From the Lectionary for Tuesday in the Ninth Week after Pentecost
John 1:19-28
This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said,
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”
as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
According to Aristotle’s Poetics, his treatise on the use of language and rhetoric, the prologue of a rhetorical piece predisposes its agenda, its overarching theme. In the Gospel of Mark the prologue describes the baptism of Jesus, so one then knows that this Gospel will be about baptism and the mission of the baptized. Luke begins with the birth narrative, so his Gospel will be about the birth of the church, and the new age ushered in by Jesus and his followers. Matthew begins with an extensive genealogy connecting Jesus to the venerable tradition of Judaism. While one is reading a particular Gospel account of the life and ministry of Jesus, it is expedient to keep in mind the prologue as it informs the whole of the narrative(s).
Why then would John the writer include John the Baptist in the all-important prologue, and then follow up in the next verse with a proclamation by John concerning Jesus? We know historically, that is to say, from historians, that John the Baptist got far more attention early on than Jesus of Nazareth. Josephus and Philo, two first century historians, write extensively on John, and the movement he founded. Both merely mention Jesus in passing; only that he was a peripatetic wisdom teacher who got crucified by the Romans for sedition. It seems evident that the early Jesus movement had no small amount of competition from John the Baptist’s followers. The Synoptic writers all have John demurring in favor of the ministry of Jesus, but for these writers Jesus’ ministry is something of a continuation of the ministry of John. John, the writer, is offering a radically new theology in speaking of Jesus: Things like: He exists at the beginning of time; that he is the same as God; that he participated in the creation of the cosmos; that he is the ordering “reasonableness” (logos) of the universe in human form; that those who follow bear, as well, the very life of God; that the human community is an image of the divine. John doesn’t just have John the Baptist deferring to Jesus’ greater authority. He proposes a novel—at least in Semitic awareness—a novel cosmology, connecting Jesus to classical thought and philosophy, broadening the appeal to a wider audience than just the ancient Near East. In the grand scheme of the evolution of Christianity, John’s theology became, and still is, the more influential.
Being so very different, which is “true,” the Synoptic Gospels and their visceral accounts of Jesus’ life, his teachings, and passion; or the towering theological treatise that is the Gospel of John? That of course was a perennial argument in the church for four centuries. Some say the argument still persists. The point is that all theology is speculative. Perhaps there is truth in all our imaginative speculations. The truth has many facets. It is like the circle whose area can never be fully measured. The certain and intractable ethos of “either/or” doesn’t serve us well. I prefer to accept all the truth I can find. One day perhaps, in God’s good time, we’ll know. In the meantime, practice is the thing. Love is our guide. For now, that is enough.
A Collect for the Prayers of the People (BCP p. 395)
Hasten, O God, the coming of your kingdom; and grant that we your servants, who now live by faith, may with joy behold your Son at his coming in glorious majesty; even Jesus Christ, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.
