Bulletin Column from December 5, 2021

Dear Friends at Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish and Saint Frances Cabrini Parish:

Praised be Jesus Christ! From year to year the length of the season of Advent expands and contracts in its mid-section (like a Wisconsin waistline, as I always say) depending upon how the specific feast days land in the contours of the calendar. This year we have a lengthy Advent, and in years when Advent is long there are more readings and greater focus on the figure of Saint John the Baptist. It is to him that our gaze turns for the next couple of weeks. What can we say about him?

Historically he is referenced outside of the Scriptures which reinforces the long-standing Christian view of him as a person of sizeable public influence in his day. His birth story is found in Luke’s Gospel wherein he is shown to be a man born of unusual, God-given circumstances that paved the way for his role as the last and greatest of Prophets leading up to the Messiah’s arrival. Like other great prophets before him, John’s location of ministry and prophecy is the wilderness, which is always a place of privileged encounter with God and his people. There is some speculation that he belonged to a desert-dwelling monastic type of Jewish sect called the Essenes who by the time of Christ’s birth had left Jerusalem to live along the Dead Sea in expectant hope for the coming of the Messiah.

His primary role that is highlighted in all four Gospels is to be a preacher who puts the chosen people of Israel on alert that a radical visitation of God is at-hand. He is also the one who all four Gospels (some more explicitly than others) record as the one who baptizes Jesus, setting in motion a pivotal scene of heavenly revelation about who Jesus is as the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased.

While it is true that historically and in the Gospels John the Baptist is a towering figure, it is also the case that Jesus is the greater one, and that John’s whole existence serves as a means to allow the Savior to come. God will not come into the world as Messiah until John has first exercised his essential role as the great preparer. In this way he is a central Advent figure as the one whose message always acts as a means to more fully usher in to the world the fullness of God’s presence.

John the Baptist is offered to us as a model of how to be instruments at the service of God’s coming. God will again come into the world through us to the extent that we are watchful, expectant, and unfiltered mouthpieces for God’s own message. In this way we are all required to be preparers for the one who is to come, modeling ourselves after the pattern and witness of John the Baptist who was singular in his dedication to God’s mission. Advent is a privileged time of the year to identify ourselves with this great figure, and to align ourselves to his manner of being at the service of God’s plan. We do this in our prayer, in our careful study of God’s word in the Scriptures, and most certainly in our reception of the Sacraments which are the bonds of grace that engender true friendship with God. A world filled with persons in the type and mold of John the Baptist would indeed be a powerful force for transformation, and for the coming of God anew.