_THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS._
When the Old Testament closed, prophecy had thrown upon the screen of
the future the shadows of two persons, cast in heavenly light. Sketched
in outline rather than in detail, still their personalities were
sufficiently distinct as to attract the gaze and hopes of the
intervening centuries; while their differing, though related missions
were clearly recognized. One was the Coming One, who should bring the
"consolation" of Israel, and who should Himself be that Consolation; and
gathering into one august title all such glittering epithets as Star,
Shiloh, and Emmanuel, prophecy reverently saluted Him as "the Lord,"
paying Him prospective homage and adoration. The other was to be the
herald of another Dispensation, proclaiming the new kingdom and the new
King, running before the royal chariot, even as Elijah ran before Ahab
to the ivory palace at Jezreel, his voice then dying away in silence, as
he himself passes out of sight behind the throne. Such were the two
figures that prophecy, in a series of dissolving views, had thrown
forward from the Old into the New Testament; and such was the signal
honour accorded to the Baptist, that while many of the Old Testament
characters appear as reflections in the New, his is the only human
shadow thrown back from the New into the Old.
The forerunner thus had a virtual existence long before the time of the
Advent. Known by his synonym of Elias, the prophesied, he became as a
real presence, moving here and there among their thoughts and dreams,
and lighting up their long night with the beacon-fires of new and bright
hopes. His voice seemed familiar, even though it came to them in
far-distant echoes, and the listening centuries had caught exactly both
its accent and its message. And so the preparer of the way found his own
path prepared; for John's path and "the way of the Lord" were the same;
it was the way of obedience and of sacrifice. The two lives were thus
thrown into conjunction from the first, the lesser light revolving
around the Greater, as they fulfil their separate courses--separate
indeed, as far as the human must ever be separated from the Divine, yet
most closely related.
Living thus through the pre-Advent centuries, both in the Divine purpose
and in the thoughts and hopes of men, so early designated to his
heraldic office, "My messenger," in a singular sense, as no other of
mortals could ever be, it is no matter of apology, or even of surprise,
that his birth should be attended by so much of the supernatural. The
Divine designation seems to imply, almost to demand, a Divine
declaration; and in the birth-story of the Baptist the flashes of the
supernatural, such as the angelic announcement and the miraculous
conception, come with a simple naturalness. The prelude is in perfect
symphony with the song. St. Luke is the only Evangelist who gives us the
birth-story. The other three speak only of his mission, introducing him
to us abruptly, as, like another Moses, he comes down from his new
Sinai with the tables of the law in his hands and the strange light upon
his face. St. Luke takes us back to the infancy, that we may see the
beginnings of things, the Divine purpose enwrapped in swaddling clothes,
as it once was set adrift in a rush-plaited ark. Before the message he
puts the man, and before the man he puts the child--for is not the child
a prophecy or invoice of the man?--while all around the child he puts
the environment of home, showing us the subtle, powerful influences that
touched and shaped the young prophet-life. As a plant carries up into
its outmost leaves the ingredients of the rock around which its fibres
cling, so each upspringing life--even the life of a prophet--carries
into its farthest reaches the unconscious influence of its home
associations. And so St. Luke sketches for us that quiet home in the
hill-country, whose windows opened and whose doors turned toward
Jerusalem, the "city of the great" and invisible "King." He shows us
Zacharias and Elisabeth, true saints of God, devout of heart and
blameless of life, down into whose placid lives an angel came, rippling
them with the excitements of new promises and hopes. Where could the
first meridian of the New Dispensation run better than through the home
of these seers of things unseen, these watchers for the dawn? Where
could be so fitting a receptacle for the Divine purpose, where it could
so soon and so well ripen? Had not God elected them to this high honour,
and Himself prepared them for it? Had He not purposely kept back all
earlier, lower shoots, that their whole growth should be upward, one
reaching out towards heaven, like the palm, its fruit clustering around
its outmost branches? We can easily imagine what intense emotion the
message of the angel would produce, and that Zacharias would not so much
miss the intercourse of human speech now that God's thoughts were
audible in his soul. What loving preparation would Elisabeth make for
this child of hers, who was to be "great in the sight of the Lord"! what
music she would strike out from its name, "John" (the Grace of Jehovah),
the name which was both the sesame and symbol of the New Dispensation!
