Second Sunday of Advent
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
7 Dec 2003
John the Baptist, the Son of priest Zachary and Elizabeth cousin of Our Lady was born 6 months before Jesus. Luke’s Gospel tells us Gabriel the Archangel appeared to Zachary in the temple announcing that Elizabeth would conceive a son. Gabriel told Zachary to give his promised son the name of John, which mean “Yahweh is gracious”. He would lead many of the sons of Israel to their Lord and would walk in the power and spirit of Elias. In his canticle called the Bendedictus, Zachary sings of his son as “prophet of the Most High”. According to tradition John was born 6 months before Jesus in the town of Ain Karim, about three-and-a-half miles west of Jerusalem. Luke also relates that John spent his youth in the desert.
John appeared in the region of the Jordan as an ascetic and a preacher of penance. His principal task was to announce the arrival of Jesus Christ as Messiah and to baptize him. He appeared clothed in camel’s hair, the traditional garb of the prophets; just as Elijah had.
John came as “a voice crying in the desert” echoing Isaiah. According to the Fourth Gospel the Baptist categorically denied that he was Elijah or the expected Prophet or the Messiah. But he was indeed the last of the Old Testament prophets.
The message of John’s sermons is rather forbidding and severe (Mt 3.7-12; Mk 1.7-8; Lk3.7-18): “the axe is laid to the root of the trees”. But Luke insists also on the positive and humane aspects of the Baptist’s message. No profession is denied salvation; all are called primarily to practice justice and charity toward their fellow man.
In John’s Gospel the Baptist describes himself as the friend of the Bridegroom who must decrease as Christ must increase; he proclaims Jesus as the Lamb of God.
John gathered around him a group of disciples who remained faithful to him until his death. The apostles Andrew and John had been disciples of the Baptist before joining Christ. The Synoptic Gospels and John record disputes between the disciples of the Baptist and those of Christ over fasting and baptism. The Baptist, however, seems to have counseled his disciples to follow Jesus.
The Evangelists further describe how “all the country of Judea went out to him, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem”. Josephus the ancient Jewish historian as well as the Evangelists, records the reaction of Herod Antipas, who, fearing an uprising, had the Baptist imprisoned. John had fearlessly denounced Herod’s sinful marriage with Herodias, his brother’s wife. In turn, Herodias instigated her daughter Salome to request John’s death; to please her Herod had John beheaded, although he had regarded him as a religious and just man. While in prison, John had sent a delegation of his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah. According to some critics, John had found it difficult to accept a meek and merciful Messiah rather than an Elijah-like figure. In answer, Jesus pointed to his fulfilment of the Old Testament messianic expectation, especially as described by Isaiah. He then took the occasion to eulogize John as “a prophet, yes, more than a prophet. . . . . Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist”.
The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered by a shepherd boy in 1947. They had belonged to the Qumran Community, probably a Jewish group called the Essenes.
Many scholars think that the Qumran community of the Judean desert had an important influence on the Baptist. Some claim that John belonged to the community.
These similarities are striking, e.g. that of the messianic expectation of the Judean desert. The Qumran community was a priestly one; John, too, came from a priestly family that manifested intense messianic hopes. Both John and the sectarians of Qumran found inspiration in the text of Is 40.3. John preached a baptism of repentance, and while the Qumran community practiced ritual ablutions, there is no indication that they attached any moral significance to these. Yet the Qumran ritual was frequently repeated, whereas that of John was apparently administered only once. John announced a second baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire, that is, an eschatological judgement; the Qumran ascetics, too, preached a second baptism that would be the work of the Spirit of God and would be eschatological.
A striking difference, however, between John the Baptist and the Qumran community is the universality present in John’s preaching in contrast to the closed character of the Qumran group, which regarded all outsiders as “sons of darkness.”
Since John spent many years in the desert, it seems probable that he knew the Qumran community. It has even been suggested that as a child he had been educated by them. But he certainly was not a member of the Qumran community during his active ministry, for his missionary life was not in keeping with the rule of this community.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
