John the Joyful
3rd Sunday of Advent
There are people who know something about the Bible. We call them exegetes. And then there are people who think they know something about the Bible. We call (some of) them homilists. Both exegetes and homilists alike take one of two contrary positions on today’s Gospel. Knowing myself to be among the latter, whenever I am called upon to preach on this passage, I find myself stuck between them, unsure of which is more plausible.
Let’s listen again to the opening: When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ, he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’
The question John sends his disciples to ask has sparked great controversy, because it is not clear who exactly wants or needs to know: John or his disciples. One take is that John is asking a genuine question for himself and, thus, doubts whether Jesus is the Messiah. This suggestion makes some uncomfortable, because if Jesus is right that among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist, his question, if sincere, seems to fall beneath his greatness. But at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be any way to square John’s question that would exonerate him from doubt entirely. The other take, then, is that John knows Jesus is the Messiah but sends his disciples to ask and discover that for themselves.
At some point last Advent, I argued against that reading, as the text did not seem to support it. In response, Jesus tells his disciples: Go tell John what you hear and see. Jesus implies that John –and not the disciples– is the one who needs to be convinced.
Now, as I said, I find myself caught between both these readings: I want to say that John has a pedagogical motive, but I can’t escape the textual evidence that says otherwise. But, in preparing for this weekend, I believe I have found a way out. The way to reconcile John’s question with Jesus’ response is to think about John through the lens today’s liturgy offers us: through his joy.
It is rather strange that we are given this Gospel on the Third Sunday of Advent. Our Mass begins with a command to rejoice, but then we are brought to John, abandoned and locked in jail, hardly a setting to find joy. But the liturgy could have given us a Gospel reading that did demonstrate John’s joy, such as when he leaped in his mother’s womb being in the presence of Jesus within Mary’s. If, however, we transpose an idea from another passage –one from the Gospel of John– into the reading from Matthew given us today, we will be able to see John rejoicing, even and perhaps especially when he is behind bars.
In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist describes himself as the friend of the bridegroom. This comes after Jesus’ baptism, when John says to his disciples: He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore, this joy of mine is now full. In today’s language, Jesus is the groom, and John is the best man. But in those days, the friend of the bridegroom had a different role than today’s best man. Instead of standing by the bridegroom’s side for support, the friend of the bridegroom was supposed to bring the bride to the bridegroom. He is to make sure that she is ready and leads her out when he hears the bridegroom’s voice, that at last the wedding can begin and the two can now become one.
What John was doing out in the desert was, in effect, throwing a bridal shower. John’s call for repentance commands a whole change of life, so that when the bridegroom arrives, his bride may be ready and eager to join him. When Christ finally appears for baptism, John rejoices and his joy is full because his job is complete: the bridegroom has come to receive his bride, and the bride has received her bridegroom. Now John must divest himself of his own followers, for they were never really his disciples, but always Christ’s bride whom he was charged to prepare. Now that the bridegroom has come, they can follow him no longer. What is so remarkable about John is that this doesn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, nothing brings him greater joy –or any joy at all!–than for people to leave him and cling to Christ. As the theologian Jean Daniélou put it: He never wanted anyone to grow attached to him – his one wish was to attach everyone to Christ.1
With that in mind, let us return to John in jail. John sends his disciples away from himself to ask Jesus whether he is the Messiah or not. I no longer think that John is unsure of the answer. The friend of the bridegroom knows what he’s doing. He sends his disciples away because nothing brings him any joy than to bring the bride to the bridegroom. John cannot take them himself, but John believed what Paul would later teach: nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. John knew that his mission was at an end, but he must still divest himself of his followers and send them to Christ.
I can’t help but imagine that John did this with a smile on his face. He sends them with a question, but he knows that they will receive more than a word for an answer. Christ will not –and does not!– simply say Yes, I am the Messiah. He tells them to look, to behold, what he, the bridegroom, has done: the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, the dead living. John sends his disciples to Christ with the eagerness of when we introduce a friend to a new piece of music or lead them out to a scenic view, waiting for their reaction and anticipating theirs to be the same as ours. From his cell, John rejoices simply in the joy that will be theirs. He says to himself: They’re going to fall in love. I know it.
And when they have looked and beheld and fallen in love with their bridegroom, the bridegroom sends them back to his friend: Go and tell John what you hear and see. What love! Nothing will bring John greater joy than to see his former disciples returning, on fire from their new union with their divine spouse! No place on earth could have contained more joy than John’s prison cell did that day, as the Baptist rejoiced to see his work completed in them.
The liturgy proposes John as model of joy on the Sunday it commands us to rejoice, and it could have given none better. John rejoices in the Lord always: from leaping in his mother’s womb all the way to letting his own life be taken away as a final, ultimate witness to Christ. If we want to know joy, real and authentic joy that perseveres through all adversity, we have only to follow John’s example: to be friends also of the bridegroom. For although the official season of Advent is only four weeks, we are always in the Advent of awaiting the bridegroom’s final return. And before becomes, his bride must be prepared: we who love him must be ready to meet him, and we must tell those who do not that their one and true love is near. If we continue John’s mission now, when the bridegroom comes again, then our joy, too, will be full.
Homily preached December 10/11, 2022 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
Jean Daniélou, SJ, The Advent of Salvation, 75.