I found this icon, reproduced without attribution, at the blog below. If anybody can help me with a more accurate attribution, I would appreciate it. So many of the icons of John show him beheaded. I didn't find many that show him baptizing. (Probably if I'd looked at "Baptism of Jesus" I would have hit the jackpot. How like John, who said of Jesus, "He must increase; I must decrease"!)
http://ecumenicalbuddhism.blogspot.com/2011/01/last-old-covenant-prophet-john-baptist.html
The two poems which follow are somewhat different responses to the life and ministry of St. John the Baptist, written over the past several years. For some reason, I suspect that I will return again and again to reflect on how God was at work in the life of St. John the Baptist; and how God is at work in my own life.
First Poem -- I stayed with the Sisters of the Community of St. John Baptist in Mendham, New Jersey last year on retreat for a few days the week before their patronal feast. As a "thank you" to them, I wrote this poem. The Community's motto is John's saying: "He must increase, but I must decrease."
John, with rough, prophetic voice—a strange
imposing figure, clad in camel’s hair--
Three Gospels tell us of his tragic death,
And Matthew shows how, when he meets Our Lord,
(Thirty years of age—as he begins,
before he teaches, heals, or wakes the dead
he comes to John, he asks to be baptized)--
John points upward—maybe with a shrug:
“Must you, who bring the Spirit’s holy fire
be baptized here?
By me?.......”
He frowns. We see,
In crease of forehead, how he strives to grasp
what Jesus wants: the Fire in Water plunged.
But can this faithful, odd Forerunner know
how, ever after, we who are baptized,
I and you, and all who follow Christ,
Must die in baptism’s waters? Then we’re raised,
Must find the Cross the way to Paradise,
must never let the longing of our hearts
decrease for that Celestial Banquet, when
the Lamb of God, the Spirit and the bride
say, “Come! Come feast on Living Water, Child!”
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Second Poem--I wrote this one a few years ago. It's not as disciplined as the first poem. It's longer, and I would still like to rework it some day. But I'll share it anyhow.
The Way of John
I am an old man.
Not in years—
In years I am in the prime of life.
But I am now not long for this world.
This I know.
I was one who baptized,
Also,
I was one of those who define ourselves
By who we are not,
(“I am not the Christ, or Elijah, or the Prophet…”)
This is knowing our limits--
I was one who baptized,
Also,
I was one of those who define ourselves
By what we don’t know,
By whom we fail to recognize.
“There is one in your midst,” I once said,
“ whom you do not know….
You thought my words were harsh?
But we are not so different, you and I.
There was a time when
I did not know him either.
More than one time.
First came my mission: “Baptize!”
Baptize, trusting, believing
that Israel will know him when he comes.
I did not know him at the start.
But I started on my mission. I baptized.
I baptized and preached--and
Still I did not know him.
But a Voice once told me,
Told me what to watch for—
“Him on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain--
Watch for this one!”
I baptized the young and old of Israel,
trusting: “Israel will know him when he comes.”
I baptized rich and poor.
I baptized sinners blatant and secret,
trusting: “Israel will know him when he comes.”
Always I watched.
Always I longed.
He was no different from the rest,
not glowing with the Light to come,
no mighty hand, no outstretched arm,
not more beautiful, nor taller, nor special in any way.
In fact, he was my cousin.
He stepped into the water and
the Spirit came…
Always I sensed the Spirit come
when water dripped in shining rivulets
from faces released from guilt and shame and sin.
This one time only, the Spirit came,
bright bird-like wings flickering in the light,
And stayed.
Dropped like a hawk, I tell you,
onto his Victim
Bright Raptor shot from heaven,
with talons spread.
Someone may try to tell you it was like a dove
But they would be wrong.
So there he was.
And I saw.
And I testified.
Once I knew I knew.
I’d been saying all along: “Get ready!”
I’d been saying all along: “Turn around!”
I was out there in the wilderness.
But that was what I said.
I said it in what you might call
The wrong place and the wrong time,
to the wrong people.
So here is where I am:
in this dungeon now,
dark, with walls of stone.
Light a couple of hours a day when the sun is far to the west.
I know I saw the Spirit.
Let me humbly correct myself.
…I think I saw the Spirit.
Once I did not know him.
Do I know him now?
The world goes on,
so little changed.
The wicked are still wicked.
(I cried so long and loud.)
Israel will know him when he comes.
I thought I knew him…
But Israel pays him so little mind.
Is he the One who is to come?
He is not long for this world, I fear.
The Spirit—the Holy Hawk-- is with him still.
He is still God’s Victim.
He is the Lamb.
The Essay
This was a short column for the Pickens County Progress that I wrote when I was the December religion columnist one month.
We all know people like him. They are very bright, gifted in their own way. They pay no attention to fashion in how they dress. They don’t pay much attention to the rules of etiquette, either. They live on the fringes of society. Their eating habits are strange—maybe there are only a couple of things they will eat at all. They get so focused on a subject important to them that they don’t notice when people’s eyes glaze over. They say what they think, even if it offends people. They draw no distinctions between “important” people and ordinary people. A couple of generations ago we might have called such people “quirky.” Today they’re likely to have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum.
There’s a biblical figure we know as John the Baptist, because baptizing people was one of the things he loved to do. We might have called him quirky, too. He had a brilliant, electrifying way of speaking to the crowds. He dressed in clothing made of camel’s hair, cinched with a leather belt. He lived in the wilderness. He ate locusts (yes! the bugs—I once thought the Gospel writers must have meant locust beans, but they didn’t) and wild honey. He would speak the unvarnished truth to any who came out to hear him. He didn’t care or notice if his message made him popular. He simply had to bellow it out: “Repent! Get ready for the coming of God!”
God couldn’t have picked a better man for the job than John. John jarred people out of being set in their ways. John called them to repent, literally, to turn their lives in a new direction. John told them this repentance was urgent because the Lord was coming, and it was their job to prepare for that coming.
Christian churches that follow a calendar based on the life of Jesus are now in the rich and wonderful season called Advent. “Advent” means “Coming,” and in Advent we tie together time and eternity. We remember the comings of God into our lives. We remember the coming of Jesus, fully human and fully God—God’s most profound and beautiful way of speaking to the human race. We remember that we are still longing for the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven where mercy and truth, justice and love coexist.
John is the classic Advent figure. He’s not on Christmas ornaments or in crèche sets. But he is the Bridge that holds the Comings of Christ together. He is, like the Hebrew prophets, concerned with calling God’s people to repent, to allow God to turn their lives in a new direction. John proclaims that the new path leads to One who will set their lives on fire with his love.
In Advent, John the Baptist reminds us that the Baby in the Manger grows to be the Son of Man, and if you follow him you will never be the same again. Take some time with John before Christmas this year. John calls us to prepare for the Lord’s coming. You can find his story in your Bible in Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 1 and 3, and John 1 and 3.
