The Mission of John the Baptist: Part I

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

The Mission of John the Baptist

Matt. iii. 1-17; Mark I. 1-11; Luke iii. 1-22.

In a westerly direction from Jerusalem and near the village of Aïn Karim, you'll find a cave which still bears the name of John, it is a considerable cavern, difficult of access, and retains no sign of habitation, save a stone bench hewn out of the rock, made to serve for a bed or couch; a few stunted shrubs surround the mouth, and close by there is a spring, beneath which a basin has been hollowed out.  It is here, as the local traditions tell us, the son of Zachary grew to manhood.  The solitary reaches roundabout are called "John's Desert," and some would even go so far as to make this neighbourhood the birthplace of the Precursor.  We have seen that much weightier evidence is of secure that distinction for the region about Hebron.  So, then, Aïn Karim is only one of those numerous retreats in which the Prophet passed the solitary year days and years of his early life.

From his very infancy, in fact, John had given signs of the strength of soul far from common, and though by right of inheritance he might have claimed the office of Sacrificer, he quitted the Temple to bury himself in the desert.  By this term is to be understood the wild hill country which reaches from Hebron to Jerusalem, being no more than a series of steep ranges, cleft and broken into by a number of parched and arid valleys; a patch of dry underbrush, here and there, is all that varies the monotony of those chalky stretches, whose glare so wearies one's eyes.  Even this dreary undergrowth disappears as you near the Dead Sea; the desolation now comes to be complete, an absolute waste; the sight can descry nothing but an undulating moorland, as it were, made up of gray fields of ashes; while in the distance the attainted lake exhales its noisome breath, recalling the memory of Sodom's awful condemnation.  Such is the appearance of the desert where John dwells until the age of 30, not as a hermit, but wandering about, like the prophets of olden time, without other shelter than the caverns of the mountains or the scanty foliage of the thickets.

St John the Baptist in the Wilderness. Murillo. 1660. © National Gallery London.

In the midst of this wilderness, blasted by the thunderbolts of divine Justice, John grew to an understanding of his Mission.  All things must have revealed it to him, both the wondrous happenings at his birth and the prophecies which foretold his coming.  Two of these predictions are mentioned in the Gospel.  That of Malachy prophesied that the Lord would send before His Messiah a Messenger, to prepare the way against His coming.  In the other, Isaiah tells us to hearken "to the voice of him who cries out in the desert: Prepare ye the way for the Lord; make straight His paths; every deep defile shall be filled up; every mountain and little hill laid low; the crooked paths shall be straightened out, the rugged places become plain, and all flesh shall see the Salvation which cometh of God." These impassable ravines, these mountains rising around him on every side, these steep pathways, forced by the great boulders and precipices to make innumerable curves and windings, all these were before the eyes of John; and to him, as to Isaiah, these all only beatokened that desolation, midmost the wilderness of souls, which he must needs make ready for the coming of the Messiah.  As the Precursor of Jesus, he was to run before Him, just as heralds announced the sovereigns of the East, with trumpet and loud voice, bidding all make clear the thoroughfares to do honour to the royal progress.

John was preparing himself for his ministry, not only by meditating on what Heaven revealed to him, but by the practice of the most austere virtues.  Consecrated to God by the vow of the Nazarite, he never tasted either of the fruit of the vine or of strong liquor, nor had his locks ever been shorn.  But soon this abstinence seemed to him too common and too slight.  All his food, in the desert, was limited to locusts, and the wild honey found among the rocks.  His frame became reduced by fasting.  Gaunt and half-naked, wearing no other covering than a leathern girdle about his loins, while over his shoulders hung a cloak of camel's hair.

Therefore, so soon as John entered the valley of Jericho, all eyes were drawn to him, while forthwith they recalled how Elias was caught up in the chariot of fire, from the same fields of their ears.  They had always believed that the Thesbite had been but lifted up into the heavens that he might descend again upon some future date.  This Malachy had declared.  But that famous prophecy, in which he alluded to both precursors, had only perplexed the minds of the Jews.  They could not distinguish John, the Herald of the living Christ, from Elias, who was to precede the last coming of the Lord; and as Elias was alone named by the Prophet, it was to him solely that their hopes had reverted.  And hence always, upon the least rumour that God had raised up a new Seer, one single question sprung to the lips of the whole people:

"Is it Elias?"

On beholding John, their excitement was all the more natural, since in him there was really revived the lofty fervour and austere features of the most illustrious of all the prophets; the same abruptness in manifesting himself, the same ascetic garb, the same strong speech.  The resemblance was so perfect that the people were mistaken, and believed that the Thesbite had returned, just as he is painted in the Song of the son of Sirach:

He hath arisen, Elias, they Prophet who is as a fire!
His word burns like a torch.
He has brought down upon Israel a famine,
And, in his mighty zeal, he has made them very few.
Armed with the word of the Lord, he has shut up the heavens,
And, from thence, three times hath he drawn down fire.
What glory unto thee, Elias, flash forth these wondrous deeds:
Who then shall equal thy renown?
Thou who hast awaked the dead men from their tombs,
Thou who didst bring them up from Hades by the word of the Most High!
Though who has brought down kings, down to perdition,
And the haughty ones from their beds of soft repose!
Thou hast hearkened to the sentence upon Sinai,
And upon Horeb and heard decrees of vengeance;
And thou hast anointed kings unto penance,
And the Prophets, that they may come after thee.
Uplifted in the fiery whirlwind's midst,
Upon the chariot with steeds of flame,
Thou art preserved to give us warning of the fateful hour,
And to appease his His wrath, ere ever it blaze fiercely forth:
To reconcile the hearts of the fathers unto the children,
And to restore again the tribes of Israel!
Blessed are they who have beheld thee, they that have been beloved by thee!

The hope of finding a Prophet so famous thrilled the heart of all Israel, and on every side they flocked to the Jordan.  Here it was that John commenced his Mission.  "his voice resounded through the desert of Judaea," says Saint Matthew; by which we are to understand following Saint Luke, "throughout all the country which borders upon the Jordan."

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam