The Mission of John the Baptist: Part II

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.

Jericho and Bethany, near the Jordan.

In fact this stream (the Jordan: from Iarden, Iarad, “to descend”: well deserved its name; for in numberless windings it has channelled out a bed which continually deepens as it flows along), bears a singular aspect, because of its flowing along between uninhabited banks.  No craft ever furrows its waters; no town is builded along its brink.  The valley through which it rushes on its way is called by the Greeks the Channel, (The Aulon), and by the Arabs the Gorge, (The Ghor).1  It merits both these names; now extending itself to some width, then again intrenched between the mountainsides which overhang it.  In the middle way lies a long gulley, forming the bed of the Jordan, which flows along hidden beneath the leafy screen of willows and azaroles.(species of hawthorn)  At a distance this green line, winding through the barren pass, is all that there is to indicate the presence of the stream.

The Prophet generally remained near some ford; for he baptised by immersion, and everywhere else the steeper river banks make it difficult of access.  John the Evangelist, at this point, speaks of a place named "Bethany or Betharaba, over beyond the Jordan." Both these words signify alike a "the House at the Passage," and hence we know that the river used to be crossed at this spot.  The tradition which locates this ford opposite Jericho says that Jesus received baptism here, together with a great number of those who had come from the south.  John remained a long time at Bethany, for that route was frequented by the Jews who travelled between Perea and Jerusalem.  Only toward the end of his life do we see him ascending the course of the stream, as far as œnon (The Springs); this was near Salem, and above the Pass of Succoth, over which Jacob crossed on his return from Mesopotamia.  So that, with Jericho on the south, oenon to the north, keeping to the valley of the Jordan, we have marked out for us the region within which John preached and baptised.  He exercised his ministrations there with entire freedom, passing from one bank to the other, but without ever withdrawing far from the streams of water, which were necessary for baptism and the symbol of his Mission.

It is often asked whence the Precursor borrowed this rite, and some believe that it is to be connected with the ablutions which were ordained for Jewish proselytes.  But why need we look to an origin so uncertain as is this?  What moved John with the desire of baptising was, in the first place, the example of those frequent purification commanded by the Laws; but, most of all, the exhortations of the Prophets, which urged them to wash away the stains of sin from their souls, while they thus purified their bodies.  John's Baptism was only figurative of this cleansing of the heart, and, to make it clear that true contrition must penetrate through all secret recesses of the soul of man, the Precursor chose to immerse the whole body of the sinner.
One other ordeal was enjoined upon his penitents by the Baptist, — that of a confessing their sins.  The sacred text seems to insinuate that he even made it an express condition of baptism.  Did it only go so far as an acknowledgement that all men are sinners?  Christian antiquity never tolerated any such belief, for it was in remembrance of the Confession prescribed by John that the catechumens made a voluntary declaration of their sins.

And, after all, the persuasions by which John incited them to penance leave no doubt as to the motive animating his thought.  It is all summed up in these words:
"Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh unto you!"

The Kingdom of Heaven, no longer the kingdom upon earth, of which Israel was in expectation.  The Jewish doctors, deluded by their own chimeras, had but travestied that expression, "the Kingdom of Heaven," by making it portend the temporal triumph of the Messiah; but John restored to it its real significance, and by this proclaimed the divine character of the coming reign.

This message thrilled them with all the more emotion since everything about the Baptist spoke to their souls insistently, moving them to true contrition.  He was a Voice, — "a Voice crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." He was listened to by the sons of Israel, who were just then celebrating a solemn Sabbatical Year, and so, during the leisure hours of those holy days of rest, felt their hearts turned with deeper yearnings than ever before for the coming of the Messiah.  More than that, (let us never lose sight of this fact), there are certain times when grace moves upon the spirit of this world in more notable abundance; the appearance of John the Baptist was the signal of one such great epoch.  The hand of God laid hold upon the agitated throng and bore them on towards the sacred stream.  They came from either bank, "from Jerusalem, from Judaea, and from the countries lying round the Jordan;" that is to say, Perea, from Samaria, from Galilee, and from Gaulanitis.  Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, publicans, soldiers, courtesans, one and all, hurried to listen to this man's word, so stern and relentless to all imposture, all pride and luxury.

The poor and humble ones were the first to kneel before the envoy of Heaven.  One after another they stepped down into the stream of the Jordan, weeping, confessing their sins, and, by their penitence, giving an efficacy to John's baptism which it had not in itself.  But when it came the turn of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and when the stern Prophet saw them advancing to play a hypocritical part in the performance of the sacred rite, then rang out those thundering words, bringing them to a halt their upon the bank:

Breed of vipers, of whom have you learned to flee from the Wrath that is to come? J-J tissot

"Breed of vipers," he cried, " of whom have you learned to flee from the Wrath that is to come?"

