Our Lord tells us that there is no man born of woman greater than John the Baptist. Yet, I think most of us would find him difficult to embrace—unkept, eccentric, a man of the wilderness, clothed in camel’s hair, on a diet of locusts and wild honey! He was a not a politician or salesman. He would not “sweet talk” you into anything. He was a “straight shooter” a trait that ultimately cost him his head. Not an easy person to welcome but here he is and the Church reminds us of his importance.
What does he offer us? What can we learn from him? Among many lessons he provides, I’d like to consider two.
The first is humility. St. John was not humble because he shunned the comforts of life in favor of poverty. He was humble because he knew who he was and he knew what he was not. He understood that he was the precursor of the One would take “center stage.” Despite his great following, he did not shine the spotlight on himself but upon Christ.
Humility is knowing the “truth about ourselves,” having the right estimate of ourselves. A humble person does not make himself/herself out to be more than he or she is, nor less than whom they are.
A famous football coach was on vacation with his family in Maine. When they walked into a movie theater and sat down, the handful of people that were present in the theatre applauded. He thought to himself, "I can't believe it. People recognize me all the way up here." Then a man came over to him and said, "Thanks for coming. They won't start the movie for less than ten people."
The Baptist possessed this virtue as he pointed others to Christ. “He must increase, I must decrease.”
The second lesson St. John imparts is that of his courage or fortitude—a gift of the Holy Spirit. We see this in the Baptist’s single-minded, zealous pursuit of the truth. While our aim is so often the desire to “fit in” to “follow the crowd” and avoid “rocking the boat,” what our age requires is the courage of the Baptist.
The Christian’s vocation is to transform the culture not blend into it. When the Church blends into the world, it doesn’t help the world. When we look the same, hold the same opinions as anyone else, who needs us? When we are as dark or unfocused as anyone else, when we become a vague echo of the prevailing culture, what difference can we make in the lives of others? We must, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “rediscover the courage of nonconformism” and regain “the sense that Christians cannot live just like ‘everybody else.’”
Let’s allow the eccentric but mighty Baptist lead us a little further down the path to Christmas with the example of his humility and courage.
