Insecurity in the political wilderness

Dominating the UK media these days is the forthcoming UK Parliamentary elections. BBC TV has screened many interviews and debates with the leaders of all parties, small and great. We’re all eye-witnesses.

Come with me today to watch at first hand a first-century interview. The interviewee is a man given the title “John the Baptist”; the interviewers are a team of people sent from the city of Jerusalem. The team includes “priests” and “Levites” – but the real movers of the levers of power are the “Jews” and, more particularly, the “Pharisees” who, as religio-political leaders, all conspired to put the team together.

The insecurity of the religio-political leaders presents itself politically but has a deeper cause. Politically they are in competition with the sole military authority in the whole region – Rome. They are also subject to a King – a puppet King appointed by Rome – a powerful puppet King who is not even Jewish. Some religio-political leaders even (appear to) support King Herod, many (apparently) don’t. All attempt to obtain strength through political parties. Those still fear the wealthy - and arrogant. All is unstable.

What is the deeper cause of this insecurity, this instability? The Jewish politico-religious leaders no longer trust in their living God – the God of the Hebrew Bible. They have turned away from that foundational Rock. Religion has replaced trust in the living God. And religious people – in the end - have only themselves to trust. And who, among themselves, can be trusted?

It is this absence of peace leads to the interrogation of John. “Who are you?” John won’t pretend to be what he isn’t. “I am not the Christ.” “I am not the Messiah.” So they ask him. “What then? Are you Elijah?”  (There must be an explanation for John’s remarkable following. Elijah was a prophet from 800 years earlier – had he come back to earth?) He said, “I am not.”

They ask him. “Are you the Prophet?” The capital “P” Prophet was the man whom Moses, around BC 1350, had promised that the LORD God would one day send.  John answered, “No.”  So they ask him. “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” Jeremy Paxman’s forerunners are anxious to know exactly what John is threatening. There can be no peace without knowing all possible enemies. He said, “I am a voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the LORD,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” A voice. I’m only a voice. All around me – and around you too – is wilderness. The promised LORD God is arriving – here, here and now.

John’s answer is simple. He’s baptizing because the one who is arriving, indeed who has arrived here amongst us, will also baptize but not with water. “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” John knew who was there amongst them all – in their own wildernesses - an unrecognized man – unrecognized but of unparalleled greatness – the LORD God made flesh.