St.
John’s
Mark 1, 1-11
Mark 1, 1-11
 |
| Da Vinci |
Behold, I send my angel before your face.
He is to prepare your way.
Hear the voice of one calling in the loneliness of
the human soul
Prepare the way for the Lord within the soul,
Make his paths straight, so that he may find
entrance into Man’s innermost being!
Thus
did John the Baptist appear in the loneliness of the desert. He proclaimed
Baptism, the way of a change of heart and mind, for the acknowledgement of sin.
And they went out to him from all of Judea and Jerusalem and received baptism
from him in the river Jordan and recognized and confessed their failings.
John
wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. Fruits and
wild honey were his food. And he proclaimed:
‘After
me comes one who is mightier than I. I am not even worthy to bend down befpre
Him and to undo the straps of His sandals. I have baptized you with water, but
He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy [healing] Spirit.’
In
those days it happened: Jesus of Nazareth came to Galilee, and was baptized in
the Jordan by John.
And
at the same time as he rose up again out of the water, he beheld how the
spheres of the heavens were torn open, and the spirit of God descended upon him
like a dove.
And
a voice sounded from the world of the spirit:
1st St. Johnstide
 |
| Andrea del Sarto |
Mark
1:1-11
The
moment of Jesus’ Baptism is a crossover moment. For the man Jesus, it is the
death of what he had been up until then. At the same time, for the Christ it
was a moment of virginal conception. He was uniting for the first time with a
human body and soul. Incarnating and excarnating, being born and dying, unite
in a new way.
John’s
form of baptism was a preparation of a vessel for Christ; for all those who had
undergone his baptism were brought to the portal between life and death. There
they could recognize their failings. But they could also sense the nearness of
Him who would strengthen their powers of overcoming, who would guide them
toward compensatory deeds in the future. Thus they were prepared to meet and
recognize Him on earth. They would recognize Him who came to help us increase
the power of the working of love.
Today
we celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist, messenger and preparer of the
birth of Love’s body on earth. After his death John became the inspiring and
guiding spirit of a new body: the circle of the disciples. They were the first
cells of the generating of a new kind of Christ-body, a body of love, composed
of individuals united in His love, working together with peaceful hearts, as
Christ’s hands and feet in the world.
May
we be inspired by John to recognize our failings, and to overcome them through
compensating in love. May we be a part of the community of the Christ, members
of His body of Love, His hands and feet in the world.
