Vs.22-24=
After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where He
spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near
Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be
baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned.
As will become apparent in later verses St.
John the Baptist will, in this instance, catechize as if he were aware of
Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus.
There are two points to note, first in
chapter 4:2 the Evangelist specifies
that: Jesus Himself was not baptizing,
just His disciples.
Second, while keeping in mind how much of
the Holy Land, is mostly desert, arid land, where water is precious, St. John
does not tell us if this abundance of water is a river or lake or from a well,
yet in such an arid place any abundance of water would be notable.
When the Evangelist notes that St. John had
‘not yet been imprisoned’ it is as if he is preparing us for what is to come.
I have just finished reading a wonderful
book A SONG FOR NAGASAKI, which is the life story of Takashi Nagai, a convert
to the faith, doctor, husband, father, who suffered much being a citizen of
Nagasaki when it was struck by the atomic bomb.
On page 105 the author notes: “Origen used
to say that the Gospel according to St. John is the quintessence of the Bible
and is understood only ‘if you lean on Jesus’ breast’, in other words, if you
pray.”
I find, like Origen, meditation on the words
of the Gospel leads to prayer and so it ends up taking a long time to move from
verse to verse!
Vs.
25,26= Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew about
ceremonial washings. So they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who
was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here He is baptizing and
everyone is coming to Him.”
How often critical catecheses in St. John’s
Gospel are proceeded by some controversy!
With the above St. John introduces the
powerful, and humble, words of the Baptist:
Vs. 27,28= John answered and said, “No one
can receive anything except what has been given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said [that]
I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him.”
We have here incredible
statements of faith and trust in Divine Providence.
It is very common for we human
beings to presume what we have is as a direct result of our own labours,
ingenuity, tenacity.
This simply is not true.
The origin of all we have comes
from the creative, providential love of Divine Providence.
True, this laptop and its
components come from human labour, but the origin of all the metals, for
example, contained herein, is mineral resources, yes dug from the earth by
human labour.
BUT no human being created the
minerals, nor placed them in the earth to be found and exploited by human
beings for use in this laptop.
In every Holy Mass, this same
faith and trust in Divine Providence is expressed in the Offertory Prayers: Blessed
are You, Lord God of all creation, for through Your goodness we have received
the bread we offer You: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will
become for us the bread of life. And: Blessed are You, Lord God of all
creation, for through Your goodness we have received the wine we offer You:
fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.
Jesus urges us to trust Divine
Providence, to understand what truly is of value as noted by St. Luke 12: 22ff;
St. Matthew 6:25ff.
Then
the Baptist asks his questioners to themselves become witnesses of the great
reality of the Messiah.
Vs. 29,30= “The one who has the bride
is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens to him, rejoices
greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He
must increase; I must decrease.”
Two
critical teachings flow from the Baptist’s reference to marriage: 1] while we all can rejoice during a
wedding something more critical than what appears when we observe the bride and
groom in their finery before the priest at the altar, namely, unlike the other
sacraments, the minister of this sacrament is not the priest. He and
those in attendance are witnesses to something very sacred indeed, as teaches
the Catechism of the Church about the union of a baptized man and baptized
woman: According to the Latin tradition, the spouses as ministers of Christ’s
grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing
their consent before the Church…..In the epiclesis of this sacrament the spouses receive the
Holy Spirit as the communion of the love of Christ and the Church. The Holy
Spirit is the seal of their covenant, the ever-available source of their love
and the strength to renew their fidelity. [#’s 1623, 1624]
2]
Christ Himself is the Bridegroom, the Church His Bride, and thus we as members
of the Church share in this intimate communion of love: The Church is the
spotless bride of the spotless Lamb. Christ loved the Church and gave Himself
up for Her, that He might sanctify Her. He has joined Her with Himself in an
everlasting covenant, and never stops caring for Her as for His own body. [op.cit.#796]
There
is a pointing to Jesus’ own expression of joy in St. John’s saying his joy has been made complete, when Jesus says
in 16: vs. 20, 22, 23, 24= ….you will be
sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy…..I will see you again and your
heart will rejoice and your joy no one will take from you….Ask, and you will
receive that your joy may be complete.
No
matter what we suffer, no matter the stress, no matter the turbulence of our
emotions, the state of heart and soul of all the baptized is joy, the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
When
St. John teaches about Christ that He
must increase and of himself that I
must decrease he is preparing everyone for the reality that with himself,
as the last prophet of the Old Law/Testament, and the precursor, preparer of
the way for Christ, history – both chronological history as we experience, and
salvation history which is the whole point of the former, will forever more be
noted as the time before Christ and the time since Christ.
Here
too we can hear the later teaching of Jesus about greater and lesser: Truly
I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not
enter the kingdom of heaven. [Mt. 18:3]; The greatest among you will be your
servant. [Mt. 23:11].
Being
true disciples, witnesses of Christ for others means in a real way we too
should decrease so Christ increases within us.
As an
aside noted by Byzantine liturgical scholars: the nativity of St. John the
Baptist is celebrated on June 24th, when the sun has begun its
decline towards the horizon, while the birth of Christ is celebrated December
25th, when the sun has begun to increase.
The
Baptist continues his teaching, vs.31-36=
The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth is
earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven [is
above all]. He testifies to what He has seen and heard, but no one accepts His
testimony. Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift
of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to Him. Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see
life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.
Was
St. John the Baptist shown the Most Holy Trinity?
Certainly,
we know that Holy Spirit formed him and sent him on his mission as precursor of
Christ.
What
the Baptist gives us here is a clear teaching that Jesus is indeed the Messiah,
the expected One, sent by God, that is by the Father, and that Jesus is filled
with the Holy Spirit.
This
all, which is spoken here, flows from what the Baptist experienced and already
witnessed to in John 1: 29-34.
All
God’s self-revelation is fulfilled in Christ, who reveals to us that the name
of God is Abba. [Hebrew which is translated in the formal sense of ‘father’,
but the more accurate translation of this word, commonly spoken particularly in
Israel is: Dad, Papa, Daddy].
This
is the intimate relationship we have with the Father, that of beloved children,
each of us is His Child.
Jesus
is both our Redeemer and our brother.
Through
Jesus as well we come to know the Holy Spirit and in baptism receive the Holy
Spirit, becoming disciples of Christ, true children of the Father, thus enter
communion of love with the Most Holy Trinity.
Indeed,
when the Father sends His Word, Jesus Christ, He always sends His Breath, the
Holy Spirit. [cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #689].
Thus
as St. Paul teaches: For those who are
led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit
of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption,
through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be
glorified with Him……In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our
weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself
intercedes with inexpressible groanings. [Rm.8:14-17 & 26]
No comments:
Post a Comment