Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” [Mark 1: 6-8].
Each year, as I approach the Gospel reading for the second week of Advent [Mark 1:1-8, the Second Sunday of Advent, RCL, Year B], which is always devoted to “the Baptizer,” I wonder anew what made John—what made John’s particular kind of baptism—so popular among the common folk of first century Palestine. Why did “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” go out into the wilderness to see him and to be baptized by him? A preacher friend of mine once joked that he had tried John’s brand of preaching during Advent, hoping to draw similarly sized crowds to his local church. It didn’t work.
To be sure, John’s presence in the wilderness and his peculiar dress and diet did signal to that first century culture that John was as serious as a heart attack. His camel’s hair poncho and his leather belt would have signaled to anyone with a knowledge of Hebrew Scripture that there must be some important connection between John and the great prophet, Elijah (the Tishbite) (see 2 Kings 1:8). John’s diet of locusts and honey wouldn’t have just hinted that he had a curious palate. It would have loudly stated that John was prepared to live a life that was desperately dependent upon God. “Give us this day ….”
Some have allowed that John presented an interesting contrast to the sort of theology offered in the Jerusalem Temple, that in John they saw a way to rush out into the wilderness in order that their lives might be changed in a “here and now” moment. In that way, John might well have been the first to inaugurate the belief that God’s Kingdom need not wait for some moment in the distant future, it need not take place on the other side of death; it might be experienced now!
Others have noted how liberating the confession of one’s sins can be. And so, for many who followed John out into the wilderness, their confession before the prophet, John’s act of taking them down into the Jordan for Baptism, the way his powerful hands supported their heads, and how his powerful words must have rended their hearts, it would have been very powerful, almost intoxicating. That holy power—coupled with the renewing feeling of forgiveness, of being refreshed, renewed, and equipped to face the drudgeries of life again—would have been contagious. When news of the transformative activity got out, others would have made the trek.
I wonder what people said to John after he had baptized them, after he had—at least temporarily—wiped away their feeling of sinfulness, after he had, to some degree, helped mend their brokenness and bewilderment.
“John, you’ve surely blessed me,” I think that many would have said something like that.
Others might have repeated, “John, I feel as if my life has been renewed. Thank you, dear one. Might you agree to talk to my nephew?”
In turn, John must have thought, “You folks don’t know the half of it. You think I have power. You think I offer renewal. You ain’t seen nothing, yet!”
And so, John carefully told them that someone more powerful was coming. In this story from the first chapter of the first written Gospel, we see the beginnings of an important, powerful pattern: When Jesus is near, things get turned upside down. In Jesus’ first act of turning things upside down, He has the weaker member of the personal relationship—John—baptize the One who is stronger.
As John looked at his own followers, I wonder if he thought, “You folks think my brand of ministry is radical; you need to see what’s coming. You think that I talk in an eschatological fashion. I’m tame compared to Him. Wait until you hear His parables? I provide prayers, some holy water to offer some cleansing for your broken lives; He will challenge you to give up your life for others.”
Perhaps John thought to himself, “Just when you thought that it was safe to go to the well at the hottest part of the day, so that you wouldn’t have to acknowledge the depth of your own sin, the One who follows me will appear at the well beside you and offer up Truth and real forgiveness [John 4].
Might John also have thought, “Just when you thought it was safe to rest at your favored spot near the ‘troubled’ pool at Bethesda, when you were relatively comfortable with your lot in life, in spite of your infirmity of 38 years, the One who follows me will appear from out of nowhere and ask you if you want to be made well [John 5:6]. What implications might flow from such true healing? Might you have to assume full responsibility for your life?”
Or might John have thought, “You who want a political uprising, who want the Roman yoke of violence overthrown, who want the reestablishment of the Hebrew nation, free from Roman and Greek shackles, free from oppression, free from worry, what will you say when the One who follows me commands that if your right cheek is struck by another, offer your left?”
Did John have softly prayed, “Lord, You who follows me, You who has true power and might, can I be comfortable with a Messiah who is not exactly of my choosing? Can I be content with a Messiah who offers me a humble post of service when I’ve been trained and nurtured for so much more?”
Finally, I wonder if John thought something like this: “Dear God, for years now I have embraced my association with the great prophet Elijah. I’ve taken on the mantle as Your holy messenger. I’ve tried to be a voice crying out in the wilderness. But I must confess, there’s something about the One who follows me that makes me ill at ease. I sense a power within Him, a true and Holy Spirit that is about Him [Mark 1:8]. He is here not just to cajole. He is here not just to comfort. He is here to change the world, to upset its intricate workings, to have His Way. While I embrace it, because I know that He is more powerful than I am, the stirring of that Spirit is uncontrollable and it is, therefore, unpredictable.
At about this time each year, I wonder how much I might be like John. Not like him in the sense that I have sacrificed much for our Lord. Not like John in that I have cried out in the wilderness. But I’m perhaps like John because I’ve seen enough of Jesus to know that it’s either His Way or the highway.
This is where the Spirit, about which John speaks, and about which Jesus teaches, comes into play. In John, the Spirit is promised, but not yet truly present. John the Baptizer represents preparation. John’s baptism is powerful and important, but it inevitably points to something else, Christ’s baptism of empowerment, through the Holy Spirit.
As my friend Luke allows, the Holy Spirit is a mysterious gift. With its holy unpredictability, it tends to pull the wrapper off an even greater Gift that might otherwise go undisclosed. When the Spirit comes, the people are not told to prepare; they’re told to be on their “Way” [Acts 19:23]. After the baptismal waters are long dried off our bodies, those baptized in and through the Holy Spirit discover that through that Spirit, Christ dwells within us, and He shows us His Way.
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