The Mission of John the Baptist: Part III

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.

He whom John announced under such animated imagery followed close upon the footsteps of His Herald.  The Baptist, as we have remarked already, began his ministry in the month of September, with the beginning of the Sabbatic Year; three months after this Jesus appeared upon the banks of the Jordan.  According to the primitive conditions they were then in the middle of winter; for the mild climate of Jericho committee John to pursue his practice of immersion during the season.

Although united by ties of kinship, Jesus and His Forerunner do not seem to have had any intercourse until this time.  One had grown up in Galilee, the other in the desert.  "I did not know Him,"1 is said twice, in fact, by John the Baptist, " but He Who hath sent me to baptize with water said to me: 'He upon Whom you shall see the Holy Ghost coming down and abiding with Him, He it is Who baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.'" Watching solely for the fulfilment of this promise, John awaited the covenanted signal from on high.

But even before this marvel did actually take place, the Prophet recognized Jesus.  It may have been by revelation from Heaven; it may have been buy some divine lineaments making the Master known to His messenger.  The Lord had followed the throng of Galileans to the Jordan; He was therefore surrounded by the surging crowds when He was seen by the Precursor.  John had thought to finish his ministry when the Christ should appear; so what must have been his or and wonder when he saw Him descending into the waters of the stream with the penitence, and heard Him asked for baptism at his hands!

" I ought to be baptiseth by Thee," he exclaimed, " and dost Thou come to me!" and he withstood Him.

"Suffer me to do this now," thus it behoveth us to fulfill all justice."

It was indeed the Decree of Heaven that the Christ you do if face our sins by placing Himself among the ranks of commons sinners.

The Baptism of Christ. J-J Tissot.

John resisted no longer, but immersed Jesus in the Jordan; and lo, at the moment when the Lord arose from the waters, and was in prayer, the heavens were thrown open, the Holy Ghost came down upon Him in the form of a Dove, and rested over Jesus; at the same time a Voice came from the far heights, which said: "This is My dearly beloved Son, in Whom I am always well pleased."

This Vision does not seem to have attracted the attention of the Jews towards Jesus.  Without doubt they did not hear the Voice of God, but only, as it were, a noise as of thunder; but John could not have misapprehended the Spectacle which was intended for his eyes alone.  In that instant he perceived all that appeals to our reverend thoughts of it, the Trinity made manifest to man for the first time: the Father in the Voice falling from the heavens, the Son in Jesus, the Holy Ghost in the Dove, symbol of grace, whose reign was now begun in the world.  Then, too, he saw the waters of earth sanctified by the presence of the Christ, receiving of Him the power to purify souls in baptism. Then he saw Jesus proclaimed the Son of God, that Son of Whom the Psalmist sang,3 begotten in the Bosom of God before the day-star and the sunrise were conceived.

Gilgal - site of camp after people crossing Jordan on dry ground. Grollenberg. Atlas of Bible. 1956.

Drawn thither by memories such as these, a caravan of some six or seven thousand pilgrims every year leaves the Holy City, in the Paschal Season, to go down to the Jordan; at its head marches the Pasha of Jerusalem, and a Turkish escort wards off the robbers, who still infest the defiles just as they did in the days of the good Samaritan.  These throngs, of most various complexion and costume, make their camp at evening near Gilgal, in the place where the Israelites long since pitched their tents, after having crossed the stream.  On the morrow, two hours before dawn, the clang of the kettle-drums awakens the multitude; thousands of torches flare up over the plain, and the crowds are far along on their road before the heat of the day becomes insupportable.  The first rays of the sun there are just gilding the mountain tops of Moab, when the great Caravan arrives at the spot where the Jordan is of easy access; horses, asses, mules, camels (which sometimes carry a whole family), pick out the pathway through the brushwood, and so, wading out in the current, the pilgrims perform their pious of ablutions.

Formerly, at that place, long marble slabs beautified the banks, and a Cross rose out of the midst of the waves above the very spot where Jesus was baptiseth.  Priests went before the pilgrims into the waters, to sanctify them with solemn prayers, casting balm and flowers on the stream; then only did the faithful step down into the river, clad in a garment which they afterwards took away with them, and in which they were robed in death.

These customs are now but a dim-remembered story.  The churches, the monasteries, once so numerous along the banks, today only encumber them with their ruins; while the pilgrims who bathed in the stream are no longer sons, as of old, submissive to their Mother.  Greeks, Copts, Jacobites, Armenians, all have rent asunder the seamless robe of the Church, and display before the eyes of the Mussulmans those piteous divisions which they have made in the Kingdom of Christ.  Nevertheless they all, by this common homage paid to the Jordan and to Jesus, bear witness to the fact that in these lands the Saviour once besought His Father that the one Baptism and one only Faith might regenerate the world.  This Prayer, uttered by Him unto whom the Heavens hearkened "for the reverence which was His due,"4 may not be denied for ever.  The time will come, would that it might be soon!  When all Christian peoples will plunge once more into the rivers of Jordan to be made one in Jesus, without a shadow of reserve, in a perfect Unity of faith, hope and love.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam