November 28

John the Baptist was a wild man!  He is described as a person who lived in the wilderness, wore camel’s hair clothing and a leather belt; his food consisted of locusts and wild honey.  Today he would be called mad or if we are more kindly, we would refer to him as the last of the hippies.  The wilderness was and still is a place dangerous to human life.  John’s message from the wilderness was simple, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

John in many ways reminds me of Tarzan of the apes.  Tarzan is a strong but simple man of the jungle pitted against the evils of the modern world.  John the tough man of the wilderness shows us that the way of the Lord to come is a difficult but simple life.   There is a fundamental difference between John and Tarzan.  Tarzan is one man against evil.  John is the harbinger of all of the fight all of us have from the forces of evil. 

Metaphorically the wilderness is where man is separated from the “light of the world”, God.   The world in the time of John the Baptist had fallen away from the true path to redemption.  The chosen people of God had strayed from God’s way. The Pharisees were a sect within the Jewish faith that felt the only way to God was strict adherence to the law without the forgiveness and mercy inherent in our creator.  The Sadducees were another Sect that did not believe that there was a life after death.  Both of these sects were comfortable under Roman rule with its reliance on the law and a life style of ease and debauchery. 

The coming of John from the wilderness is a clear preparation for the coming of Christ.  We must give up the pagan ways of the world in order for our hearts to be open to the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ.

While in the wilderness John baptizes believers in the River Jordan.  When he found Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized he lit into them with relish.  He called them snakes in the grass and proceeded to give them a sermon worthy of any hell and damnation preacher.  He accused them of hedging there bets by being baptized’ while not really accepting God’s will. 

The Messiah of whom John is preparing us for is not anti-science or anti-progress but one who preaches a simple life dedicated to the caring for our neighbors.  The babe in the manger is what the whole of creation had been waiting.  Jesus the Christ is the promised one of God who springs from the root of Jessie. 

The long awaited Messiah is also the one destined to die for us on the cross.  The thirty three years of Christ’s life are spent in bringing us into the way of God.  It all begins on the feast of nativity.  Let us come out of our own wilderness and ready ourselves for the coming of Jesus the Christ, our redeemer.