JOHN THE BAPTIST LOST HIS HEAD BUT STILL SPEAKS
Matthew 3:1-6
"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."
We humans have evolved over millennia. And just as we can now plot our physical
evolution back to the earliest times, so we can also trace our spiritual
evolution. In doing so we discover there
were some periods in history when humankind took a giant step forward. Most notably, between the 8th and 4th century
before the birth of Jesus there was an explosion of new spiritual insight
across the world not unlike in significance to the time long before when men
and women harnessed fire or invented the wheel.
This was the period which saw the birth of Socrates in Greece, the
Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Jeremiah in Israel. What
happened during those five hundred years before Jesus was nothing less than a
fundamental transformation in our knowledge of what it means to be human. As
Karen Armstrong describes it in her book The
Great Transformation, during that
period across the world, the frontiers of human consciousness suddenly expanded
as humans discovered what Armstrong calls "a transcendent dimension in the
core of their being." Something
long known , of course, by the San (or Bushmen) and other indigenous peoples
across the globe.
But as often happens, it seems as if after such an amazing
spurt in human spiritual consciousness, at least as always only on the part of
some, there is a lull, a period not just of consolidation but even of
regression. An absence, if you like, of
spiritual innovation. The great leap
forward in understanding seemed to stall during the centuries which
followed. It was as though the spiritual
development of humankind came to a halt, not able yet to comprehend what had
been achieved, or able to produce the leaders necessary to take the process
further. One symptom of this in ancient
Israel was that following Jeremiah and others like him, the era of great
prophets came to an end.. This did not
mean that there was no longer any longing or hunger in the hearts of people for some divine Word that would speak
to the heart and soul. There were always
those who longed to hear again an authentic Word from the Lord that would bring
renewal to the spirit and justice to the land.
"Is there any Word from the Lord?" was their cry. Has God forgotten us?
That is why the sudden appearance of John the Baptist caused
such a stir, for after several centuries of apparent silence and in a time of
barrenness, it seemed that God was once again speaking his Word through this ascetic
preacher in the Wilderness. It seemed as though Elijah or one of the prophets had
been reborn. The hope for the coming of
God's reign of justice and peace was being rekindled. That is why people came to hear John preach,
and heard him call them to a fundamental change of heart and mind in order to
prepare for the coming of one who was even greater than he himself, one who
would usher God's earthly reign into reality.
Some even thought that John himself was the promised Messiah. But when asked, he simply said he was a voice
"crying out in the wilderness" preparing "the way of the
Lord," making his paths straight."
Sometimes people ask why did Jesus only come when he did to
save the world? Why did God not send him
earlier to sort things out? John the
Baptist is the reminder that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, took a great deal
of preparation. This was not something
that could be achieved in a few weeks like our preparations for Christmas each
year. The preparation in fact went back
at least to that period in history when human consciousness across the globe
became aware in a new way of the significance of the transcendent. Humankind had to be prepared for the coming
of the Christ. The advent of Jesus had
to wait for the right moment in the evolution of the world, in history and
human consciousness. As St. Paul put it: "when the fullness of time (kairos) had come, God sent his
son..." (Gal. 4:4) We don't know precisely
when Jesus was born according to the calendar.
But it was at the right time, a time when at least some were ready to
receive him. The opening chapters of
Matthew and Luke tells us something about them.
And John the Baptist was on hand
to prepare them for Jesus' coming. And John
knew only too well that without a change of heart and mind, without repentance,
in other words, no one could cannot grasp the significance of what was about to
happen for the salvation and transformation of the world.
The simple truth is this.
The coming of God's kingdom or reign of justice and peace, whether back
then or today, requires a quantum leap in human consciousness. There can be no peace in the Middle East or
anywhere else on earth without a fundamental change of heart and mind on the
part of the leaders of the nations and those involved in the conflict. Bombs and bullets won't do it. That is the mentality of primordial humanity
when it seemed that brute force was the only way to resolve conflict, a
mentality that prophets through the ages have been challenging and trying to change.
In the same way, there can be no solution to the ecological crisis which we now
face, a crisis that is reaching toxic proportions and threatens the future of
the planet as never before, unless there is a fundamental change of heart and
mind on the part, not only of world leaders, but of all of us. This is the relevance of John the Baptist's
message. The salvation proclaimed at
Christmas requires repentance, a change of heart and mind if it is to be
grasped.
The message of Advent has never been more necessary. Christmas, the coming of the reign of God in
Jesus Christ, requires a fundamental spiritual change. Without this humanity cannot
take the essential step that is no urgently needed. Advent stops us in our tracks just as John
the Baptist intruded into the lives of men and women in his day and said
"Repent" or change your heart and mind, "for the kingdom of
heaven has come near!" If we and
the world at large are open to John's message, willing to stop wasting billions
on armaments or through corruption and therefore willing to change direction,
we will be ready to receive the justice and peace that Christmas is all about. In fact there will be the birth of a new
consciousness in our evolving journey into the wholeness that God wants to give
us.
Isobel has written four new sonnets for Advent. The first appropriately reminds us of John
the Baptist:
The
Christmas Season is upon us now,
It
floods our senses with its bright allure.
The
weeks of Advent just get lost somehow;
Their
meaning hidden, their import obscure.
If John
the Baptist cried, "Prepare the Way!"
It would
put a damper on our Festive Cheer,
Imagine
if we Christians had to say
"Repent! The Day of Reckoning is
here!"
So how
in fact can each of us prepare,
When
parties, pageants, baking, buying, feasting
All
catch us up in their entangling snare?
We do
get caught in this, there's no denying.
Is there
at all a way to both combine
and
sanctify the world with the sublime?
John de Gruchy
Volmoed
Advent 1, 3 December 2015
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