Rev Dr Houston McKelvey: John the Baptist’s invitation remains open to us today

At this Advent season leading up to Christmas, there is one character one cannot ignore. He is John the Baptist.

The account in the gospel of St John differs in emphasis with the other three gospels. (John 1:6-8, 19-28). St John’s writing is almost poetry, like he’s setting a stage of characters, all of them getting ready for the appearance of Jesus.

John’s gospel is the only one where John the Baptist self-identifies as speaking from Isaiah. John portrays a very self-aware John the Baptist, who knows who he is.

John describes Jesus as the light, and John the Baptist testifying to the light. The narrative is that he came out of the desert and preached a gospel of repentance and he baptised people who responded to his message.

John’s baptism was a new ritual and a quite radical act. Baptism was not a feature of the Jewish faith in which most of those who heard John preach were raised and taught. There is an informed, scholarly view which suggests perhaps John had contact with a religious group which dwelt in the desert at this time and which practiced ritual washing in pools in streams as an indication of repentances and sins being washed away.

But it was not just baptism which John advocated. A key part of the Jewish faith was that a messiah would come and introduce a new kingdom relationship with God and a new kingdom on earth.

“I am,” John admits, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” His was a voice, an almost invisible resonance piercing the air. Nothing more and nothing less than this. And this is exactly what God needs him to be.

For John, the purpose of his own voice is clear: the announcement of God’s incarnate promise. And so he baptises in the river, that agent of transformative power, inviting others to let themselves be scoured by it; to let their layers of defensiveness and artifice be stripped away, to hollow out a space in their hearts in preparation for “the one who is coming after,” the Christ, the one who makes all things new.

And here, in another time and in another wilderness called Covid-19 - 2020, John’s invitation remains open to us, and it is as urgent as ever because we are still learning who we are and who we are not.

Like John, it is only in the cultivation of our own holy emptiness that we will, at last, be the vessels of God’s in-breaking purpose - to bring good news to the oppressed; to bind up the brokenhearted; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour; to comfort all who mourn. (Isaiah 61:1-2).