How her eager heart would outrun the slow months, as she threw herself
forward in anticipation among the joys of maternity, a motherhood so
exalted! And why did she hide herself for the five months, but that she
might prepare herself for her great mission? that in her seclusion she
might hear more distinctly the voices that spake to her from above, or
that in the silence she might hear her own heart sing?
But neither the eagerness of Elisabeth nor the dumbness of Zacharias is
allowed to hasten the Divine purpose. That purpose, like the cloud of
old, accommodates itself to human conditions, the slow processions of
the humanities; and not until the time is "full" does the hope become a
realization, and the infant voice utter its first cry. And now is
gathered the first congregation of the new era. It is but a family
gathering, as the neighbours and relatives come together for the
circumcising of the child--which rite was always performed on the
corresponding day of the week after its birth; but it is significant as
being the first of those ever-widening circles that moving outwards from
its central impulse, spread rapidly over the land, as they are now
rapidly spreading over all lands. Zacharias, of course, was present; but
mute and deaf, he could only sit apart, a silent spectator. Elisabeth,
as we may gather from various references and hints, was of modest and
retiring disposition, fond of putting herself in the shade, of standing
behind; and so now the conduct of the ceremony seems to have fallen into
the hands of some of the relatives. Presuming that the general custom
will be observed, that the first-born child will take the name of the
father, they proceed to name it "Zacharias." This, however, Elisabeth
cannot allow, and with an emphatic negative, she says, "Not so; but he
shall be called John." Persistent still in their own course, and not
satisfied with the mother's affirmation, the friends turn to the aged
and mute priest, and by signs ask how they shall name the child (and had
Zacharias heard the conversation, he certainly would not have waited for
their question, but would have spoken or written at once); and
Zacharias, calling for the writing-table, which doubtless had been his
close companion, giving him his only touch of the outer world for the
still nine months, wrote, "His name is John." Ah, they are too late! the
child was named even long before its birth, named, too, within the Holy
Place of the Temple, and by an angel of God. "John" and "Jesus," those
two names, since the visit of the Virgin, have been like two bells of
gold, throwing waves of music across heart and home, ringing their
welcome to "the Christ who is to be," the Christ who is now so near.
"His name is John;" and with that brief stroke of his pen Zacharias half
rebukes these intrusions and interferences of the relatives, and at the
same time makes avowal of his own faith. And as he wrote the name
"John," his present obedience making atonement for a past unbelief,
instantly the paralyzed tongue was loosed, and he spake, blessing God,
throwing the name of his child into a psalm; for what is the
_Benedictus_ of Zacharias but "John" written large and full, one sweet
and loud magnifying of "the Grace and Favour of Jehovah"?
It is only a natural supposition that when the inspiration of the song
had passed away, Zacharias' speech would begin just where it was broken
off, and that he would narrate to the guests the strange vision of the
Temple, with the angel's prophecy concerning the child. And as the
guests depart to their own homes, each one carries the story of this new
apocalypse, as he goes to spread the evangel, and to wake among the
neighbouring hills the echoes of Zacharias' song. No wonder that fear
came upon all that dwelt round about, and that they who pondered these
things in their hearts should ask, "What then shall this child be?"