These great ones of Judaea had never listened to such language as this; they were used to see foreheads bowed down to the ground before them, while all Jerusalem hailed them as her masters.  John torn away the mask:

"Show me some worthy fruits of repentance," was his command, " and do not venture to say amongst yourselves: ‘We have Abraham for our father.’  For I say to you, God is able to make these stones give birth to children unto Abraham."

It were impossible to strike these haughty men with a better aimed or a more trenchant blow.  It was useless for them to pride themselves upon their ancestry.  John had declared that to be sons of Abraham by the flesh was of no avail to them, if they were not the true offspring of his virtue and his faith.  The same Hand which had formed Adam out of clay, and brought Isaac from the bosom which was chilled and barren as a stone, could likewise bring forth from the very pebbles of this riverbed the seed promised unto Abraham, innumerable as the stars of heaven, or as the sand and upon the shores of the sea.

Thus, finally, the ancient alliance was declared to be dissolved, and with it went the loftiest prerogative of Israel, that ancient privilege which had exalted it above all the nations.  For, John added: "Already the axe is at the root of the trees.  Every tree which will not bear good fruit shall be cut down and thrown into the fire." And yet this warning was to be of no avail.  Humiliated, but not converted, the Pharisees and Sadducees withdrew from the Jordan, while only a very few of their number bowed down beneath the hand of John and received his baptism.

Though he was unsparing, even to harshness, toward these supercilious formalists, the Precursor had only words of mercy and kindness for the common people.  When, in their turn, the crowd gathered around the Prophet, asking, "And we too; what must we do?" John did not tell them to imitate his penitential life; he was content to preach to them the duties of alms-giving and fraternal love."

"Let him who has two coats give to him who has none, and let him who has food use it in like manner."

The publicans drew near as well.  Hateful to the Jews from their office as collectors of the Roman tax, they came to seek John, ready to sacrifice everything for this baptism.

"Master, what shall we do?" they asked him.

He did not oblige them to throw up this despised business of theirs; but rising above the narrow views of his countrymen, he recognised that they might serve the public authority without wronging the people.

"Demand nothing," he said, "above that which has been commanded you."

Certain soldiers, upon their march, passed near to where John was preaching, and witnessed some of the scenes of pardon.  These also, yielding to grace, questioned the Prophet, and he told them: "do not do any violence, nor any fraud; be content with your pay."

This was the way he chose to throw open the gates of the celestial kingdom, and thus he prepared them for the coming of Jesus, by preaching, not a visionary perfection, but a godly and upright fulfilment of man's daily duties, and the ordinary virtues of each one’s state of life.

Yet, notwithstanding, every day the excitement increased with the growing concourse of people about the Baptist.  Very soon it was not only of Elias that they spoke, but the whole country began to cherish the thought that this might indeed be the Christ.  John heard them, and his reply came quick and sharp:
"As for me, I baptise you with water, in order that you may do penance; but after me there cometh One who is mightier than I; I am not worthy to loosen, to bear His shoes.  He it is Who shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

No longer a baptism of water, unquickened and lifeless, as was that of the Precursor, but an ablution made fruitful by the Holy Ghost.

These are but fragments recalled from the many Sermons which John preached; for "he spoke many other exhortations, evangelising of the people." If that Message of his had come down to us in its entirety, throughout all his speech we should find the same eloquence, alive with the figures of the desert, with its scarped cliffs, hissing serpents, and gnarled tree trunks, among which he had lived for so long a time.

Yet sometimes, too, he spoke of their fields and harvests, as when he depicted the Messiah as a Thresher, with the huge cradle of the harvester in his hand,[1] throwing upon the air the good grain, mingled lawns impurities, to be winnowed by the wind, even as He does today in His Church upon earth; Whose wheat are the elect, whom He receives again purified for the heavenly storehouse; the chaff, those profitless souls which shall for ever be consumed.  "The fan is in His hand," he said, "and He will cleanse His floor; He will gather together the good grain into His granary, and will burn the chaff in a fire which shall not be extinguished."

[1]  In order to understand this figure aright, one needs to recall the manner in which the Jews gathered in their crops.  As soon as the mowers cut down the grain, they arranged the sheaves upon around platform; then cattle yoked abreast were put to trampling it, until the ears were all crushed and the grain loosened from its envelope.  Toward evening, at the time when usually in the Easter strong breeze blows up, they toss this compound of grain and loose straw into the air by the aid of a fan, a huge shovel with a very short handle; the grain, as it is the heavier, falls back to earth while the chaff and lighter refuse are carried off to some distance by the winter.  This is what is meant by purging the threshing floor; after this, although the harvester had to do was to store his crop in the caverns, which are generally used as granaries in this region.  As for the straw and the chaff, they mostly burn it as a fertiliser.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam