The Third Sunday of Advent, December 13, 2020

John 1:6–8, 19–28

A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but came to testify to the light. And 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.

One of the signs John gives to be taken seriously by the Jewish leaders is that he does not exaggerate his claim to who he was.  In fact, he minimizes his claim so that he is no more than a function, “a voice”.  After John’s arrest, the Lord will reveal that John was “Elijah”, but by denying that he is Elijah and stating that he is “a voice”, John tells the leaders to listen to what he is saying.  His asserting that he was Elijah would not serve his purpose but result in the Jewish leaders testing him and trying to manipulate him, with the loss of their hearing his message on its own merits.

John the Baptist certainly warrants our attention.  He is featured often in the Gospel readings at Mass during the Advent season in order to draw our attention to the Second Coming of the Lord, and to consider how we ought to live and behave with that great day, “that day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds” (Zephaniah 1, 15), foremost in our minds.  

John the Apostle, the writer of the Gospel from which this reading is taken, knew John the Baptist well in his time as his disciple.  He says directly of his former master that he “was sent from God”.  As one sent from God, knowing God’s purpose for him, “he came for testimony, to testify to the Light, so that all might believe through him.”  Jesus called his disciples “the light of the world” (Matthew 5, 14), and he is the Light of the light, the Light that causes that light and fills it with his own luminescence.   John the Baptist does not claim to be the Light, or even the light, but is simply “a voice” announcing the Dawn.  

“I am not the Christ.”  So great was John’s testimony to the Light in his words, deeds, and manner of life, that many people did take him for the Light, as the Messiah, or at least as a prophet.  John the Apostle’s prelude to his Gospel takes on this notion and refutes it absolutely in John the Baptist’s own words.  

“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”  John the Baptist identifies himself by quoting from Isaiah 40, 3, by which he also claims his legitimacy.  The chapter ought to be read in its entirety, or at the least the first fourteen verses, to understand “the voice’s” message.  Isaiah tells us, for instance, that this voice will cry out, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40, 4-5).  Here we learn of a time when Justice will arrive upon the earth, making all things right, that the Glory of the Lord will be made manifest, and that all will know it.  The voice is announcing the new age in which the Christ will come.  The voice also teaches that, “All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field” (Isaiah 40, 6).  John the Baptist particularly preaches this by the rough clothing he wears and the food that he eats.

As much as the message of Isaiah, which John preached and exemplified, pertained to the First Coming of the Lord, it does so as much to his Second Coming.  We who call ourselves followers of the Lord are “voices” as well.  Our words, therefore, as well as our deeds and manner of life must stand out clearly for the “priests and Levites” of our secular age to question us and to learn that the Lord is coming to judge the earth.  If they do not question us, it is a sign that we must cry out louder.