And here the narrative of the childhood suddenly ends, for with two
brief sentences our Evangelist dismisses the thirty succeeding years. He
tells us that "the hand of the Lord was with the child," doubtless
arranging its circumstances, giving it opportunities, preparing it for
the rugged manhood and the rugged mission which should follow in due
course; and that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit," the very
same expression he afterwards uses in reference to the Holy Child, an
expression we can best interpret by the angel's prophecy, "He shall be
filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb." His native
strength of spirit was made doubly strong by the touch of the Divine
Spirit, as the iron, coming from its baptism of fire, is hardened and
tempered into steel. And so we see that in the Divine economy even a
consecrated childhood is a possible experience; and that it is
comparatively infrequent is owing rather to our warped views, which
possibly may need some readjustment, than to the Divine purpose and
provision. Is the child born into the Divine displeasure, branded from
its birth with the mark of Cain? Is it not rather born into the Divine
mercy, and all enswathed in the abundance of Divine love? True, it is
born of a sinful race, with tendencies to self-will which may lead it
astray; but it is just as true that it is born within the covenant of
grace; that around its earliest and most helpless years is thrown the
ægis of Christ's atonement; and that these innate tendencies are held in
check and neutralized by what is called "prevenient grace." In the
struggle for that child-life are the powers of darkness the first in the
field, outmarching and out-manœuvring the powers of light? Why, the
very thought is half-libellous. Heaven's touch is upon the child from
the first. Ignore it as we may, deny it as some will, yet back in life's
earliest dawn the Divine Spirit is brooding over the unformed world,
parting its firmaments of right and wrong, and fashioning a new
Paradise. Is evil the inevitable? Must each life taste the forbidden
fruit before it can attain to a knowledge of the good? In other words,
is sin a great though dire necessity? If a necessity, then it is no
longer sin, and we must seek for another and more appropriate name. No;
childhood is Christ's purchased and peculiar possession; and the best
type of religious experience is that which is marked by no rapid
transitions, which breaks upon the soul softly and sweetly as a dawn,
its beginnings imperceptible, and so unremembered. So not without
meaning is it that right at the gate of the New Dispensation we find the
cradle of a consecrated childhood. Placed there by the gate, so that all
may see it, and placed in the light, so that all may read it, the
childhood of the Baptist tells us what our childhood might oftener be,
if only its earthly guardians--whose hands are so powerful to impress
and mould the plastic soul--were, like Zacharias and Elisabeth,
themselves prayerful, blameless, and devout.
Now the scene shifts; for we read he "was in the deserts till the day of
his showing unto Israel." From the fact that this clause is intimately
connected with the preceding, "and the child grew and waxed strong in
spirit"--the two clauses having but one subject--some have supposed that
John was but a child when he turned away from the parental roof and
sought the wilderness. But this does not follow. The two parts of the
sentence are only separated by a comma, but that pause may bridge over a
chasm wide enough for the flow of numerous years, and between the
childhood and the wilderness the narrative would almost compel us to put
a considerable space. As his physical development was, in mode and
proportion, purely human, with no hint of anything unnatural or even
supernatural, so we may suppose was his mental and spiritual
development. The voice must become articulate; it must play upon the
alphabet, and turn sound into speech. It must learn, that it may think;
it must study, that it may know. And so the human teacher is
indispensable. Children reared of wolves may learn to bark, but, in
spite of mythology, they will not build cities and found empires. And
where could the child find better instructors than in his own parents,
whose quiet lives had been passed in an atmosphere of prayer, and to
whom the very jots and tittles of the law were familiar and dear?
Indeed, we can scarcely suppose that after having prepared Zacharias and
Elisabeth for their great mission, working what is something like a
miracle, that she and no one else shall be the mother of the
forerunner, the child should then be torn away from its natural
guardians before the processes of its education are complete. It is true
they were both "well stricken in years," but that phrase would cover any
period from threescore years and upwards, and to that threescore the
usual longevity of the Temple ministrants would easily allow another
twenty years to be added. May we not, then, suppose that the
child-Baptist studied and played under the parental roof, the bright
focus to which their hopes, and thoughts, and prayers converged; that
here, too, he spent his boyhood and youth, preparing for that priestly
office to which his lineage entitled and designated him? for why should
not the "messenger of the Lord" be priest as well? We have no further
mention of Zacharias and Elisabeth, but it is not improbable that their
death was the occasion of John's retirement to the deserts, now a young
man, perhaps, of twenty years.
According to custom, John now should have been introduced and
consecrated to the priesthood, twenty years being the general age of the
initiates; but in obedience to a higher call, John renounces the
priesthood, and breaks with the Temple at once and for ever. Retiring to
the deserts, which, wild and gloomy, stretch westward from the Dead Sea,
and assuming the old prophet garb--a loose dress of camel's hair, bound
with a thong of leather--the student becomes the recluse. Inhabiting
some mountain cave, tasting only the coarse fare that nature
offered--locusts and wild honey--the new Elias has come and has found
his Cherith; and here, withdrawn far from "the madding crowd" and the
incessant babble of human talk, with no companions save the wild beasts
and the bright constellations of that Syrian sky, as they wheel round in
their nightly dance, the lonely man opens his heart to God's great
thoughts and purposes, and by constant prayer keeps his clear, trumpet
voice in drill. Evidently, John had seen enough of so-called "society,"
with its cold conventionalities and hypocrisies; his keen eye had seen
only too easily the hollowness and corruption that lay beneath the outer
gloss and varnish--the thin veneer that but half concealed the worminess
and rottenness that lay beneath. John goes out into the desert like
another scapegoat, bearing deep within his heart the sins of his
nation--sins, alas, which are yet unrepented of and unforgiven! It was
doubtless thoughts like these, and the constant brooding upon them,
which gave to the Baptist the touch of melancholy that we can detect
both in his features and his speech. Austere in person, with a wail in
his voice like the sighing of the wind, or charged at times with
suppressed thunders, the Baptist reminds us of the Peri, who
"At the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate."
