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John the Baptist for Christmas

Simbang Gabi Homily, Xavier School, 16 December 2005

Fr. Johnny C. Go, S.J., School Director

Posted Friday, 16-Dec-2005 11:11 AM

      A reading from the holy gospel according to John.   

      You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept testimony from a human being, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John's. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.

      Let me begin with a confession: John the Baptist isn’t exactly my favorite character for Christmas. I think you’ll all agree that he’s not exactly quite appropriate for the season. For Christmas, we all prefer the usual angels with their halos—or the shepherds visiting the manger or the wise men bearing gifts. Certainly not this ascetic prophet who lives in the desert, who feeds on a diet of locusts and who reminds us that we are sinners and need to repent. Not exactly the kind of figure you’d like to hang on your Christmas tree!

      Who wants to hear about a man whose life doesn’t have a happy ending? The first time we meet him, he is dancing in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. The last time we do is at another dance: Salome performs a dance that steals the heart of her stepfather, Herod who, in one drunken moment, promises everything to her. And upon the prompting of her mother, Salome asks for the head of John the Baptist on a plate. Not exactly something you’d like to hear in a Christmas carol!

      But more than the tragic story of John the Baptist’s life, it is the meaning of his life that doesn’t quite seem to fit into this merry season. After years of preaching in the desert and baptizing in the Jordan, John the Baptist, realizing that the time of the Messiah had arrived, told his disciples to follow Jesus instead, telling them that the Messiah must increase, but he must decrease.

      What could that mean—all this talk of decreasing so that others might increase? Dag Hammarskjöld , the former Secretary General of the United Nations, expressed this attitude beautifully when he wrote that we should pray for grace of what he called “transparency”—i.e., to vanish entirely as an end, but to remain purely a means. To be so totally selfless, so that everything we do is for others. In other words, to decrease so that others, including the Lord, might increase.

      Now that’s quite a moving and poetic thought, but it’s not exactly the kind of greeting you’d like to find on a Christmas card either! That’s a thought more appropriate for Lent, the season for self-sacrifice.

      Besides, in this world and age, who wants to decrease? Isn’t it more fashionable these days to increase? And in getting things done, isn’t it more effective to wield whatever authority we can wield and even throw our weight around especially when we face people who might hurt us? Who wants to make himself small and defenseless in a world that can often turn hostile and dangerous?

      And so it would seem that it’s probably best to reserve John the Baptist for some other, less festive season.

      And so as Christmas approaches, we leave John the Baptist behind in the desert and rush eagerly to the manger with all its usual angels, shepherds, and kings. But as we break into song, we find in their midst the Christ child and realize that there in the scene of the very first Christmas we find John the Baptist and everything that he stands for. When you think about it, what is Christmas about, if not about the God who is infinite vastness decreasing Himself in order to become one of us so that we, in turn, might increase and become one of His? Isn’t Christmas precisely about God’s “transparency”—when He showed us what it means to vanish as an end and to remain purely as a means—a means, that is, to our salvation?

      And so, on second thought, John the Baptist is a great Christmas figure, after all. As he did in his life, today his life and his person both point to the life and person of Christ. Indeed he paves the way of the Lord, which is the way of humility and self-sacrifice.

      If we want to find the Christ Child this Christmas season, John the Baptist shows us the way. Let us pray that this Christmas season we may be touched by the spirit of John the Baptist, which is also the spirit of the Christ Child: the spirit of God’s humility and self-sacrifice.

JOHNNY C. GO, SJ

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