Today we celebrate the birth of a man, the cousin of Jesus; the precursor of the Messiah; the first to experience the way of the new messiah.
We know the beautiful human story; a child of promise conceived in old age and the young niece, Mary, comes to assist the aged mother. The friends and relatives rejoice and are concerned about his name, John.
We know of his special mission from the hymn sung by his priest father, Zechariah. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people”. Zechariah includes the life of his child in the Benedictus, the panoramic view of salvation history. He gives thanks because the child will foretell the Messiah.
And we know how the child would experience the new Messiah, the new Moses; the Savior of all. When from his prison, John sent his disciples to ask Jesus to perform the work of Messiah in his life, to save him from the hand of the pagan murderer Herod. Jesus answer was, “and blessed is anyone who takes no offense in me.”
Rather than save John’s life by a mighty act which the Chosen People always expected from their God, Jesus told John that the new reign of God is the way of powerlessness. It is the gift of eternal life after having passed through the mystery of death. This is the way that Jesus would show us from the cross. This is the witness Jesus asked of the man John, his precursor who was about to lose his head at the whim of a dancing girl.
Monks have always found in John the Baptist something of a model. His life of austerity; his single-hearted joy in Jesus; his giving place to the true Messiah, called to us to follow the example. But above all we should model the last great act of John and not take offense at the Lord our God who will ask each of us the same faith and hope which will bring us into the eternal life of God.
What John was asked to do, what each of us will be called to experience is precisely what Jesus did. No longer will the Kingdom be established by mighty armed victories. The new Kingdom is founded on the personal commitment of each person. Jesus will give us the way and it is the way that John the Precursor was called to experience; it is the way of Jesus. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemani that this chalice of suffering and degradation would be taken from him. This was John’s request when he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah. John was requesting to be saved from his hour; from the impossible situation caused by the pagans. Should not the Messiah for whom the entire life of John has been spent save his precursor?
No! John as the Precursor of the new Messiah must enter into the mystery of death with the faith and hope that offers his life into the hands of the Father. As Jesus in his final moment will pray – into your hands I entrust my Spirit.
As we celebrate this Eucharist we pray with John the Baptist and with Jesus, “into your hands I entrust my Spirit”.