Sin had become to John an awful fact. He could see nothing else. The
fragments of the law's broken tables strewed the land, even the courts
of the Temple itself, and men were everywhere tripping against them and
falling. But John did see something else; it was the day of the Lord,
now very near, the day that should come scathing and burning "as a
furnace," unless, meanwhile, Israel should repent. So the prophet mused,
and as he mused the fire burned within his soul, even the fire of the
Refiner, the fire of God.
Our Evangelist characterizes the opening of John's ministry with an
official word. He calls it a "showing," a "manifestation," putting upon
the very word the stamp and sanction of a Divine appointment. He is
careful, too, to mark the time, so giving the Gospel story its place
among the chronologies of the world; which he does in a most elaborate
way. He first reads the time on the horoscope of the Empire, whose
swinging pendulum was a rising or a falling throne; and he states that
it was "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar," counting the
two years of his joint rule with Augustus. Then, as if that were not
enough, he notes the hour as indicated on the four quarters of the
Hebrew commonwealth, the hour when Pilate, Herod, Philip, and Lysanias
were in conjunction, ruling in their divided heavens. Then, as if that
even were not enough, he marks the ecclesiastical hour as indicated by
the marble time-piece of the Temple; it was when Annas and Caiaphas held
jointly the high priesthood. What is the meaning of this elaborate
mechanism, wheels within wheels? Is it because the hour is so important,
that it needs the hands of an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs, and
two high priests to point it? Ewald is doubtless right in saying that
St. Luke, as the historian, wished "to frame the Gospel history into the
great history of the world" by giving precise dates; but if that were
the Evangelist's main reason, such an accumulation of time-evidence were
scarcely necessary; for what do the subsequent statements add to the
precision of the first--"In the fifteenth year of Tiberius"? We must,
then, seek for the Evangelist's meaning elsewhere. Among the oldest of
the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah was that of Jacob. Closing
his life, as Moses did afterwards, with a wonderful vision, he looked
down on the far-off years, and speaking of the coming "Seed," he said,
"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between
his feet, until Shiloh come" (Gen. xlix. 10). Might not this prophecy
have been in the thought of the Evangelist when he stayed so much longer
than his wont to note times and seasons? Why does he mention Herod and
Pilate, Philip and Lysanias, but to show how the sceptre has, alas,
departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, and how the
chosen land is torn to pieces by the Roman eagles? And why does he name
Annas and Caiaphas, but to show how the same disintegrating forces are
at work even within the Temple, when the rightful high priest can be set
aside and superseded by the nominee of a foreign and a Pagan power?
Verily "the glory has departed from Israel;" and if St. Luke introduces
foreign emperors, tetrarchs, and governors, it is that they may ring a
muffled peal over the grave of a dead nation, a funeral knell, which,
however, shall be the signal for the coming of the Shiloh, and the
gathering of the people unto Him.
