The Memorial of Saints Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Monday, January 1, 2023

John 1, 19-28

This is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him to ask him, “Who are you?” He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, “I am not the Christ.” So they asked him, “What are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?” He said: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.” Some Pharisees were also sent. They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

As in St. Matthew’s Gospel, St. John’s begins with opposition: Matthew’s, with Herod’s attempt to kill the newborn King of the Jews, and John’s, with the priests and Levites sent out from Jerusalem to interrogate John the Baptist.  Both Matthew and John wrote their Gospels for Jewish Christians while St. Mark and St. Luke wrote primarily for Greek Christians.  The authors of the Gospels for Jewish Christians wrote for an audience many of whom knew first hand of the opposition of the Jewish leaders to the Lord Jesus and were themselves suffering from their persecution.  These Gospels were written to encourage the faithful suffering from them, reminding them of how the Lord had charged them, “Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15, 20).

“Who are you?”  No one like John the Baptist had ever arisen in Israel.  He lived in the way of some of the old prophets, especially Elijah, but unlike Elijah he performed no miracles and remained in the same region.  His baptized, which none of the prophets had done, and he preached repentance.  The Jewish leaders felt apprehensive about him but did not know what to make of him.  He made no claims about himself, did not go into the cities, and seemed content to live as an outsider.  But when someone has usurped power and holds it illegitimately, everyone is a potential threat, especially if they draw crowds.  And the chief priests had gotten their positions through paying the Romans, and the Pharisees, out of pride, had set themselves up as teachers, though unauthorized to do so.  John answers their question denying that he was the Messiah or Elijah come back down from heaven, and saying very simply, “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert.”  In short, he did not seek to overthrow the established authorities, legitimate or not.  For this reason, the chief priests left him alone.  But the Pharisees acted with greater persistence.  They did this because they felt threatened by John as a teacher, but also because evil is curious.  Evil is baffled by charity that seeks no reward and selfless love.  It does not make any sense to those who are evil.  They ask, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”  It is a curious question because nothing in the Scriptures indicated that Elijah or the Messiah would baptize, and yet the Pharisees tie baptism to these figures.  Perhaps this was one of their interpretations of the Law, as false as that Jews needed to wash several times a day as the priests had to do in the Temple. 

“I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”  Here John ties his ministry of baptism to the Messiah, whom John neither names nor actually calls “messiah”.  The power of John’s statement depends on the knowledge he has of his reputation.  He knows that the crowds consider him to be a great man, and he himself is conscious of his call by Almighty God, and so can speak of one who is greater than he, knowing that this will make an impression on the Pharisees.  John emphasizes the greatness of this other by telling the Pharisees that he is not worthy to be this man’s lowest slave.  And yet, for all that, this man is not recognized: he is among them, but not known to them.  John knows him because God has revealed him to him, but the Pharisees do not because they have received no such revelation.  They do not receive it because they are not doing the work of God, as John is, and their faith is weak, appearances to the contrary.

“This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.”  St. John, writing his Gospel years later, knows where these conversations took place because he was there.  As a very young man he followed John the Baptist before he followed Jesus.  John even tells us on what side of the Jordan John was baptizing, for “Bethany across the Jordan” was situated on its eastern bank.  This is the first of several occasions when John will precisely locate the events he describes, pointing over and over to the reality that the Son of God had indeed assumed a human nature and walked upon the earth where he could be seen, heard, and touched.