“In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”
Three people are preeminent in the life-story of Jesus the Messiah: first of all there is Jesus himself, secondly there is his mother the Blessed Virgin Mary, and thirdly there is his cousin, John Baptist. And all three, Jesus, John his cousin, and Mary his mother are singled out specifically for the role they play in Jesus’ life-story from the very beginning. In the Prologue of John’s Gospel, Jesus is identified as the Incarnation of the interior Word of the Father, John Baptist is identified as the indispensable witness sent from God to testify to Jesus’ true identity so that all men everywhere would believe in Jesus; and Mary, his mother, is identified as the Holy Theotokos, the Mother of God, the Jewish maiden who offered her body up as a living sacrifice to the God of Israel, contributing her own flesh and blood in order to effect the Incarnation — further down in the prologue we read:
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…”
The Word of the Father was made flesh indeed, born of Mary indeed, but not by the “will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” himself supernaturally healing and perfecting our sin-sick nature without destroying our human nature. I think in verse 13 is a reasonably clear reference to his conception and birth — that is it was perfectly human, but supernaturally accomplished, that is by his virginal conception in the womb of Mary his Mother.
These two extraordinary people, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John Baptist stand out for their personal holiness, their humility, their grasp of Jesus’ true identity, as well as their very humanness. I think they are the two most consecrated, godly, devout, personally holy and virtuous persons to have every lived other than Jesus the Messiah himself. And it is no small matter that Jesus publicly expressed his personal admiration, his esteem, and love for both of them. His love and reverence for his mother is unmistakable, but his intentional separation from her domain is equally unmistakable. His regard for his cousin John Baptist’s role in the work God was accomplishing at that very time is extraordinary and yet our Lord sees John as limited in a manner that his own disciples were to transcend:
“As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Matthew 11: 7-11
I want you to see the prominence of John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary in God’s autobiography. Consider the fact that John the Baptist is prominent in all four Gospel. And it is worth noting the prominence of the name John: we have John the Apostle, the brother James who is identified as the “disciple whom Jesus loved;” the only Apostle who stood at the foot of the Cross of Calvary and heard our Lord’s dying words; John the divinely assigned caretaker of the Holy Theotokos, the blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of God; John who already had a rather pushy mother of his own who tried to secure for her two sons seats of prestige in Jesus’ future kingdom; John who tradition tells us devoted himself to Mary and lived in the Ephesus till his death; John who wrote the Epistles of John, the Revelation of St. John, and the Gospel of John. In common with the other Gospel writers, he is specific that the story of Jesus has its human beginning in the life-stories of Mary and John Baptist. These two, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John Baptist, stand at the fountain-head of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Baptist is the last of the old creation, the last of the Old Testament Prophets come to call Israel and the world to repentance and to point them to Jesus the Light of the world. Mary is to be associated with the new creation of which she is the very source, embodying the spring time of the new humanity, the Morning Star of the Eight Day of Creation.
As I said previously, Jesus’ regard for his cousin John Baptist and the role of the Baptist in the Gospel of Jesus Christ was so commanding as to eventually cause some of his followers and John’s followers to become confused. The Beloved Disciple attempted to clear up some of the perplexity by clarifying the Baptist’s identity in the Prologue:
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”
Something else I want you to see is that John the Apostle, unlike the other gospel writers, introduces, names John the Baptist as the first human being we meet upon entering the space-time continuum. What do I mean by that? Before John Baptist’s introduction we are in eternal life, we are within the Blessed Trinity. The Gospel up to the words “There was a man sent from God…” was telling a story that has no time. A time when there was no time. A place where there is no place. As you can see, this is hard to talk about since we are created in such a way that it is very difficult for us to speak of anything without the assumption and references to space and time. But that is what the Gospel does from the beginning:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God…”
What kind of beginning is that? It is more like, “In beginning…” That is a beginning that always is, a beginning that has no beginning, no time, no past, no future. And no place. No place whatsoever. All that is God. God is all in all and God is perfect, and God is not alone because God is three Persons. But how on earth do we talk about that? We are creatures of flesh, mass, gravity, physics, as well as intellectual creatures who may also love. We are matter, we are intellect, we are spirit, and we have the capacity to love or not to love. But it is awfully hard for us to grasp anything without space and time. I made this point last week: John’s beginning is an eternal beginning, the perpetual beginning, frequently referred to as “eternal life,” — that is the life of God the Blessed Trinity, before there was any creature at all. There was no imperfection, no need, only God. So why would God create anything at all? It would be a mistake to think that the absence of creation was an absence of relation. It would be a mistake to think that God was somehow solitary, all alone, forlorn, bereft prior to creation. Why? Why would it be a mistake to think of God as solitary prior to the creation of things? Because there was never a time when the Father was not the Father, therefore there was never a time when the Son was not the Son, and there was never a time when the perfect love between the Father and the Son was not manifested in the Holy Spirit. See — I cannot even talk about the absence of time without referencing time. The point I wish to make is that the Father did not create the angelic host, nor did he create the heavens and the earth teeming with life and nor did he crown his creation with man out of need — God did not create because he was lonely, he did not create because there was anything whatsoever lacking in God. He did not create mankind in his image to be his companion because he lacked companionship and was lonesome. God the Father called those things which were not into being, he brought forth creation, out of pure divine self-giving love.
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”
John the Apostle first introduces us to time and space, to the creation God loves — a creation we already know very well — by introducing us first to John the Baptist. It is as though one moment we in the eternal abode of the Blessed Trinity, in the bosom of the Father, then suddenly we tumble down into the wilderness somewhere around the Jordan River where a preacher dressed in the ragged skin of a camel declares to us with great urgency that we had better get ready because what we just left — the abode of God Almighty — is about to break into the life of the world and nothing will ever be the same. That is where we will stop today.