(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
Time and again, he challenges us to see things not as we would like them to be, but as they truly are.
If the people were looking for a crowd-pleaser in John the Baptist, they were sadly mistaken. So Christ asked the crowds about John, “What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed in the wind?” (Mt 11:7). He then identifies John as the greatest man born of a woman (Mt 11:11). If John failed in the art of practical politics, his strength of character measured up to the expectations of Christ. Not a bad trade-off.
St. John the Baptist was the precursor to the Messiah. He proclaimed the way of the Lord. Despite his popularity as a preacher, John always pointed to the Lord with great humility. He knew that his mission was to proclaim “someone greater” who was to follow him. He would insist that he was not “fit to tie [the Lord’s] sandal strap” (Jn 1:27). John insisted that Christ “must increase” and he himself “must decrease” (Jn 3:30).
In prison, John sent his disciples to ask the Lord if He, Jesus, was “the one who is to come, or should [they] look for another?” (Mt 11:3). This is an odd question for a man of John’s confidence. But it seems unlikely that John had a “crisis of faith” as some suggest. It is far more likely that John, realizing that his ministry would soon come to an end at the hands of Herod’s henchmen, wanted to deflect attention from himself. The question was his final attempt to point his disciples to the person of Christ.
John the Baptist did not use popularity polls to craft his prophetic message. He had the courage to reject any attempt by the crowds to project their own expectations upon him. He called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” (Mt 3:7), as Christ Himself would later do (Mt 12:34). Ultimately, John’s call of King Herod to accountability because of his invalid marriage to Herodias (Mt 14:3-4), cost him his head.
In every generation, “the crowds” (that means you and me) often project their own prejudices also on the person of Christ. The motives range from the malignant to the sentimental. Regardless, attempts to define Christ on our own terms are always misguided and dangerous. The propaganda machine of the Nazis produced their own Christ. In the 1960s, our culture produced the counter-cultural Christ of “Godspell.” In the 1970s and 1980s, certain violent Marxist liberation movements proposed Christ as a gun-toting revolutionary. In our day, all too often we see Christ presented as a non-judgmental sensitive New Age male.
But Christ is not “our” creation, even if he permits us to deceive ourselves into thinking as much. Throughout the ages, he insists in asking, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” (Mt. 16:15). Simon Peter, of course, answered correctly under the influence of the Holy Spirit. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that this is the first time that a disciple witnesses to the true divinity of Jesus Christ (CCC 442).
The answer of St. Peter remains ever ancient, ever new. Jesus Christ is true God and true man! Every thing, every event, every person must be considered in reference to this fact. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the universe, the Lord of history and the Lord of our lives. We belong to his kingdom and “the least in the kingdom of heaven” is even “greater than” John the Baptist! (Mt 11:11).
If we get that right, we get everything right.
