of a proper prophet!
One can begin to see now why John was so significant. He is almost Archetypal. He is the epitome, the ideal spiritual man as he has been constructed since time immemorial in whichever patriarchal code you examine. The neglect of the body, the rejection of women, the ’knowledge’ of God’s fierce demands; putting those demands front and centre with no respite, this was the highest model for masculine sanctity. There was no let up or room for pleasure or wallowing in the enjoyment of God’s creation for the truly spiritual man. This has been the standard model of true holiness forever and though the average spiritually minded man could not nor wanted to live to that standard, still it stood for the ideal to which he looked and for which he occasionally yearned.
Jesus said that He came to fulfil the law and the prophets, His life made it clear that the old ways of being religious no longer served; His Way of love was the sign of the New Creation. History has shown that His church has rarely believed Him in this, the standard of the Baptist has had more ongoing appeal. It is very odd how hard it has been for religious people to believe that the abundant life Jesus promised was a reality, that God wants us to enjoy creation, ourselves included. To quote Dom Sebastian Moore, “God is happy and wants us to join in”. This is a very up to date way of talking about God.
Nothing separates the old-world view and the new so much as the cluster “sin, repentance and forgiveness” Sin is what ‘separates us from God’, repentance means turning around and forgiveness is what God graciously bestows, (in theory unconditionally but the teaching strongly implies a different view).
If God is God, then it is impossible for anything to separate us, or indeed any part of creation, from God. History shows that what does or does not please God, according to His ministers down the years, is a very moveable thing, as with children who can displease daddy by being noisy when he wants peace and quiet and another day be as noisy as they like and have fun with him. Present uses of the bible and the laws therein attest to the way that we play fast and loose with divine commands. As a very simple example, being in church on Sunday reciting “Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day, six days you shall labour etc.” I watch and wonder how many other people are thinking about all the work they want to get on with once they get home, or when it comes to the prohibition against adultery how many of the congregation stick to that rule! We are very fluid in our understanding of what is sin.
Repentance means turning around, or away. If we turn around from what is displeasing, we turn towards what is pleasing but the inference is that groveling, self-denial and a lack of delight is what we are called to turn towards. Such a turning does not make for joy, kindness or happy healthy humans. What does make for a healthy, happy human? A sense of self-worth, being appreciated, feeling safe, these being firmly rooted in the psyche promote, gratitude, generosity, kindness; the sense of self-worth is imperative. The teaching of the prophets emphasized human worthlessness in the face of the divine mercy, Jesus, on the other hand, had a very strong sense of His own worth, and He is the model we are meant to emulate. His sense of self-worth was grounded in the knowledge of the love of God. For us from very early on, we are given the message of the love of God so strongly mingled with divine displeasure if we don’t get things right that we have a perpetual confusion that prevents the real knowledge of self as always ‘acceptable in the Beloved”
The preaching of the prophets of any age has two hugely significant deficiencies, it lacks joy and it lacks kindness. This is where the teaching of Jesus is the New Wine, and is so different from what everyone expects from a religious preacher. The centuries have proved that human nature, perversely, prefers the grim, joyless religious model of the old wine. The language of much church worship still lays heavy accent on our sinfulness and need for forgiveness, demonstrating that the concept of God as a loving father has not kept up with the evolution of human consciousness. The average ordinary dad, these days, is a better model of parenting than the Father God promoted by the traditions, which has never really, consistently, taken Jesus’s way of knowing God on board.
It is fascinating that patriarchal religion has such an agenda about sin. I recall meeting a very prominent Christian writer, an Episcopalian priest, a lovely man whose writings were very sound and influential in the seventies. He stunned me by saying,” I have no right to be happy while any one of my brothers or sisters on earth is unhappy”. What earthly use is that? I cannot believe in a God who would approve of that. “God is happy and wants us to join in”. Really happy people make such a grand contribution to daily life on the planet, happiness is the point of the Incarnation.
Did Jesus of Nazareth have the consciousness, world view and understanding consistent with a man of His time or was He in everything transcendent in His point of view? This is an important question for today. In matters spiritual, advanced souls in every age have shown a wider, transcendent understanding of spirituality while their language and their earthly comprehension is still bounded by the consciousness of their time. If this were not true of Jesus, can He still be considered truly human – this takes us back to the Monophysite heresy, which claimed Jesus only had one nature, not two. Orthodoxy claims “He was like us in everything save only in sin”. This in turn brings us once again to the subject of sin, what it is and how does our understanding differ from that of the ancient or Medieval world?
Can a human being grow and develop to full maturity if they never make a mistake? If someone never makes a mistake, can they be considered fully human? What’s the difference between making a mistake and sinning? You might like to see my blog on Jesus cursing the fig tree for a fuller discussion of this issue.
