John the Baptist (Luke 3)

     “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea…during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah…”. From the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.

      In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

       Luke is determined to locate the story of John the Baptist, and the story of Jesus, firmly in history, in a place and time that can be described. The only name out of place, or out of time, is Lysanias, who ruled rather earlier, but the point remains the same: the events that Luke is about to relate happened to real people in a real place, at a time that we know something about. Luke is telling us that the contents of his Gospel are history, not fiction or speculation. Like a good historian, he provides references that can be verified. And we have an independent source for John the Baptist, in the historian Josephus, who wrote about him.

     John has one message: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In this Advent season, when we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Incarnation, and we also look forward to the coming of Christ at the end of time, spiritual preparation is essential. In repentance, that is, in turning toward God and away from those things which obstruct our relationship with Him, we are following in the footsteps of the prophets and John the Baptist. Luke himself makes the connection between the Baptist and the prophets, when he quotes the prophet Isaiah. Again the emphasis is on a real historical connection, with the words of a prophet who had preached centuries before. Isaiah and John are not offering theological abstractions, but real actions, baptism, in the case of John, and the opportunity, in the case of Isaiah, to follow him on a straight path to God, free of obstacles.

     I admit that I find Isaiah’s words somewhat alarming. I don’t wish to sound flippant, but I do find his description of the altered landscape disconcerting: every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth. This sounds like strip mining, or freeway construction. So, we can’t be expected to take this geographical description literally, but we can grasp the main point: there is actually no obstacle between us and our destiny in God. There is no valley of despair so deep, no mountain of trouble so great, that they can actually prevent us from arriving at our destination. The pathway before us is clear; all we have to do is take the first step, and more steps will follow. Once we set out on the path, deep valleys and high mountains are not the obstacles that they appear to be. There is nothing to stop us. The first step that John the Baptist offers is the baptism of repentance. And repentance, as I said a moment ago, is basically a choice: to turn toward God. That is all.

     A few years ago, a young friend walked the Camino pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. At the beginning of his journey, he had to cross the Pyrenees, which he did, on foot. I don't know where he crossed the mountains, or what the conditions actually were, but he described the journey as “wet, muddy, and dangerous.” Perhaps some of us have experienced the spiritual life as “wet, muddy and dangerous,” but, like my young friend, we passed through the mountains and reached the lowlands, where the crooked and rough ways were made straight, as Isaiah the prophet, and John the Baptist, said after him, that they would be.

     “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” Why the wilderness? The wilderness is that place where there are no distractions, no easy escapes from the mountains and valleys of our spiritual journeys, where the rough ways are not smooth. The wilderness, spiritual or geographical, is that place where we may more easily hear the voice of God. This is why people walk on pilgrimages through difficult landscapes, and locate monasteries, like St Catherine’s in the Sinai desert, in remote places. Geography and our passage through it are analogs of the spiritual life, which is always a journey, a journey from God and return to him.

     It is a journey where God is always present; remote, maybe, invisible maybe, silent maybe, but always present, at the beginning through to the end. We know this because Isaiah says, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” This is a promise, without qualification, no exceptions. That being true, John’s baptism of repentance is a way of accepting that reality; it puts us on the right path, the rough way made smooth, on the journey to God.

     Luke’s emphasis on the historical environment of John the Baptist and Isaiah the prophet, reminds us that we are on our journey to God in the world that we know, a world that is as real to us as the world was to Luke and John and Isaiah. There is no retreat from the world, from history, into some gaseous abstract spiritual realm where we can escape from the challenges of the journey, the deep valleys, the mountains, the rough places. They are where God journeys with us, and where he is waiting for us at the end of the road. It may be that one day someone will write, “In the twenty-first year of the third millennium, when Joe Biden was president in Washington, and Gavin Newsom was governor in Sacramento,” the word of God came to us, and we set foot on the way of the Lord, and we made his paths straight, so that all flesh could see in us the salvation of God.

     In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.