Dear St. Rita Families,
St. John the Baptist is an enigmatic figure, at first glance: clothed in camel hair, eating locusts and wild honey, living out in the desert, seemingly unaffected by the trials and tribulations that occupy the time and energy of the majority of humanity. His words are piercing, his mission clear – to make straight the paths of the Lord and to prepare the world for His coming. And God sent John ahead of Jesus, precisely so that Jesus’ words and work would be able to be received. Because, you will remember, Christ did not come as a magician seeking fans to pay for His shows, and so His miraculous healings were not the primary purpose of His presence. He didn’t come to tell us that we are all OK and just need to love ourselves more, and thus His compassion for the fallen doesn’t minimize sin and whitewash it out of sight.
Rather, Christ has come precisely to deal with and take seriously the gravity of sin and the brokenness it has caused. Prior to the coming of Our Lord, sin and human frailty loom over humanity as an “incurable wound” (cf. Jer 15:18, 30:12). Prior to the coming of John, there was an anticipation of God’s action in response to Israel’s bondage, but no sense of what it was that God would do, and for many, no clear sense of the actual problem. This was the blindness that was upon Israel and the world at the time of the coming of the Messiah.
It is John, then, who begins to clarify the problem for the people of Israel. The problem is, of course, sin. And as obvious as that may seem to us now, it was perhaps less so to the Jews of the time. For them, the problem was bondage – bondage to a foreign power that prevented Israel’s sovereignty. This bondage was a result of sin, certainly, but the problem was the bondage. Lack of bondage would mean that there was no sin, and this line of thinking led the Pharisees to focus on Temple sacrifices (and to scorn sinners); it led the Zealots to plot to overthrow the Romans violently; it led all Jews to hate Jewish tax collectors, since their work supported the Romans.
It took John, someone detached from all earthly concerns, to begin to clarify the problem for the people of Israel. And as everyone knows, spending time and energy trying to solve the wrong problem is both demoralizing and futile. In the case of Israel, it led to the factions, disagreements, and confusion we discover in the Gospel. Perhaps more importantly, it not only failed to solve the actual problem – sin – but arguably made it worse, since the sin of pride became entangled with each person’s or group’s earthly attachments as well.
Fast forward 2000 years. Ponder for a moment the situation of mankind on earth now. We are awaiting – both in the season of Advent and in the world – the coming of Christ. Only this time, the problem, sin, has already been dealt with! And this is what makes Advent not only a time of expectation and hope, but a time of joy as well. Sin has been destroyed, and we are living now a life that rejoices in what Christ has done for each of us, and that also eagerly longs for the full arrival of His Kingdom.
Thus, the proclamation of St. John the Baptist that we hear each Advent should spur us on to take hold of the victory Christ has won for us, to be bold in our proclamation of His message, and to confidently shake up the world around us! Even though you and I have rejected sin and seek our Lord wholeheartedly, there are many who still believe the fundamental problem has been political, social, economic, or natural. Our words and actions must help people to see that the fundamental problem in people’s lives is sin, and that Christ has dealt with it. Definitively!
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen