On the 7th of June the Orthodox Church celebrates the Nativity
of John the Baptist. Who was the one named as the greatest prophet of the Old
Testament and the last righteous person of ancient Israel? Famous Bible expert
Andrei Desnitsky is telling us his story.
At the
turn of the Testaments
This is what Jesus told about him: “Truly I
tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than
John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than
he.”
(Matthew, 11:11) Such wonderful words! It appears that all the Old Testament
prophets relinquish this man, who seemingly has
not made anything special – he just called people for repentance and showed
them Jesus… He did not move out people from slavery, as Moses did, neither did
he pronounce aureate dictions as Isaiah. So why did he become “the greatest”
and in what sense we should understand it?
The Orthodox Church also accepts this meaning and
devotes to John the Baptist quite a few feasts and fast days. The Muslims
worship him under the name of prophet Yahya;
a special role was given to him in theologies of different religious
teaching – like the gnostics and manichee. And even the famous celebration of
Ivan Kupala (celebrated not only in Russia) is nothing but the Nativity of John
the Baptist in the Church calendar. Obviously in that case an ancient pagan
tradition got mixed up with the date of Christian feast. Many commonalities,
cities, provinces and corporations like Canadian Quebec, Knights of Malta and
the whole state of Malta worshiped and worship John the Baptist as their patron
saint.
What is more, we read in the Gospel that during his
life many people came to him, he had many spiritual pupils, and even religious
leaders of Judaism sent their messengers to him to ask who does he think he is.
What was the reason of being so popular?
He was the
first one whom we met in the New Testament with a detailed story about his Conception
and Nativity from Apostle Luke the Evangelist. His parents priest Zachariah and
Elisabeth were childless for a long time (like for example parents of the Old
Testament prophet Samuel). Zachariah came to know about the upcoming birth of
his son from Archangel Gabriel. In fact, in this story
we see a lot of details which remind us about the Old Testament, but each of
them is taking us to the new Revelation. We can see the union of both
Testaments in the meeting of Jesus and John when both of them were still in their
Mother’s womb.
Young Mary who
also came to know from Archangel Gabriel about her Son’s Nativity rushed to her
old relative Elisabeth, who was already on the 6th month of
pregnancy. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb. As St.
Luke wrote, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb”
(1:41). Who can think that it was just a coincidence? Elisabeth saw it as
joyful greeting. The Evangelist mentioned that it was the work of Holy Spirit.
The main thing in the New
Testament was the service of Christ, but St. John was the one who had to
prepare people to this service. And it was solved like that even before their
birth. That is why John was named as a Forerunner, what means “predecessor”.
The Preacher of the
new senses
St. Luke states exact date of the beginning of his preaching: “15th
year of the government of Kaiser Tivery” what means 28 or 29 year AD. John
himself lived in the desert, wore coarse clothes made from camel hair and ate
locust and wild honey – literally everything
what you can find in a desert. This is the strictest example of
asceticism you can find in the Bible. An the same time, this is the mark of
unlimited trust to God: a person does not care about subsistence knowing that
God will provide him with everything he really needs.
Being an ascetic and flaming preacher, he never demands asceticism from
others, but only their faith to God. Once the warriors came to him to ask what
they should do (that time Palestine was occupied by the Roman Empire, so for the
most of the Jewish people those warriors were like collaborators). Probably
they expected that he would call them to refuse their collaboration with Rome immediately,
and he would tell them to escape in the desert, to fast and to pray for all
days long. But St. John told, "Extort no one, nor accuse falsely, and be
content with your wages." (Luke 3:14). That is how he justify soldiery for
Christians forever.
It is not possible to say that St. John the Baptist
was kind to everybody. Spiritual leaders of Judaism who pretended to own the only
truth were judged most of all, and as we see many times in the Gospel this idea
closed their eyes for the real Truth. According
to Apostle Matthew, he told them: "Brood of
vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7)
However, St. Luke said that those words were addressed to the people who
came to him. He intended not to abuse them, but turn them to confession. St. John
the Baptist explained the seriousness of the sin and the desire of it, as well
as the condition in which a sinner appeared before God. And then he told that
the Kingdom of God is coming and preached “the baptism of repentance for the
remission of sins”. Of course, that was not the baptism we have today in our
Christian Churches. Nobody knew about the Cross still – there was just a ritual
of ablution they performed according to the Old Testament law after abomination
(for example, after touching a dead body).
John the Baptist added a new sense to that ritual. It became not just a
repeating ritual, but a symbol of true change of the whole way of thoughts and
actions forever. That is why ablution was not just a rescue of an old fear, but
the beginning of a true new life before God. Besides that, St. John taught
people that they are responsible to God not by one, but as a whole: they had to
share with the poor if they had more than they really needed. That was not
something like inventory of property with the following confiscation and
dispensation. John the Baptist just showed the people how they should live if
they are really looking for Salvation. Nevertheless, everyone has to make his
own choice.
The prototype of the crucifix
It is natural
that people came to such a special preacher, who had managed to explain the
essence of the Old Testament just in several words. He told them that he is not
the Messiah they had been waiting for a long time. He refused even to call
himself a prophet. Why? In fact, his ministry was quite prophetical, and even
Christ said that St. John could be considered Elijah, who had to appear before
the coming of Messiah, according to the Jewish belief.
To say “I am a
prophet” would mean to pay tribute to himself. It was odd to St. John, for he
was a “voice in the desert”, and what the Lord told the people thorough him was
the only important thing for him. From the very beginning, he told about the
One who would come after him, but was even before him. When Christ came to St.
John, we refused to baptize Him at first: who is he to perform the ritual on
Messiah? Perhaps, that great humility of St. John became the reason why (for
the first time in the entire Gospel!) Christ did nothing by himself in that
case, but trusted everything to St. John. And then He called John the greatest person
“among the born of women”.
We all know how
the life of St. John the Baptist ended. He convicted the king for his illegal
marriage to the sister of his own brother. St. John was imprisoned for that.
The king respected him a lot and did not dare to harm him. Unfortunately, the
insidious intrigue of the queen, her young daughter’s dance at the feast and
the king’s hasty promise to fulfill any wish of the dancer made the king order
to behead St. John the Baptist, as if it was against his own will. Is this
episode not similar to the episode of Christ’s crucifix, ordered reluctantly by
Pilate? The world full of evil find a lot of ways and causes to reject the
people who convict it.
The feat of
humility and sacrifice is the main example given by St. John the Baptist, the
son of Zachary, the greatest person of the Old testament and the first one in
the New Testament.
Translated
from: https://azbyka.ru/days/p-ioann-krestitel-predshestvennik-novoj-zhizni
CONVERSATION