St.
Johnstide
John
1: 19-28, 29-34, 35-39
This
is the testimony of John, when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from
Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” Freely and openly he made confession. He
confessed, “I am not the Christ [the Anointed].”
Then
they asked him, “Who are you then? Are you Elijah?” And he said, “No, I am
not.” “Are
you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”
Then
they said, “Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent
us? What do you say about yourself?”
He
said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying in the
loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter
into the inmost soul (self).”
And
those who had been sent by the Pharisees asked him, “Why do you baptize if you
are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John
answered them, “I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst
whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not
worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals.”
This
took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan where John was baptizing.
The
next day he [John] sees Jesus coming to him, and says, “Behold the Lamb of God
who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I
said: ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is greater than I [for he is ahead of me].’ [After
me comes one who was (generated) before me, for he is the prototype.] Even I did not know
him; but for this I have come, and have baptized with water, so that human
souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being.”
And
John testified: “I saw how the Spirit descended upon him as a dove from the
heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to
baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend, so that
it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the [breath
of the]
Holy [Healing] Spirit.’
And I saw this, and so I testify that this
is God’s Son.”
2nd St. John’s Tide
July 6, 2014
John 1: 19-34
Today’s reading begins with questions about identity. The Hebrew leadership asks John the Baptist who he is. In all humility he acknowledges that he is not the Messiah, the anointed one of God. They ask him if he is Elijah, who was to precede the coming of the Messiah. And although Christ says later that ‘ he is Elijah who was to come’, [1] either John no longer remembers his previous existence, or else he is making the claim that he is no longer working in the grandiose style of the great prophetic leader of the Hebrews. Instead he claims to be a single voice, speaking from lonely and deserted place, saying: Make preparations. John is who he is; he voices what needs to be said in the moment. He awakens our sense of personal responsibility.
In fact John the Baptist epitomizes the state of the modern soul. We are who we are, now. We no longer remember previous lives - we may not even remember our current yesterdays! John in us is the single voice in us, speaking in the now, telling ourselves that we must prepare ourselves so that Christ can enter into us and abide in us.
We need to strengthen and create order in our thoughts, in our feeling life, so that an inner space arises, a space that stretches into a path for the entry of the Lamb of God. Christ came as the Lamb in order to carry the burden of human separation from the divine. This separation from the divine has created our capacity for our sins, our failings, our weaknesses. It creates our errors and our denials of the divine.
Christ, the divine Son, the God, would enter our souls so as to overcome our lonely separateness, and to reunite us with our Father. We open our souls to him. We strengthen and order our souls’ forces so that our thinking, our feeling and our willing can become strong, weight-bearing, enduring; so that we, with Christ, can peacefully and lovingly carry the burden of the sin of the world. For as the poet says:
 |
| Salvatore Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci |
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.[2]
