Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Today we Celebrate the birthday of St. John the Baptist. I do not know about you but when I hear the name John the Baptist, the first thing that comes to mind is filth; a dirty smelly man dressed in a skin tied with a rope, who does not shower and who has a bad breath stemming mainly from his diet of locusts and honey, with lice and mites from his unshaven head and beard, and on top of all that a sharp tongue! John, however, is one of the most unusual and important people in the history of our faith. He bears the titles of prophet, forerunner, and Baptist because he fulfilled all these roles. He is the only other person apart from Our Lord Jesus Christ and His blessed mother Mary whose birthdays we celebrate liturgically. For all the other saints, we mostly celebrate their feast days on the date of their death. We celebrate the birthdays of Jesus, Mary and John because of their significance in the history of our salvation. Today's feast sheds light on the significance of John as the fore runner of Christ. John is regarded as the last of the Old Testament prophets and he witnessed martyrdom while witnessing to the truth. Jesus in Matthew 11:11 says that of all men born of women, none is greater that John the Baptist! This was because he made himself least although he had all the glory in Israel and many people even considered him to be the Christ. He put himself under the shoes of the Christ and even witnessed that he was unworthy to loosen the strings of Christ’s shoes.
The birth of John the Baptist was a blessing first to his parents and then to the whole of humanity. His mother Elizabeth, thought of as barren and therefore cursed, was vindicated and henceforth regarded as blessed! John was also a blessing to his father Zechariah who was told by the angel announcing his conception that “he will be your joy and delight” (Luke 1:14). It was also for Zechariah a fulfilment of the divine promise, especially when he recovered his speech to confirm the name of the boy. For humanity, the birth of John brought joy and conversion as foretold by the mouth of the angel “ many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. Even from his mother’s womb he will be filled with the holy spirit and he will bring many of the Israelites back to the Lord their God. With the Spirit and the power of Elijah, He will go before him to reconcile fathers to their children and the disobedient to the good sense of the upright, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him” (Luke 1:14-17).
“His name will be John!”…says the angel to Zechariah before John was conceived. “His Name is John!”… confirms Zechariah to those who had attended the naming ceremony! In the gospel reading today, We hear of the birth and naming of John the Baptist. Here God’s graciousness was revealed to the world through the name given to the child. The name John means God is gracious! We are told that as Zechariah regained his speech as he named his child, all those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. They wondered what the child will turn out to be and indeed the hand of God was with him.
My dear brothers and sisters, in our present day society where it seems like the light of Christ is dimmed, we are invited to contemplate upon the person of John the Baptist, who prepared the way of the Lord and bore witness to that one true light who is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are all called to reflect and bear witness to that light of Christ in bringing about true conversion to the world and a radical possession of the Kingdom of God.
We may ask ourselves how we can reflect and bear witness to Christ in our day and age. John the Baptist is our best teacher in this regard. In John 3:30, John the Baptist says that “Christ must increase and I must decrease!” We should never forget that we fell from glory through pride and that the greatest virtue that our Lord has manifested in order to save us is his humility, the opposite of that which makes us perish. It is indeed the humility of Christ that saves us, his greatest gift that helps us find healing from our fall. The Lord himself sets up humility as a condition in order to learn anything divine. He tell us to take his yoke upon us and learn from him: for he is meek and lowly in heart (Matt.11:29). If we learn the humility of Christ, we will be able to perceive two realities, that is, the divine reality and human reality. We will perceive the presence of God in everything and in everyone and we will also perceive the falsehood in us. God has planted in us the potential to know our creator and to unite with him, and if we see God in everyone, we can honor and love every human being as ourselves. However, if we are to perceive that image in others, we need to be humble for humility attracts grace and grace is the light of life. Without humility, we remain blind and can understand nothing divine and nothing human.
The greatness of John the Baptist therefore lies in the fact that he was so humble as to be able to recognize in the humble form that the Lord assumed in order to come to us, the almighty God, the one who is. John was the only person at the time to recognize Jesus as the lamb of God and pointed his own disciples to him and these disciples eventually became the followers of Jesus and pillars of the Christian faith and of the Christian community.
In humility, there is selflessness that prepares man to receive the selfless love of God which saves and perfects. Pride is selfish and selfishness can neither love nor have communion with others, nor receive the spirit. Pride feels threatened by humility because humility is light and this light silently reveals the darkness of pride.
God’s greatness is unfathomable. He visits those who are sanctified from the wombs of their mother, like John the Baptist, but nothing prevents him from also bringing the worthy out of the unworthy, and reveal great people by healing their woundedness. We should not compare people’s journeys of faith because each is unique, but those who receive grace having been wounded by sin before, are more able to appreciate grace, humble themselves, have great gratitude and make great strides. Therefore take heart, brethren, for there is hope for us!
So what is in a name? In our opening story, Norton thought that by declaring himself emperor he had become one. He thought a new title would make him re-invent himself and even make him popular. That never happened. It only succeeded in bringing out sarcasm and fun to those who heard about it then, and to those who read about it now. John on the other hand was named by God and lived up to his name. He pointed others to God’s graciousness and lived a gracious life. He fitted in God’s plan for him unto death.
Many of us spend years searching for who we are and wondering what value we posses. We stress trying to name ourselves and trying to create identities that most of the time alienate us, when only God can truly tell us the truth about who we are. Thankfully, God calls us sons and daughters when we encounter and develop a relationship with him through His son Jesus. John 1:12 tells us that “to all who receive him, he gave the right to become children of God”. This identity is purely a gift. We are his beloved children “born not of human decision but born of God” John1:13.
Amen
