St John the Baptist part 1: the Prophet who prepared the way for Jesus

If you have access to Jesus Christ, Word of the Father: The Saviour of the World Official Catechetical Text in Preparation for the Holy Year 2000, you might find it useful to read pp.22-23 before continuing reading this post.

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

Now John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea
and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.[1]

This account of St Matthew has close parallels in the accounts of Mark and Luke; St Mark adds to the citation of Isaiah 40:3 an editing together of Malachi 3:1 and Exodus 23:20[2]; and St Luke places an account of the historical timing ending in the words “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness” immediately before his account of the preaching of John the Baptist. The account of the evangelist John begins in the prologue to his Gospel[3], where John the Baptist is described as a “witness to the light”, and continues in the prose account of the Baptist’s ministry[4]. It is here that the evangelist cites the same passage from Isaiah as is cited by the synoptic Gospels[5].

In these accounts, the Baptist is portrayed as a prophet in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets:

(1) his calling, as presented in the account of St Luke, parallels the calling of the prophet Jeremiah:

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying….[6]

(2) his clothing, and the description of his style of life, echo those of the prophet Elijah:

And they said to [the King], "There came a man to meet us, and said to us, `Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone, but shall surely die.'" He said to them, "What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?" They answered him, "He wore a garment of haircloth, with a girdle of leather about his loins." And he said, "It is Elijah the Tishbite." [7]

So what does it mean to recognise the Baptist as a prophet? The prophet is one who:

(1) receives a specific calling, and a specific mission, from God

(2) that calling and mission stand in a tradition of God’s relationship with his people, a relationship that stretches from creation throughout the history of the Jewish people and which looks towards the New Covenant brought in Jesus Christ

(3) the mission calls the people to the integrity of the practice of their religion, and to the integrity of the living of their religion in every day life.

In the case of John the Baptist, this gains two quite singular characteristics. The first of these is that he is the last in the line of the prophets of the Old Testament; he marks the end of the dispensation of the Old Testament as far as prophecy is concerned. The second is the immediacy of his role with regard to the coming of Christ. The Baptist’s ministry very immediately points towards that of Christ, and gives way before it.[8]

The inmost personal relationship of the two is not accessible to us; we can only see the objectivity of the relation between the Old Covenant personally epitomized by the Baptist and pointing beyond him, and the kingdom of God beginning and approaching in Jesus. But in all the objectivity of commissioned representation, humanly subjective relations exist between the bearers of mission. They are here - in the objective, respectful mutual deference to one another - of an inaccessible tenderness. They are the two decisive rings which, welded together, make the chain of God’s historical plan of salvation unbreakable.[9]

[1] Mt. 3:1-6; cf Mk 1: 2-6, cf Lke 3:2-6.
[2] cf Pope Benedict XVI Jesus of Nazareth pp.14-15.
[3] cf Jn 1:6-8, 15.
[4] cf Jn 1:19ff.
[5] Jn 1:23.
[6] Jeremiah 1:1-4.
[7] 2 Kings 1:6-8; cf The Collegeville Bible Commentary pp.866, 906,
[8] cf Lke 7:28: I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." ; cf Mt 11:11-15.
[9] Hans Urs von Balthasar The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church p.138. The translation used here, however, is that in Medard Kehl and Werner Loser (eds.) The von Balthasar Reader pp.208-209.