All About Jesus: The Fourth Sunday in Advent (December 22, 2024)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

As we get closer and closer to Christmas day, you would think the readings would be about explicitly about Jesus, but they aren’t. Our Gospel reading last Sunday was about the disciples of St. John Baptist who go to Jesus on John’s behalf to ask if Jesus is the Messiah they’ve been waiting for or if they’re supposed to be waiting for another. Today, the focus of our Gospel reading is once again, St. John Baptist as the Jewish religious leaders are trying to figure out who he is:

Are you the Messiah? No.

Are you Elijah reincarnated? No.

Are you the prophet that Moses prophesied would come after him? No.

And to be fair to the Jewish leaders, John Baptist does not easily fit into categories. He occupies the liminal space between Old and New Covenants. Fr. David rightly pointed out that, on the one hand, we can consider John Baptist as the last of the Old Testament prophets, the last prophet to minister before the Messiah. In acting as the hinge between Old and New, he makes a perfect figure for us to look at as we stand on the precipice of Advent, a season of expectation, waiting to enter into the festivity of Christmas. From a decidedly Old Covenant perspective, St. John Baptist always points us to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And despite all our business, the pressures of our consumeristic culture, we would do well to heed his cry. By better understand John Baptist and his ministry, we can better prepare ourselves to celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation.

Now, there are two very important things that the Scriptures note about John the Baptist: (1) he’s the New Elijah and (2) he’s the voice crying in the wilderness. Now when I say that John the Baptist is the new Elijah, you might raise your eyebrows because in today’s reading, when the religious leaders ask John if he’s Elijah, he rejects the notion. And that’s true: John isn’t literally Elijah. But, at the same time, there is a typological correspondence between the two figures. In S. Luke 1, the angel appears to Zachariah, John the Baptist’s father, and promises that his son “shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” So while it’s not an actual reincarnation of Elijah, John is a prophet like Elijah who was exceptional. Elijah’s role was to turn the people away from their sins and back to the covenant that God has made with them; similarly, John the Baptist’s job is to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just so that the people would be prepared for the coming of Christ. While it’s true that John the Baptist may not have wanted to take on the title of “New Elijah,” Jesus happily bestowed it on him in the passage that we read last week from St. Matthew: “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.” Why does Jesus connect John’s ministry to that of Elijah’s? The answer is found in Malachi 4:5–6. Now a quick Bible nerd point: In Roman Catholic Bibles, the last two books are 1-2 Maccabees, which as Anglicans we receive even if we make a rule not to establish doctrine based on them. Those are the last two books because they occur during what is known as the Intertestamental Period between the end of the “Old Testament” and the New. But guess what the last book is in the Protestant canon and the book right before Macabees in the Catholic canon? The book of Malachi. Malachi is a book with four chapters. And the fourth chapter of Malachi is only 5-6 verses. And you know what the last two verses say? “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, And the heart of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” This is the end of the Old Testament because we are left on a cliff hanger: we’re waiting for Elijah to come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord so that he can prepare us for the coming of the Lord. And that is what John does. Another biblical image that gets used to describe John Baptist comes from Isaiah 40:3: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” In Isaiah 40, the prophet is tasked with comforting the people of God because “her warfare is accomplished” and “her iniquity is pardoned.” But before God can come to the people, there is a voice that cries in the wilderness to prepare the way. It’s somewhat rare for us to see actual heralds go before people today, but we can understand that for some people, their importance requires an announcement. Before the judge walks into the court, everyone stands; when the president walks by, you salute; when the altar party processes and recesses, you show reverence by a light bow or nod of the head. And so before God comes, he sends this voice to prepare the way. And so John is that voice that announces that the Word has come. St. Augustine comments on this connection between the Word and the voice: “If Christ is the Word, John the voice, John was taken over as the voice in order that the Word might be spoken to us. And that the Word might come to us, the voice preceded it. That is why it is both true that Christ was before John in eternity, and that all the same, he had not to be born first, unless John came to us before the Word as the voice.” And so as the New Elijah and the voice that cries out in the wilderness, John prepares the way through proclamation. First, his proclamation was that the people ought to repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, but, once Jesus began his ministry, the proclamation became “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.”

But of course John the Baptist’s ministry wasn’t just about preaching…it’s kind of in his name: he also baptized. Now it’s important that we not mix things up: John’s baptism was not Christian baptism because it was not Trinitarian. This does not make it unimportant in terms of salvation-history, but it wasn’t salvific in the way that Christian baptism is. Just like the mission of his preaching, John’s baptism was about preparation. It was meant to be the fulfillment of Zechariah 13:1 “In that day there shall be a fountain opened To the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem For sin and for uncleanness.” Jesus is the promised Davidic ruler and so the people are prepared for his reign by this fountain that’s opened up to them by John the Baptist. Like Christian baptism, John’s baptism used water, but his baptism didn’t result in the remission of sins; rather, it points to the sinfulness of the person receiving it. Just like the Old Testament Law is a good thing because it shows us God’s perfect will but cannot save us from our sins, so John’s baptism provided a reminder that the people needed cleansing. It was a rehearsal for what was to come…or maybe we should say a rehearsal for who was to come: “He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose” (John 1:27). And so John’s baptism highlights a need filled by Christian Baptism just as John points forward from his ministry to that of Christ’s.

And that really is the summation of John’s ministry: pointing to Christ. This is why, in just a few chapters (John 3:30) John will say, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John’s whole life, from before he was born, was literally about pointing to Jesus. I mean think about it: he leapt in the womb at the presence of our Our Lord and his Blessed Mother. In so doing, John becomes an interchange: he urges us to look to the Lamb and also models for us what it means for us to decrease and Christ to increase as we point others to him. And so during the precious little time we have left in Advent, heed his call to look to that precious Lamb of God, the God-Man, the ruler of the universe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger. And pay special attention to the worship of the Church because just like John, she always points us to Christ. Every book, chapter, and verse of Scripture points us to Christ. The liturgies of worship in which we engage are all about Christ. Our preaching should always point you to him (the second we stop doing that, go find another church). The Church Kalendar, which follows his life points us to him. The lives of saints point us to him. Prayer points us to him. Christ is the beating heart in all creation and everything points to him: even the rocks cry out! And so remember that during this season, it’s not about shopping, it’s not about being crazy busy. It’s great to give people presents and spend time with loved ones. But through it all, the goal is to worship him and point others to him. Remember: we worship not only with our lips but in our lives. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.