Such were the times--times of disorganization, disorder, and almost
despair--when the word of God came unto John in the wilderness. It came
"upon" him, as it literally reads, probably in one of those wonderful
theophanies, as when God spake to Moses from the flaming bush, or as
when He appeared to Elijah upon Horeb, sending him back to an unfinished
task. John obeyed. Emerging from his wilderness retreat, clad in his
strange attire, spare in build, his features sharp and worn with
fasting, his long, dishevelled hair telling of his Nazarite vow, he
moves down to the Jordan like an apparition. His appearance is
everywhere hailed with mingled curiosity and delight. Crowds come in
ever-increasing numbers, not one class only, but all classes--priests,
soldiers, officials, people--until it seemed as if the cities had
emptied themselves into the Jordan valley. And what went they "out for
to see"? "A reed shaken with the wind"? A prophesier of smooth things? A
preacher of revolt against tyranny? Nay; John was no wind-shaken reed,
he was rather the heavenly wind itself, swaying the multitudes at will,
and bending hearts and consciences into penitence and prayer. John was
no preacher of revolt against the powers that be; in his mind, Israel
had revolted more and more, and he must bring them back to their
allegiance, or himself die in the attempt. John was no preacher of
smooth things; there was not even the charm of variety about his speech.
The one burden of his message was, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand." But the effect was marvellous. The lone voice from the
wilderness swept over the land like the breath of God. Borne forwards on
a thousand lips, it echoed through the cities and penetrated into
remotest places. Judæa, Samaria, and even distant Galilee felt the
quiver of the strange voice, and even from the shore of the Northern Sea
men came to sit at the feet of the new teacher, and to call themselves
John's disciples. So widespread and so deep was the movement, it sent
its ripples even within the royal palace, awaking the curiosity, and
perhaps the conscience, of Herod himself. It was a genuine revival of
religion, such as Judæa had not witnessed since the days of Ezra, the
awaking of the national conscience and of the national hope.
Perhaps it would be difficult, by any analysis of ours, to discover or
to define the secret of John's success. It was the resultant, not of one
force, but of many. For instance, the hour was favourable. It was the
Sabbatic year, when field-work was in the main suspended, and men
everywhere had leisure mind and hand lying, as it were, fallow. Then,
too, the very dress of the Baptist would not be without its influence,
especially on a mind so sensitive to form and colour as the Hebrew mind
was. Dress to them was a form of duty. They were accustomed to weave
into their tassels sacred symbols, so making the external speak of the
eternal. Their hands played on the parti-coloured threads most
faithfully and sacredly; for were not these the chords of Divine
harmonies? But here is one who discards both the priestly and the
civilian dress, and who wears, instead, the rough camel's hair robe of
the old prophets. The very dress would thus appeal most powerfully to
their imagination, carrying back their thoughts to the time of the
Theocracy, when Jehovah was not silent as now, and when Heaven was so
near, speaking by some Samuel or Elijah. Are those days returning? they
would ask. Is this the Elias who was to come and restore all things?
Surely it must be. And in the rustle of the Baptist's robe they heard
the rustle of Elijah's mantle, dropping a second time by these Jordan
banks. Then, too, there was the personal charm of the man. John was
young, if years are our reckoning, for he counted but thirty; but in his
case the _verve_ and energy of youth were blended with the discretion
and saintliness of age. What was the world to him, its fame, its luxury
and wealth? They were only the dust he shook from his feet, as his
spirit sighed for and soared after Heaven's better things. He asks
nothing of earth but her plainest fare, a couch of grass, and by-and-by
a grave. Then, too, there was a positiveness about the man, that would
naturally attract, in a drifting, shifting, vacillating age. The strong
will is magnetic; the weaker wills follow and cluster round it, as
swarming bees cluster around their queen. And John was intensely
positive. His speech was clear-cut and incisive, with a tremendous
earnestness in it, as if a "Thus saith the Lord" were at his heart.
John's mood was not the subjunctive, where his words could eddy among
the "mays" and "mights;" it was plainly the indicative, or better still,
the imperative. He spoke as one who believed, and who intensely felt
what he believed. Then, too, there was a certain nobleness about his
courage. He knew no rank, no party; he was superior to all. He feared
God too much to have any fear of man. He spake no word for the sake of
pleasing, and he kept back no word--even the hot rebuke--for fear of
offending. Truth to him was more than titles, and right was the only
royalty. How he painted the Pharisees--those shiny, slimy men, with
creeping, sinuous ways--with that dark epithet "brood of vipers"! With
what a fearless courage he denounced the incest of Herod! _He_ will not
level down Sinai, accommodating it to royal passions! Not he. "It is not
lawful for thee to have her"--such were his words, that rolled in upon
Herod's conscience like a peal of Sinai's thunder, telling him that law
was law, that right was more than might, and purity more than power.
Then, too, there was something about his message that was attractive.
