…some preliminary thoughts on John the Baptist.
The priests and Levites sent to obtain testimony from J the B got Isaiah thrown back at them, and then they got a total bullshit answer which is what makes John’s Gospel so great on this score. Consider:
“So they said to him (John the Baptist…not John the author of Gospel IV), ‘Who are you so that we can give an answer to those who sent us?’”
And John the Baptist responds: I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord”
Previously the authorities, or the representatives of the authorities asked J the B if he was the Messiah. He flat out denies this. They ask him if he was Elijah and he says “No way Jose”…They ask J the B if he is the “Prophet” and he gives a straight answer. He says “No.”
The second and third denials should confuse contemporary Christians because Elijah or this “Prophet” is supposed to come back directly before the Messiah’s return…but I will leave that subject for another day.
Then the authorities ask: “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet?”
Now here comes Crazy John the Baptist’s answer from out of nowhere: “I baptize with water…”
And then tells us how the one who comes after is going to baptize. At a certain point J the B disengages with the conversation of his times…rem, when John shows up it has been 400 years since the last prophet. I think Malachi was the last prophet not to be confused with Nouri al-Maliki because if that dude was a prophet he would’ve seen the shoes coming.
Waitaminute…maybe he did…maybe he did.
Ill Presidente don’t need no damned prophet when he has the catlike ninja reflexes of a cranked up jesus lizard…
But that is neither here nor there (mostly “there” since it happened as Bush pulled off Operation Sneak into Iraq One Last Time as We’re Runnin’ Out the Clock)
Enough of George the Jackass and back to John the Baptist.
As a Catholic and a daily, furtive (albeit stupid) reader of the Bible I have come to believe that J the B, full of the Holy Spirit answered the preliminary questions put before him from the contemporary authorities but was then moved by the Spirit to say something more about baptism and who was to follow him.
J the B did not remain engaged in the debate after a certain point because the Holy Spirit gave him something much bigger to say….something that befuddled them and confused a bastard like me right up to last week.
J the B does not continue to respond to the questions about who he is. Rather he let's his audience know what, or who is coming next. He knows immediately that this is the more important matter and tells them not what they want to hear, not what they need to hear, but what is.
I never understood this passage from the Bible until Fr. Hart’s talk last Sunday. Besides beginning to help me make sense of John the Baptist’s testimony as to who he was and who the Messiah is…Fr. Hart helped me see that the Bible is not God’s answer for us, our questions, or our times.
John the Baptist and Jesus never inserted themselves in the debates of their times, and when they were pressed by the Pharisees, Sadducees or whoever their answers left those folks infinitely frustrated.
Catholics turn to their church and its human institutions to help them understand the church’s position on the issues of the day. I am not going to speak here of specific edicts or debates re: the culture of life, natural right vs. natural law or any such stuff. That is not my purpose…
But the contemporary debate, the culture of life…all the information Catholics get from the Holy Father and the Church on these matters is like advice from a good tax attorney. They tell you how to file your taxes but that doesn’t tell you what to do after April 15th.
The real questions, for me, seem to come from these jarring changes in direction that come from divinely inspired prophets or Jesus himself. This life is the most mysterious thing I have known…and the mysterious passages from the Good News seem to suit it.
