“THE THINGS JESUS DOES WHICH WE HEAR AND SEE”
Saint Matthew 11: 2-10
Gaudete: 13 December Anno Domini 2020
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
In all (ALL) iconography Saint John the Baptist is seated at the left hand of Christ on heavenly thrones. Only the Mother of God (on Jesus’ right hand) has greater honor. Our Eastern brothers get it right. They know. They too believe Holy Scripture. They believe God when He speaks “For I say unto you, among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” [Lk. 7.28a].
John is greater than Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah—Jesus says so!
So too does God the Holy Spirit when He has Zacharias prophesy about his, then, new-born son: “and thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of The Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of The Lord to prepare His ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins” [Lk 1. 76-77]. And let us not forget Saint John the Evangelist in his 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” [Jn. 1. 6-8]. This Holy Apostle was also there with Jesus when The Baptist encountered Messias at the Jordan river. The Baptist answered the Pharisees with: “I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, Who coming after me is preferred before me, Whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose” [Jn. 1. 26-27].
Unless you truly believe that Elisabeth and Zacharias were unbelieving pagans and that they did not catechize their son—The greatest of the Prophets—then John the Baptist knew his mission, purpose, and the very content of His only message: God in the flesh! He most certainly knew that his kinsman, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the Virgin, was Christ, His Lord and His God!
He leaped at the Magnificat, the most beautiful of God’s canticles, the Living Words of The Living Word in Mary’s womb when he was placed into His presence…even in utero. “[He] grew and waxed strong in the spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel” [Lk. 1.80].
Oh, he knew Who Jesus was when at the Jordan he pointed to the Nazarene and said “behold The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” [Jn. 1.29] What more can, or should, any prophet, any pastor, do than that? That is the perfect sermon. It has the same Law/Gospel dynamic as when Matthew records the Baptist saying: “repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” [Mt. 3.2].
Jesus told the “12” that John was Elijah: “and if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was to come” [Mt. 11.14], and again: “Jesus answered and said…Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise, shall also the Son of Man suffer of them” [Mt. 17. 11-12].
Now God, of course, knows that those are two distinct people, unique Saints, known from all eternity, their names Elias and John inscribe into the palms of The Second Person. But Elias was a type of John, and of course Jesus, and likewise John is a type of Christ as well. They both lived in the desert—the wilderness of your sinful heart and dusty deadly actions, words, and thought. Jesus lived perfectly in the wilderness, not even eating locusts and honey, so that your failures of Advent waiting and Advent obeying would be accomplished. Elias and John wore leather girdles, belts in the modern vernacular, and camel-hair shirts. Soft clothes, soft lives, are for those like Dives who live in king’s houses. Lutherans are to daily repent, drown their “old-Adams,” and take up their crosses and follow the Crucified One. That’s what John the Baptist tells you.
Why did John send two of his remaining followers to ask Jesus if He was indeed “He that should come, or do we look for another?” You’ve heard the answer before but you still insist on pulling John down a peg or too. Because your faith is weak more than it should be, you want John doubting His core message—His singular role in the History of Salvation as “THE MESSENGER before Christ’s Face.” Fear and loneliness, hunger, and solitary confinement in an excrement filled, cold and dark prison is not weak faith. Even Elias after his great vanquishing of the prophets of Baal by The Fire of God, ran away scared and despondent over his own fear of Jezebel. For a short time.
There is a difference. Elias ascended bodily, without dying, to The Lord, by way of a whirlwind of a fiery chariot and horses—Seraphim, the “burning ones” as his honor guard. John the Baptist had his head chopped off in a dungeon.
How fortuitous that today is also the Feast Day of blessed Saint Lucia/Saint Lucy, an early 4th century Saint commemorated by Anglicans, Romanists, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans [c.f. LSB p. ]. Salutary tradition informs us that she was martyred for the faith by having her eyes gouged out and her throat slit—killing her head her body died…temporarily. Like John the Baptist she knew who her true Head was. The scarlet blood from Lucia’s throat and from John’s severed head turning rose from the pure white Justifying Person and Work of Jesus our own Rose of Sharon and Easter Lillie. Gaudete: Rejoice in the Lord always, and again we say Rejoice. What did Lucy believe, what did John believe, what do you believe? What you have heard with your ears and read with your eyes (the ears of your mind): “the bind (including Lucy) receive their sight, and the lame (including our own sister, Marie) walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead + are raised up (Baptized), and the poor (the Augsburgers) have the gospel preached to them!”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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