That word "the kingdom of heaven" struck upon the national heart like a
bell, and set it vibrating with new hopes, and awaking all kinds of
beautiful dreams of recovered pre-eminence and power.
But while all these were auxiliaries, factors, and co-efficients in the
problem of the Baptist's success, they are not sufficient in themselves
to account for that success. It is not difficult for a man of superior
mental attainment, and of strong individuality, to attract a following,
especially if that following be in the direction of self-interest. The
emotions and passions of humanity lie near the surface; they can be
easily swept into a storm by the strong or by the pathetic voice. But to
reach the conscience, to lift up the veil, and to pass within to that
Most Holy of the human soul is what man, unaided, cannot do. Only the
Divine Voice can break those deep silences of the heart; or if the human
voice is used the power is not in the words of human speech--those
words, even the best, are but the dead wires along which the Divine
Voice moves--it is the power of God.
"Some men live near to God, as my right arm
Is near to me; and then they walk about
Mailed in full proof of faith, and bear a charm
That mocks at fear, and bars the door on doubt,
And dares the impossible."
Just such a man was the Baptist. He was a "man of God." He lived, and
moved, and had his being in God. Self to him was an extinct passion.
Envy, pride, ambition, jealousy, these were unknown tongues; his pure
soul understood not their meaning. Like his great prototype, "the Spirit
of the Lord God" was upon him. His life was one conscious inspiration;
and John himself had been baptized with the baptism of which he spoke,
but which he himself could not give, the baptism of the Holy Ghost and
of fire. This only will account for the wonderful effects produced by
his preaching. John, in his own experience, had antedated Pentecost,
receiving the "power from on high," and as he spoke it was with a tongue
of fire, a voice in whose accent and tone the people could detect the
deeper Voice of God.
But if John could not baptize with the higher baptism, usurping the
functions of the One coming after, he could, and he did, institute a
lower, symbolic baptism of water, that thus the visible might lead up to
the invisible. In what mode John's baptism was administered we cannot
tell, nor is it material that we should know. We do know, however, that
the baptism of the Spirit--and in John's mind the two were closely
related--was constantly referred to in Scripture as an effusion, a
"pouring out," a sprinkling, and never once as an immersion. And what
was the "baptism of fire" to the mind of John? Was it not that which the
prophet Isaiah had experienced, when the angel touched his lips with the
live coal taken from the altar, pronouncing over him the great
absolution, "Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken
away, and thy sin purged" (Isa. vi. 7)? At best, the baptism of water is
but a shadow of the better thing, the outward symbol of an inward grace.
We need not quarrel about modes and forms. Scripture has purposely left
them indeterminate, so that we need not wrangle about them. There is no
need that we exalt the shadow, levelling it up to the substance; and
still less should we level it down, turning it into a playground for the
schools.
Thus far the lives of Jesus and John have lain apart. One growing up in
the hill-country of Galilee, the other in the hill-country of Judæa, and
then in the isolation of the wilderness, they have never looked in each
other's face, though they have doubtless heard often of each other's
mission. They meet at last. John had been constantly telling of ONE who
was coming after--"after," indeed, in order of time, but "before,"
infinitely before, in pre-eminence and authority. Mightier than he, He
was the Lord. John would deem it an honour to kneel down before so
august a Master, to untie and bear away His shoes; for in such a
Presence servility was both becoming and ennobling. With such words as
these the crier in the wilderness had been transferring the people's
thought from himself, and setting their hearts listening for the Coming
One, so preparing and broadening His way. Suddenly, in one of the pauses
of his ministrations, a Stranger presents Himself, and asks that the
rite of baptism may be administered to Him. There is nothing peculiar
about His dress; He is younger than the Baptist--much younger,
apparently, for the rough, ascetic life has prematurely aged him--but
such is the grace and dignity of His person, such the mingled "strength
and beauty" of His manhood, that even John, who never quailed in the
presence of mortal before, is awed and abashed now. Discerning the
innate royalty of the Stranger, and receiving a monition from the Higher
World, with which he kept up close correspondence, the Baptist is
assured that it is He, the Lord and Christ. Immediately his whole manner
changes. The voice that has swept over the land like a whirlwind, now is
hushed, subdued, speaking softly, deferentially, reverentially. Here is
a Presence in which his imperatives all melt away and disappear, a Will
that is infinitely higher than his own, a Person for whom his baptism is
out of place. John is perplexed; he hesitates, he demurs. "I have need
to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" and John, Elias-like,
would fain have wrapped his mantle around his face, burying out of sight
his little "me," in the presence of the Lord. But Jesus said, "Suffer
it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. iii.
