A Little Baby Prophet

Readings

Malachi 4 I will send you the prophet Elijah

"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the Lord Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the Lord Almighty. "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

"See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse."

Luke 1:57-80 The birth of John the Baptist

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John."

They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name."

Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And all of them were amazed.

Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered on them and said, "What then will this child become?" For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.

Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

"And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.

Apocalypse Explained #724b.7 John the Baptist prepares the way

John the Baptist was sent beforehand to prepare the people to receive the Lord through baptism because baptism represented and symbolized purification from evil and false things, and also rebirth from the Lord through the Bible.

Unless this representation had come first, the Lord could not have shown himself nor taught and lived in Judea and Jerusalem. For the Lord was the God of heaven and earth in a human form, and he could not have been present with a nation that had completely false beliefs and completely evil lives. So unless that nation had been prepared to receive the Lord through a representation of being purified from false and evil things through baptism, it would have been destroyed by all kinds of diseases in the presence of the Divine itself. This is the meaning of the words, "lest I come and strike the land with a curse."

Sermon

And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. (Luke 1:76, 77)

Generally speaking, cuteness is not one of the first things that comes to mind when we think about prophets. In fact, those who were on the receiving of the prophets' messages were much more likely to think of them as a thorn in the side--and a real downer at parties. Even today, just as in Biblical times, we do not like to listen to people who tell us everything that is wrong with our society, and we especially don't like to listen to people who tell us what is wrong with ourselves. Whistle-blowers have never had an easy time of it.

John the Baptist, a New Testament prophet, fit right in with the austere image of the prophets. The end of our Gospel reading informs us that he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel. Mark tells us that "John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt round his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey" (Mark 1:6; also Matthew 3:4). Perhaps this Spartan lifestyle had something to do with the sharp tongue that John developed; a little later in Luke, we find John saying such endearing things as, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" (Luke 3:7). And the great theme of John the Baptist's whole ministry is expressed in these words of his: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Luke 3:2).

In our reading today, though, we have a very different look at that famously austere prophet, John the Baptist. We find him at his birth--which was not as miraculous as the Lord's birth, but had its own wonder about it, given that his parents were elderly, his mother will beyond the usual childbearing years. His father Zechariah knew that this was a special birth not only because of that circumstance, but because like Mary, he had received a visit from the angel Gabriel, who foretold the birth and give him a name for his son.

I have heard that some people do have the experience, when a child is born to them, of seeing a vision of their child's future laid out before them. This was the kind of vision that the Holy Spirit gave to Zechariah eight days after his son John was born, on the day of the baby's circumcision--a ritual that has accomplished for the Jewish culture what baptism does for Christians. Earlier, in Zechariah's encounter with the angel, he had lost his speech because did not believe what Gabriel told him. Now, as the infant John was being dedicated to the Lord in the traditional manner, Zechariah regained his speech, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, spoke those graceful words about the coming of the Lord and his son's part in preparing the way for that coming.

And so the Gospel begins with the story of two intertwined births, both announced beforehand by angels. John the Baptist was born first, and about six months later Jesus was born. We will look more fully at the birth of Jesus next week, on Christmas Sunday. Today, let's spend some time considering this baby who was born to be the prophet who would prepare the way for Jesus--for as we approach Christmas, we, too, must prepare the way for our Lord's birth.

We can imagine the elderly Zechariah, who was a very devout and upright man, holding his little baby son in his arms and looking at that sweet, innocent face as he spoke these powerful words:

And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

What did Zechariah see in his son's face that could prompt such a prophecy? Our story tells us that it was not merely Zechariah who was looking, but God as the Holy Spirit, who spoke through Zechariah to tell people what this baby was destined to become. And so, as with the works of the Holy Spirit that surrounded Jesus' own birth, the people were being prepared for the Lord's ministry on earth well before it happened. And also like Jesus' birth, this preparation began, not with overwhelming and terrifying power, but with the birth of a baby who was as helpless and dependent--and as cute--as any baby.

Just like every great person who has ever changed the course of history, the life-changing ministry of John the Baptist was built upon his birth, childhood, and youth. Great people are not created whole all in one day; they do not come from nowhere; they are born, and they grow year after year, gradually developing into the people they will be as adults.

And though the circumstances of our birth and our childhood do have a powerful effect on our present and our future, there is something far greater at work in those people, famous or unknown, whose lives make a difference for those around them. Yes, there is usually at least one inspiring person in their lives who gives them an ideal to look to. Yet a far greater power than any material circumstance or human mentor is the power of God working in our lives. And that power can work in us only when we make a conscious choice to put aside our own smaller aspirations in favor of the greater ones God has in store for us.

