Solemnity of the
Nativity of St. John the Baptist
(Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66.80)
As great a dramatist as William Shakespeare was, he could
not have achieved such masterpieces as Prince
Hamlet or King Lear without
writers of comparable skill working at the same time. Shakespeare’s plots were deepened, his
vocabulary was polished, and his characterization was developed by the likes of
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kidd producing dramas in the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth century England. To
give a feel for his times, many teachers of Shakespeare require students to
read a play by one of his lesser known but still quite talented
contemporaries. Something similar may be
said of John the Baptist in relation to Jesus.
As a preacher, John seems to have shaken ancient
Israel. Although most of what is known
about John comes from the four canonical gospels, he seems to have had an
impact like few others. In fact, there
is a religious sect today which claims John as its founder and leader in a way
very similar to the way Christians view Jesus.
Still the gospels see John as a foil to Jesus. That is, they relate his story as a way to highlight
Jesus’ own. Luke tells us in today’s
passage, for instance, that John is remarkably conceived by parents in old
age. A bit later in his narrative he
will show how Jesus is conceived even more miraculously by a virgin. In the fourth gospel, Jesus stands out more
artfully. John’s disciples gravitate to
Jesus, and John himself utters the humble yet lofty line, “He must increase; I
must decrease.”
In a sense all Christians are foils of Jesus. Like him we can extend a hand to the downcast
and provide bread for the hungry. But we
recognize that we only imitate his goodness and that if there is anything about
our actions that is truly unselfish, it is produced by his grace working in our
hearts.