15).
The baptism of Jesus was evidently a new kind of baptism, one in which
the usual formulas were strangely out of place; and the question
naturally arises, Why should Jesus submit to, and even ask for, a
baptism that was so associated with repentance and sin? Could there be
any place for repentance, any room for confession, in the Sinless One?
John felt the anomaly, and so shrank from administering the rite, till
the reply of Jesus put His baptism on different ground--ground
altogether clear of any personal demerit. Jesus asked for baptism, not
for the washing away of sin, but that He might "fulfil all
righteousness." He was baptized, not for His own sake, but for the
world's sake. Coming to redeem humanity, He would identify Himself with
that humanity, even the sinful humanity that it was. Son of God, He
would become a true Son of man, that through His redemption all other
sons of men might become true sons of God. Bearing the sins of many,
taking away the sin of the world, that heavy burden lay at His heart
from the first; He could not lay it down until He left it nailed to His
cross. Himself knowing no sin, He yet becomes the Sin-offering, and is
"numbered among the transgressors." And as Jesus went to the cross and
into the grave mediatorially, as Humanity's Son, so Jesus now passes
into the baptismal waters mediatorially, repenting for that world whose
heart is still hard, and whose eyes are dry of godly tears, and
confessing the sin which He in love has made His own, the "sin of the
world," the sin He has come to make atonement for and to bear away.
Such is the meaning of the Jordan baptism, in which Jesus puts the
stamp of Divinity upon John's mission, while John bears witness to the
sinlessness of Jesus. But a Higher Witness came than even that of John;
for no sooner was the rite administered, and the river-bank regained,
than the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God, in the form of a
fiery dove, descended and alighted on the head of Jesus; while a Voice
out of the Unseen proclaimed, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased." And so the Son of man receives the heavenly, as well as the
earthly baptism. Baptized with water, He is now baptized with the Holy
Ghost and with fire, anointed with the unction of the Holy One. But why
should the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and
afterwards upon the disciples in the form of cloven tongues of fire? We
can understand the symbolism of the cloven tongues; for was not their
mission to preach and teach, spreading and establishing the kingdom by a
consecrated speech--the Divine word carried forward by the human voice?
What, then, is the meaning of the dove-form? Does it refer to the dove
of the Old Dispensation, which bearing the olive-leaf in its mouth,
preached its Gospel to the dwellers in the ark, telling of the abatement
of the angry waters, and of a salvation that was near? And was not Jesus
a heavenly Dove, bearing to the world the olive-branch of reconciliation
and of peace, proclaiming the fuller, wider Gospel of mercy and of love?
The supposition, at any rate, is a possible one, while the words of
Jesus would almost make it a probable one; for speaking of this same
baptism of the Spirit, He says--and in His words we can hear the beat
and whir of dove-wings--"He anointed me to preach good tidings to the
poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, ... to set
at liberty them that are bruised" (iv. 18).
The interview between Jesus and John was but brief, and in all
probability final. They spend the following night near to each other,
but apart. The day after, John sees Jesus walking, but the narrative
would imply that they did not meet. John only points to Him and says,
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;" and
they part, each to follow his separate path, and to accomplish his
separate mission.
"The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Such was
John's testimony to Jesus, in the moment of his clearest illumination.