The greatness of John the Baptist was prophesied at his birth. But if he had not willingly embraced the difficult yet powerful mission that God gave him, God would have had to find another prophet. The path that God called John to was a lonely and dangerous one, and led eventually to John's execution by those whose sins he denounced. This depth of dedication to the Lord's way comes only in those who have consciously chosen to lay aside everything else in order to follow the Lord.

Some of you may be thinking, "That's all well and good for John the Baptist, but I'm not being called to anything as life-consuming as that!" This is quite a natural thing to think. It is also the reason why God's call to us does not come fully grown, any more than John the Baptist or Jesus himself came to us fully grown. The fact is that God calls every one of us to a life and a ministry just as powerful in our own sphere as John was called to in his time and place. But God knows that we cannot hear that call all at once. God knows that it would be far too great a thing for us to instantly change our lives from the ordinary, earthly existence we start out with to the powerful angelic existence for which we were created.

We cannot make such a big leap all at once. And God knows that. So especially when God is preparing to come into our live in a new and more personal way, God prepares us for it by coming gently and gradually at first, softening our resistance and our natural crustiness through the innocence and charm of spiritual infancy. When our lives are very distant from spiritual values, and we are far from following divine laws, the Lord gives us the pleasant and uplifting experiences of religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter, so that we can get a taste of the beauty, love, and deep power that is available to us through the Lord and his Word. As we make our adult way in a world that has more than its share of selfishness, greed, conflict, pain, and sorrow, God gives us the promise of a child--the promise of new possibilities for peace, innocence, and mutual trust that a child represents. God gives us the inner, spiritual child of these new ideals and aspirations within us.

Yet as gently and wondrously as this new spiritual birth comes to us, it is anything but frivolous. We may think that babies do not contribute anything to the workings of our society. But without them, it would not be many years before our entire society ceased to exist, as no new young adults came along to take the place of their elders who are moving on.

In the case of John the Baptist, the necessity of his birth and ministry was even more critical. The very last words in the Old Testament, which we read earlier, give us this prophecy about John the Baptist--a prophecy that is filled with both hope and dread:

See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.

Lest I strike the land with a curse? Why would the Lord strike the land with a curse? Of course, from a Swedenborgian perspective the Lord never curses anyone; we bring the curses on ourselves--and then blame the Lord, or whoever else happens to be handy. In fact, it is our very resistance to the Lord that causes us to regard his presence, not as a blessing, but as a curse. As the Apostle John wrote, "Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed" (John 3:19, 20).

When the Lord comes into our lives, all our bad attitudes and hurtful ways of living are exposed to our eyes--and we don't like that. We don't like change. We would prefer to go on living the way we always have. We would prefer not to give up our favorite bad habits. And those habits often become addictions that are very hard to give up.

So if the Lord were to come directly into our lives in full force, without preparing us and softening us up, we would immediately reject him. We would be unable or unwilling to suddenly make the radical changes in our lives that a powerful presence of the Lord would require. Instead of embracing the Lord, we would run and hide. The prophecy of Hosea would come true for us: "They will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall on us!'" (Hosea 10:8). Instead of being healed by the Lord, we would rush even farther into our misguided ways to get away from that blinding light, and we would bring even more destruction on ourselves and on those around us.

The Lord knows just how painful it is for us to have to confront head on all of our faults and bad habits, our addictions and our sins. And so, before coming in a powerful and confrontational way--as both John the Baptist and Jesus did in their adult ministries--the Lord comes to us gently at first, showing us the beauty and the promise of a better and more heavenly life. The Lord comes to us first, not as a full-grown prophet, calling down destruction on us because we flout the Lord's ways, but as a little baby prophet, giving us a simple and beautiful promise of the new life we will have if we will turn from our old ways and give our lives fully to the Lord. God does not start with a threat, but with a promise.

A promise is something we can listen to. And if we listen, each one of us will hear the Lord giving us the inspiring promise that if we will follow the example of the Lord Jesus, we can and will overcome everything that holds us back from being a good and loving and understanding and joyful person. We do not have to be held down by our circumstances or by our past or even our by own fears and self-doubts. We can become the angelic version of ourselves that we each cherish and long for somewhere in our heart of hearts.

It will not be an easy road. John the Baptist's road certainly was not an easy one, as he struggled against the callous evils of his own day. Neither will our road be easy as we struggle against every bad habit that stands in the way of the Lord's birth and growth in our lives. Yet the birth of that little baby prophet within us is a promise that with time, as we do listen to the Lord's call, and as we do face our daily struggles against our inner and outer demons, Zechariah's prophecy over the infant John the Baptist will come true for us as well:

You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Amen.

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