2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Finding our space in the Universe:
The Life Journey of John the Baptist (Jn 1:29-34)
Christmastide is now over and retailers have special Sales. Because, retailers hate ordinary time. They try to make even ordinary time into something special. Hence the reduced prices!
In the liturgical calendar, we are back to the ordinary time. But even in our gospel reading there is an attempt to make the liturgy of today special too. Perhaps it is just to remind us that every Eucharistic celebration is special! As we are in Year A, we should have been listening to the Gospel of Matthew. But our gospel text for today came from the Gospel of John, as is the case every year on the 2nd Sunday in ordinary time. The liturgy of the 2nd Sunday invites us once again to focus on the figure of John the Baptist as if to bridge the season of Advent and Christmas with the rest of the year. Having closely examined the pattern emerging in the gospel readings, I was surprised to note only today that the season of Advent begins with John the Baptist, the season of Christmas ends with John the Baptist (with the Baptism of the Lord), and again the ordinary time begins with John the Baptist. Interesting! Therefore, I decided to focus my reflection for today on the life journey of John the Baptist. I could have offered a reflection on the complete life-story of the Baptist tracing its parallels to the structure of a typical Hero-myth: the supernatural birth, the discovery of the mission, the desert experience, fulfilment of the mission, and the end; but I am not going to do it, because the story of John the Baptist is also a tragedy that ends in an unjustified death. I would rather focus on the later part of his life and draw some reflection for our own journey towards the experience of God in Jesus. I would develop this in three stages: Waiting for the Lord; Encounter with the Lord; and Witnessing to the Lord.
Waiting for the Lord
I strongly believe that we are all created by God, for God. However, understanding this truth and realising it might take a long time, even a life-time. For John (the name means, ‘the Gift of Yahweh’), his first moment of insight was when he was still in the womb of his mother: “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb” (Lk 1:41). This encounter with the Son of God was, for John, something unconscious and mediated only by his mother. But he was not complacent with this experience. For many of us, our own first encounters with God would have been unconscious and mediated by our parents. And we shouldn’t be complacent with this.
John’s parents might have had an understanding of the mission of the son of their old age. With all the divine intervention his father has had, he is able to express this: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (Lk 1:76). Even if there may not be many direct interventions in our lives, by and by we begin to understand the mission of our own lives. We might just call it a career. And our careers are determined often by our talents and gifts, by our qualifications and interests, by the expectations from our families and societies. Unfortunately, I come across so many talented people, apparently successful people, who are not happy. They seem restless and unsatisfied with life; they find themselves in the wrong place – even if that place seems so fine. How sad? On the other hand, I see John the Baptist as one who had a clear understanding of his mission in life. He knew why he was born during that particular time in human history and in that particular place in the universe. “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel” (Lk 1:80). His waiting ends when “the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and saying: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Lk 3:3-4).
Some of us are tempted to be more than what we are meant to be. We push ourselves too much; we fight; and we get frustrated. John the Baptist didn’t want to be more than the “voice crying in the wilderness” (Jn 1:23); he had chances to declare himself as the messiah (Lk 3:15); but he would prefer to say, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal” (Jn 1:26-27). He had to accept his own limitations: for instance, he could not perform miracles (Jn 10:41); his very appearance (Mt 3:4; Mk 1:6) was a sign of detachment and repentance that he preached: his clothing a camel’s hair garment as that of Elijah (2 Kings 1:8); and his food that supplied by the desert, locusts (Lev. 11:22) and wild honey (Ps. 81:16). The medium is the message! It is easier to preach a message, but is more challenging to be the message. John the Baptist was the message. A good lesson for the TV evangelists of today!
Encounter with the Lord
John the Baptist’s waiting pays off. As he fulfils his own vocation, he encounters the Son of God. He encounters God.
I find it always enlightening to compare the same story across the different versions of the Gospels. The story of the Baptism of the Lord is found in all the three synoptic gospels described with similar details (Mt 3:13-17; Mk 1:9-11; Lk 3:21-22). Narrating how Jesus was baptised by John, all the three gospels include three details: the heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, and a voice was heard. However, there is a difference in what was said by the voice – supposedly the voice of God the Father. In Mark and Luke, the voice went: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In other words, the words were addressed to Jesus himself. Therefore, as scholars say, the baptism of Jesus was an Abba-experience for him. It was one of the moments when Jesus becomes conscious of who He is!
On the other hand, in Matthew, the voice says: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). The words are addressed to those standing around Jesus. God, the father, introduces his son to the people. In the context of our reflection today, I would like to see this revelation as John the Baptist’s experience of God in Jesus. In the gospel of John, as we heard today, John the Baptist attests to this: “And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God”” (Jn 1: 32-34).
John finds God as he goes about filling that space meant for him in the universe. I believe, we are all created for a particular purpose. There is a particular space, as it were, in the universe that is meant only for me. It is only in filling that space that I find my happiness. It is in living in that space that I find God. By ‘space’, I mean, our vocation and mission. The ‘space’ is the plan of God for each one of us. That ‘space’ provides the answer to why I was born in this time in human history, and at this place in the universe.
In experiencing Jesus as the Son of God, John realises that his life purpose has been fulfilled: “This is the one I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because he existed before me. I did not know him myself, and yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came…” (Jn 1:30-31).
Witnessing to the Lord
Having experienced God in the person of Jesus, the life of John the Baptist takes on another dimension. He continues to witness to the messiah. But now the messiah is not in the abstract. He is Jesus. John begins to point out at Jesus, as the Lamb of God, as he does in the gospel text of today: “Look (Jn 1: 29, 36)!” This pointing to look is not just a call to see with our eyes. It is an invitation to look with our hearts, to experience God, and to recognise Jesus as the Lamb of God. In the Bible, this expression ‘Lamb of God’ occurs only in the Johannine literature: the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelations. (Johannine literature includes also the three epistles of John.) In the Gospel, the expression ‘Lamb of God’ occurs twice and both the times from the mouth of John the Baptist. In the Book of Revelations, it occurs seven times. To me, the recognition of Jesus as the Lamb of God would imply the realisation of the forgiveness of our sins through the unconditional love of God. It is in acknowledging the triumph of the Son of God over sin and death; and this triumph invites me to experience new life – a life in abundance.
As for John the Baptist, this fullness of life will be crowned with a martyr’s death. It is the culmination of his prophetic role in challenging the powers that be.
We may not be called to witness to Christ by our death. But we are called to live our lives as a witness. And this we do by finding our space in the universe. We are called to make that ordinary space into something extraordinary.