John the Baptist was his own man. Not cowed by Pharisees or soldiers, townsfold, or even King Herod Antipas, he told uncomfortable truths and rubbed people the wrong way. He stared too long and spoke too sharp. In a way, four centuries of pent-up prophetic silence since Malachi were released in the thundering God-ordained declarations made by this seemingly feral man: Justice is here. Make straight! Prepare! Repent! Here is the winnowing fan! Here the unquenchable fire! But so is mercy. The rough will be made smooth! The kingdom is at hand! And with it, fullness and grace!
John the Baptist was jarringly clear-eyed. He wasn’t simply a wild-eyed howling figure barking from some lone rock in the dusty outskirts of Jerusalem. He could see what others couldn’t – what others needed, even unwittingly craved for their fulfillment, for their salvation, for their peace.
But what is most striking about this saint is not his recalcitrant nonconformity to the norms and styles of the day, but rather his radical conformity to God. While everyone else was breaking faith, he was keeping it. Notwithstanding his fiery admonitions, he did not seek to destroy. He sought only to build. In all of this saint’s lack of domestication, in all of his alien starkness, we miss how utterly obedient, how truly servile, and how unquestionably deferential John the Baptist was to the will of God. He was a revolutionary who followed all the rules.
--Dr. Tod Worner, Word on Fire
To read more of Dr. Worner’s article, click here.
Image source: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Preaching of John the Baptist (fresco, 1486-1490), Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/12/07/st-john-the-baptist-prophet-of-advent-and-preacher-of-repentance/
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