Dominica secunda Adventus
Evening,
3 December 2016
Church
of St John the Evangelist
Agawam
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
This man came for witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might
believe through him. He was not the light,
but was to give testimony of the light (Jn 1:6-9).
We
do well to continue the discussion we began last week about the Last Gospel; we
will likely spend the next two Sundays doing the same. Considered in light of
today’s Gospel about the imprisonment of John,[1] it seems a fitting course
to take: we hear about St John the Baptist in both.
Do
not fail to miss the drama hidden in the episode we just heard. St John is in
prison.—By the way, he is there in the first place because of what he taught
about marriage. We think our contemporary struggles are unique; they are not.—He
is in prison and puts this question to Jesus by way of two of his disciples: Are
you the one whose coming was foretold, or should we look for another? Let that
question linger a moment. Imagine how it must have echoed in the mind of John
even as his disciples left him in Herod’s prison. Doubtless John’s exceptional
sanctity had steeled him in wisdom and courage; he knew well of his mission:
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” And yet even with the
surety of his mission and the confidence he had in the Providence of God, there
was much riding on that question. Not everything was perfectly clear yet. After
all, there had been other claimants to the role and title of Messiah before;
they came to nothing.[2] But with the true Christ,
things were different: “Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen. The
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise
again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not
scandalized in me.”
How
those words must have assured John, perhaps even made his imprisonment a
sacrificial joy.—But imagine for a moment if the answer had been different;
thanks be to God it is pure speculation, but imagine it. His two faithful
disciples return with grave, perplexed faces: these would be answer enough.
With what words could he have comforted them? With what thoughts could he have
comforted himself? For that matter, what sense would his imprisonment have
made? Those years of fasting and prayer in the desert; the throngs to be
baptized with repentance in the Jordan; his conflict with Herod and Herodias—what
were all these? Was he deceived when he saw Spirit descend upon Jesus like a
dove?[3] The expectation of the long history of prophets and patriarchs and the
faithful remnant was, as it were, concentrated in St John, and all this
expectant longing would be cast into a vertigo of thwarted hope and desperation
if this were not the Christ. To what other
would he really look?
But
once again, thanks be to God, this was not to be. The Last Gospel confirms it
for us: “This man [John] came for a witness, to give testimony of the light,
that all men might believe through him.” And so, through him, the many have
come to believe.
“Are
you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Once again, it is
not without reason that the Roman Rite uses the Prologue of John as the Last
Gospel. Augustine remarked that it should be printed in gold letters and
displayed in a prominent place in all our churches.[4] The Catholic faithful are
those who have received the testimony of St John: “This man came for witness,
to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.” And
“as many as received him, he gave them power to be made sons of God, to them
that believe in his name.” The Last
Gospel sets the seal of John’s testimony upon our act of worship, and confirms
us in the grace of Christ. For the Church is nothing less than that family that
has become, in the language of Last Gospel, the children of God.
Yet
dwell for a moment once again on the question of John the Baptist: “Are you the
one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” We saw how important this
question was for him, but it is not his
question alone. Every human heart has uttered the same question, ours among
them. The search for Christ or another is one way to describe the drama of sin
and redemption in human life. The world proposes many saviors to us, and we
hardly need to list them. Every sin and error is, in one sense, and to varying
degrees, a kind of counter proposal to light and life which is Christ.—And yet,
in point of fact, each of these proposals amounts to that one singular proposal
that has echoed since the days of Eden: “So when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was
to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.”[5] The first sin was an act
of looking for another besides God: and not only looking, but choosing—and that
choice was one of absolute self-determination, a rejection of the order that
proceeds from the mind of God.
But
that is so very general. Imagine for a moment if John had received a negative
to his question what that would mean for us individually. “Are you the one?”
Indeed, what sins in our life would still have hold over us, if Christ Jesus
were not the one? Furthermore, what confusions and questions of ours—the
intimate, hidden thoughts of our hearts—would go unanswered? What aspects of
our identity would have gone undeveloped? What blessings would be absent from
our life, what acquaintances and friendships never found? What difficulties
would have defeated us? What dullness of life and fear would still be ours if
Christ were not the one who was to come—or at least if we refused to follow him
or to acknowledge him as such? We would share John the Baptist’s prison, a
lightless prison, with only that same frustrated longing and anxious fear to
bear us company.
Our
hearts say, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Yet, “In the beginning was the Word.” That Word says, “Go and relate to John
what you have heard and seen. The blind see, . . . the deaf hear, . . . the
dead rise again, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” We ourselves
are the blind, the deaf, the dead, and the poor. “And blessed is he who is not
scandalized in me.” No, indeed, do not be scandalized.—“Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.”[6]
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