ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Second Sunday of Advent, 2006

Fr Ivan Aquilina

From the word go John the Baptist was greeted as a prophet, his own father said of him: "And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High because you will go before the Lord to prepare the ways for him". Today the Church focuses on the figure of St John the Baptist, that great prophet.

What did St. John do to be defined as a prophet, indeed, as Jesus said, "the greatest of the prophets"?

In line with all the ancient prophets of Israel, the Baptist preached in word and deed against oppression and social injustice. To the tax collectors who so often drained away the money of the poor he says: "Do not mistreat anyone or commit extortion”. There are also the sayings about making the mountains low and raising up the valleys and straightening the crooked pathways. In today’s currency those words would sound something like: "Every unjust social difference between the very rich (the mountains) and the very poor (the valleys) must be eliminated or at least reduced; the crooked roads of corruption and deception must be made straight."

In John the Baptist we can easily recognize our contemporary understanding of a prophet: one who pushes for change; who denounces the injustices of the system, who points his finger against power in all its forms – religious, economic, military – and dares to cry out in the face of the tyrant that famous cry of his: “Non licet!” - "It is not right!".
But there is something else that John the Baptist does: He gives to the people "a knowledge of salvation, of the remission of their sins".
What is happening here? What kind of prophecy is this?

The prophets announced a future salvation: something yet to come; but John the Baptist does not announce a future salvation; he indicates a salvation that is present and available now. He is the one who points his finger toward our blessed Lord Jesus Christ and cries out: "Behold, here is salvation". "That which was awaited for centuries and centuries is here, he is the one!" What a tremor must have passed through those present who heard John speak like this!

The traditional prophets helped their contemporaries look beyond the time and see into the future a promise of hope and salvation, God will set things right in His time. John the Baptist helps the people to look beyond what is happening in front of their eyes, to look deeper and so see the one who takes away the sins of the world made available as a man like others in everything except sin. By doing this the Baptist inaugurated the new Christian form of prophecy. It does not consist in proclaiming a future salvation, but to reveal the hidden presence of Christ in the world. It is a way of life that denounces shallowness and looks deeper into reality to read the signature of God and be able to hear His symphony. Following the footsteps of the Baptist we will see the Lord’s presence in the here and now with salvation in his hands and accepting and forming part of that relationship we will strive to make right the injustices that surround us.

John the Baptist teaches us in this Holy Season that we too must hold together the two aspects of the office of prophet: On one hand announcing the Gospel and on the other working for social justice. A proclamation of Christ that is not accompanied by loving our neighbour is lacking credibility. If we only worked for justice without the proclamation of faith and without a fresh contact with the word of God, we would soon come to our limits and end up to be simply protestors.

From the Baptist we learn that the proclamation of the Gospel and the struggle for justice have a strong link between them. It is the Gospel of Christ that moves us to fight for respect for human beings in such a way as to make it possible for each man to "see the salvation of God."

John the Baptist did not preach against abuses as a social agitator but as a herald of the Gospel "to make ready for the Lord a people well prepared". Like John we too have the responsibility of preparing ourselves and others for the Lord, of being heralds of the salvation which is come to us.