Have you noticed that when you first meet someone, inevitably either you or the person you are meeting asks the question, “so, where are you from?” or “what do you do?” This usually becomes an icebreaker of sorts to perhaps find common ground or at least to simply spark a conversation. The implications of the answers that may come from those questions are interesting to say the least. If I were to answer the question, “I am from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I work for the Louisiana Department of Education,” how much is that really saying about “Who I am?” There seems to be a built-in cultural context for so to speak within which we catalog people in terms of where they originate and what they do as a profession. This is not necessarily a bad way to try to start up a conversation, but whether we realize it or not – based upon the questions themselves and whatever answers are provided, we do immediately though perhaps subconsciously begin to formulate an ‘identification’ or at least a ‘recognition’ of who this person may be primarily based upon their place of birth (or high school) and what they “do” for their livelihood. This is somewhat unavoidable and has been around for a long time in our history.
In today’s Gospel (Jn 1:6-8, 19-28), we have somewhat of the same thing occurring with the exception being that the person being questioned about his identity is a person who has been causing quite a stir in the Jewish community –John the Baptist. So this somewhat odd character of John the Baptist has been preaching repentance, rather vehemently, and baptizing those who listened to him. The priest, Levites, and Pharisees were sent to John to ask him these same types of questions mentioned above. Based upon their knowledge and study of their Jewish faith, they questioned John on whether or not he was the prophet Elijah returned or even if he was the Christ. To both of these questions, John replies in the negative. Somewhat exasperated, and needing an answer to give to the larger community, they ask him:
‘Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?
What do you have to say for yourself?’
He said: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘make straight the way of the Lord, as Isaiah the prophet said.’
In their growing displeasure, John does say something quite striking next:
“…there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me…”
It seems that many times we ask the wrong questions, meaning that we ask surface questions that don’t really tell us anything about the person at all. To really get to know a person, you have to spend time with them. Recall that when the disciples first asked Jesus ‘Where do you stay,’ his reply was “Come and See!’ It’s the ‘come and see’ part that sometimes gets lost on us. Now, of course as a relationship grows with someone you remain in contact with, you do get to know the person better, or at least you get the chance to ‘test’ out your ‘first impression’ or initial ‘cataloging’ of that person. Because of the way we are wired, we can only ‘recognize’ people within our own frame of reference. And, when something or someone falls outside the comfort zone of that frame of reference, the ‘recognition’ becomes obsolete, or even offensive due to the judgement we end up placing upon this person whom we have identified exclusively with our own context.
Turning to John’s line about the “one among you whom you do not recognize,” what could this mean? Of course it could mean that the historical Jesus who has been walking around among the Jewish community has not quite been on anyone’s radar. I wonder though if we can discover a deeper meaning of that “one among you whom you do not recognize.” What if we look at the ‘one’ in terms of not just the person of Jesus, but indeed the critical connection that we all have to one another in the Christ, i.e., in the Incarnation – God with Us! How many times do we not recognize the ‘oneness’ or connectedness that we all have with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, and yes, Children of God? Yet this is what the scriptures tell us in many times over. And to push the matter further, maybe the ‘one who is coming after me,’ is not so much a description of the timeline of John’s decline and Jesus’ arising in the Jewish world at that time, but more so an expression of God actually ‘coming after’ us as the ONE who desires us so much and is chasing after us and trying to get us to ‘see’ the love offered. This could be seen as the pursuit of the One who gives us our ‘oneness’ or connectedness seeking us out in every moment of our lives. Could this be another way of looking at how we recognize God and indeed how we many times don’t?
The first reading gives us the beautiful proclamation of the prophet Isaiah (Is 61:1-2a, 10-11) describing the ‘anointed one’ who gives the ‘glad tidings’ of healing, release, liberation, freedom and a year of favor from our Lord. Just who is this ‘anointed one?’ The church has characterized this ‘anointed one’ as the ‘Christ,’ but I wonder if we here also limit what this may mean. Just as the people in the Gospels reacted with indignation when Jesus reads this Isaiah reading and then proclaims that it is fulfilled in their very midst (LK 4: 28-30), we too become fearful or indignant, or just ignorant sometimes of how this call to liberate, heal and free one another is still going on today. Jesus was not a one-time messiah, but as the Christ, He calls us to pick up that Isaiah reading and release its power into our lives and the lives of all others today in the concreteness of our lives.
Again, the question arises, ‘Who are you?’ Are we not ‘Christ?’ ‘Where do we come from?’ A God who loved us into being and then sustains us in a creation that is so loved by God that the Divine sought to incarnate itself into it from the very beginning. ‘What do we do?’ Hopefully, we awaken to this ‘Christ identity’ and respond to it in the way that God ‘models’ for us in people such as John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth!
Our God is the God of Advent who seeks us out, who comes ‘after us,’ and constantly prompts us to recognize the Divine presence incarnate in this world, in the people we come into contact and with all of creation that carries God’s beautiful imprint. God is coming to us all the time as this Advent season is telling us, reminding us of Who we are – the ‘ones’ who are connected in the One. In this way, we are all the ‘voice crying out’ to each other saying, ‘hey, God is right here in you and in me.’ Recognizing God present is precisely preparing the way of the Lord. And the concrete actions of mercy and justice, liberation and freedom, are the manifestations of that divine recognition.
On this Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday of the Advent Season, we thank God for the recognition that we can have for the pursing Presence of God among us, the anointing connection of unity that lovingly ‘comes after us’ and heals all diversity. And as Isaiah tells us, we are the anointed One, sent to:
“bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD!”
Peace,
Thomas