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Letters Nativity of John
the Baptist |
The Catholic Telegraph
June 22, 2001According to the laws of liturgical precedence, celebrations that rank as solemnities take supersede Sundays in Ordinary Time. That’s why, on this Sunday, we celebrate the solemnity of the birth of John the Baptist rather than the twelfth Sunday in ordinary time. The birth of John the Baptist is an important occasion because John the Baptist was an important person in the story of our salvation.
The second reading that is assigned for this day is from The Acts of the Apostles. At this point in Acts we find Paul and Barnabas evangelizing in the hinterlands of Asia Minor. They are in a place called Antioch, not the cosmopolitan Antioch in Syria, but the small and less pretentious Antioch in mountainous Pisidia. The first thing they do is go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They are invited to speak. Paul gives an address (his first in Acts) that is in three parts. The first part provides an overview of what God had done in implementing His plans for the salvation of His people from the time of the exodus from Egypt to the time of John the Baptist. The second part proclaims Jesus, through His death and resurrection, as the savior sent by God. The third part is an exhortation to Paul’s hearers to accept the forgiveness that God was offering them through Jesus.
Our reading is the conclusion of the first part of Paul’s discourse and the beginning of the second.
Paul mentions King David and the promise that God made to him that a descendant of his would rule after him and that his kingdom would be forever. Without much comment, he identifies Jesus as the one intended by God’s promise.
Then Paul goes on to speak of John the Baptist, the last link between God’s preliminary plan and the fullness of salvation. John preached about repentance and invited people to be baptized, but he was quite clear about who and what he was: a forerunner (an advance agent we would call him) for one much more important still to come.
Now Paul begins the second part of his speech, the part about the events and meaning of the life of Jesus. Our reading gives only the first sentence in which Paul says that God’s promised salvation is now being offered "to us."
This reading was obviously chosen because of what it has to say about John the Baptist. It shows us the importance that John had in the proclamation of the gospel of Christ right from the beginning.
We tend, quite understandably, to see John in relation to Jesus, as a kind of subsidiary player in the drama of redemption. But for people of the time of Jesus and the years immediately after Him, John was probably the better known of the two. The gospels present John without explanation, as if everybody should recognize him. So does Paul in this speech. Word of John had gotten all the way to Pisidia! When Paul wants to talk about Jesus, he links Jesus with the mission of the more widely known John.
John’s mission had two facets. First of all, he called people to repentance, reminding them that mere physical descent from Abraham would not guarantee them salvation. As a sign of repentance, he invited them to be washed in the river. This baptism that John promoted was a new practice that was so identified with John that it gave him his nickname: the baptizer.
The second facet of John’s mission was to get people ready to hear and respond to the promised saviour. "I’m not the important one," he said. "The important one will appear after I am gone."
John’s mission and message provided a kind of overture or prologue for the mission of Jesus. John got people ready for what Jesus would say and do. The themes of his mission would be taken up and expanded in the mission and teaching of Jesus. People were more apt to pay attention to Jesus because He preached what John had preached before Him (repentance and the rejection of false security). They were more willing to accept Jesus’ demand that His followers be baptized because John had already gotten people used to this particular kind of ritual washing.
The history of salvation that Paul preached about in Antioch of Pisidia reached its culmination in Jesus. But it’s not over yet. God’s project of salvation is still being carried out. The salvation that Jesus accomplished is still being communicated. All of us believers are beneficiaries of God’s plan insofar as we have accepted redemption from Christ.
But we are also all participants in the execution of God’s plan for salvation, not just passive recipients. True, salvation comes through Christ alone. But people have to be guided and helped to accept what Christ offers them. They have to get familiar with what He is all about. That’s where we come in. We are called to make them attentive to Jesus, to excite their expectations of what Jesus has to offer. We are all called to get people ready for the Lord. The ministry of John the Baptist continues in us.
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Conversation Questions
Where do I see the unfolding of salvation history in the world around me?
How do I exercise my mission as "advance agent" for Christ?
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