I am "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Make straight the way of the LORD'"

 Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"  He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."  And they asked him, "What then?  Are you Elijah?"  He said, "I am not."  "Are you the Prophet?"  And he answered, "No."  Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give and answer to those who sent us?  What do you say about yourself?"  He said, "I am

'The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
"Make straight the way of the LORD,"'
as the prophet Isaiah said."

Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.  And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.  It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."  These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

- John 1:19-28

Yesterday, we read what is known as the Prologue of John's Gospel:   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.  There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.  He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.  That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:  who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'"  And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.  For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"  He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ."  And they asked him, "What then?  Are you Elijah?"  He said, "I am not."  "Are you the Prophet?"  And he answered, "No."  Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give and answer to those who sent us?  What do you say about yourself?"  He said, "I am 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  "Make straight the way of the LORD,"' as the prophet Isaiah said."  After the Prologue (yesterday's reading, above), John's Gospel shifts to the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry.  It begins with John the Baptist and his mission as herald, the one who is proclaiming the imminence of the Kingdom, telling the people to prepare for the Messiah, through a baptism of repentance.  Naturally, the priests and Levites come to question him, as the leadership will so often do throughout the Gospels, to understand what he is doing and who he claims to be.  The leadership, forming the Council with its parties and functional groups, is a kind of regulatory body of the faith and the community, and their role in the Gospels often seems to be just that, of powerful religious "regulators."  Particularly the Pharisees are seen to actively play this part, and they are the ones who send the priests and Levites to question John the Baptist.    In John's Gospel the term the Jews is used most frequently to mean the body of the leadership, and should be viewed as a kind of political term, as if to indicate a party, rather than all Jewish people.  All of the people in the Gospel, with very few notable exceptions, and including Jesus and John the Evangelist, are Jews.    With today's passage, the theme of the Gospel follows the echo of Genesis heard in the first verse, which starts with the words, "In the beginning."  We are given the first seven days of Jesus' ministry on earth in this first chapter and the beginning of chapter 2.  Today's entire passage covers the first day.  Here John the Baptist bears witness to the Light -- the Christ -- in the presence of the Jews (representatives of the religious leadership) who come from Jerusalem to question him.  This parallels the creation of light on the first day in Genesis 1:3-5.   Here John the Baptist gives his account of himself to the religious authorities, representatives sent by the Council:  He is a prophet but not the Prophet, the Messiah, whose coming Moses foretold (Deuteronomy 18:15-19).  Rather, he gives the picture of himself as the one prophesied by Isaiah, the one crying in the wilderness, who prepares the way for the Messiah.

Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.  And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.  It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."  These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  John's call to repentance in preparation for the day of the Messiah is a traditional one for prophets.  He baptizes for repentance, prefiguring and preparing people for the baptism of Christ which was to come (Romans 6:3-11).  My study bible says that John himself is a figure of the Law in that, like the Law, he denounced sin but could not remit (literally, to "put away") sin.  Both John and the Law point to the One who can remit sin.

Right from the beginning, those who form the start of Jesus' ministry are informed by the Spirit.  They speak of an understanding that the leadership is trying to grasp, but doesn't seem to be prepared for.   John the Baptist is considered by the Church in its tradition as the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets.  All of the prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit, in a mystical lineage sent repeatedly to the people to call them back to God, to repentance, each through their own unique roles in Jewish spiritual history.  But John the Baptist's role is unique in the sense that he is aware that an entirely new kind of baptism is coming, one for which he prepares the people, and one that will be given by the Messiah, the Christ.  This will form a kind of presence and giving of the Holy Spirit that is unprecedented.  Those among the leadership come to question John and to understand what he is doing, what role he thinks he plays.  Like Jesus' ministry to come, the members of the leadership, sent by the Pharisees, come to play their role as "regulators," questioning and finding out what they deem as lawful or unlawful, authoritative or not authoritative according to their own understanding as experts in the Law.  Also like Jesus' ministry, John the Baptist cuts a hugely impressive figure in his own time.  He was very widely revered as a holy man by the people, and many of Christ's first disciples will come from the ranks of disciples of the Baptist, guided by John himself to Jesus.  John fulfills completely the role assigned to him by God, living only for his mission and love of God, eschewing the norms of social life and even propriety, in favor of an extremely ascetic lifestyle of poverty.  Jesus Himself will point out the criticism of the leadership, which condemned John for his extreme asceticism and Jesus for the opposite .  But, as Jesus will reply, "Wisdom is justified by her children" (Matthew 11:18-19).  Let us consider how John the Baptist teaches us about the fullness of sainthood, in which each individual in the story of faith plays to fullness their unique role, and the powerful ways the Holy Spirit -- God at work in the world -- manifests that uniqueness.  The "regulators" come to question each seeming anomaly.  But without each of those unique saints, who seem to burst with the energies of God to make indelible impressions in their own time and place, the picture of faith is not complete, each contributing what is asked by God and fulfilling the possibilities of persona.  Paradoxically, this happens through a radical kind of humility and self-emptying love.  Such is the story for each of us, if we but take on that journey to play our own parts in this Kingdom.