He saw in Jesus, not as one learned writer would have us suppose, the
sheep of David's pastoral, its life encircled with green pastures and
still waters--not this, but a lamb, "the Lamb of God," the Paschal Lamb,
led all uncomplaining to the slaughter, and by its death bearing away
sin--not either the sin of a year or the sin of a race, but "the sin of
the world." Never had prophet so prophesied before; never had mortal eye
seen so clearly and so deeply into God's great mystery of mercy. How,
then, can we explain that mood of disappointment and of doubt which
afterwards fell upon John? What does it mean that from his prison he
should send two of his disciples to Jesus with the strange question,
"Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?" (vii. 19). John is
evidently disappointed--yes, and dejected too; and the Elias still,
Herod's prison is to him the juniper of the desert. He thought the
Christ would be one like unto himself, crying in the wilderness, but
with a louder voice and more penetrating accent. He would be some ardent
Reformer, with axe in hand, or fan, and with baptism of fire. But lo,
Jesus comes so different from his thought--with no axe in hand that he
can see, with no baptism of fire that he can hear of, a Sower rather
than a Winnower, scattering thoughts, principles, beatitudes, and
parables, telling not so much of "the wrath to come" as of the love that
is already come, if men will but repent and receive it--that John is
fairly perplexed, and actually sends to Jesus for some word that shall
be a solvent for his doubts. It only shows how this Elias, too, was a
man of like passions with ourselves, and that even prophets' eyes were
sometimes dim, reading God's purposes with a blurred vision. Jesus
returns a singular answer. He says neither Yes nor No; but He goes out
and works His accustomed miracles, and then dismisses the two disciples
with the message, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen
and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is
preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me."
These words are in part a quotation from John's favourite prophet,
Isaiah, who emphasized as no other prophet did the evangelistic
character of Christ's mission--which characteristic John seems to have
overlooked. In his thought the Christ was Judge, the great Refiner,
sifting the base from the pure, and casting it into some Gehenna of
burnings. But Jesus reminds John that mercy is before and above
judgment; that He has come, "not to condemn the world," but to save it,
and to save it, not by reiterations of the law, but by a manifestation
of love. Ebal and Sinai have had their word; now Gerizim and Calvary
must speak.
And so this greatest of the prophets was but human, and therefore
fallible. He saw the Christ, no longer afar off, but near--yea,
present; but he saw in part, and he prophesied in part. He did not see
the whole Christ, or grasp the full purport of His mission. He stood on
the threshold of the kingdom; but the least of those who should pass
within that kingdom should stand on a higher vantage-ground, and so be
greater than he. Indeed, it seems scarcely possible that John could have
fully understood Jesus; the two were so entirely different. In dress, in
address, in mode of life, in thought the two were exact opposites. John
occupies the border-region between the Old and the New; and though his
life appears in the New, he himself belongs rather to the Old
Dispensation. His accent is Mosaic, his message a tritonomy, a third
giving of the law. When asked the all-important question, "What shall we
do?" John laid stress on works of charity, and by his metaphor of the
two coats he showed that men should endeavour to equalize their mercies.
And when publicans and soldiers ask the same question John gives a sort
of transcript of the old tables, striking the negatives of duty: "Extort
no more than that which is appointed you;" "Do violence to no man."
Jesus would have answered in the simple positive that covered all
classes and all cases alike: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
But such was the difference between the Old and the New: the one said,
"Do, and thou shalt live;" the other said, "Live, and thou shalt do."
The voice of John awoke the conscience, but he could not give it rest.
He was the preparer of the way; Jesus was the Way, as He was the Truth
and the Life. John was the Voice; Jesus was the Word. John must
"decrease" and disappear; Jesus must "increase," filling all times and
all climes with His glorious, abiding presence.
But the mission of John is drawing to a close, and dark clouds are
gathering in the west. The popular idol still, a hostile current has set
against him. The Pharisees, unforgetting and unforgiving, are deadly
bitter, creeping across his path, and hissing out their "Devil;" while
Herod, who in his better moods had invited the Baptist to his palace,
now casts him into prison. He will silence the voice he has failed to
bribe, the voice that beat against the chambers of his revelry, like a
strange midnight gust, and that set him trembling like an aspen. We need
not linger over the last sad tragedy--how the royal birthday was kept,
with a banquet to the State officials; how the courtesan daughter of
Herodias came in and danced before the guests; and how the half-drunken
Herod swore a rash oath, that he would give her anything she might ask,
up to the half of his kingdom. Herodias knew well what wine and passion
would do for Herod. She even guessed his promise beforehand, and had
given full directions to her daughter; and soon as the rash oath had
fallen from his lips--before he could recall or change his words--sharp
and quick the request is made, "Give me here John Baptist's head in a
charger." There is a momentary conflict, and Herod gives the fearful
word. The head of John is brought into the banquet-hall before the
assembled guests--the long flowing locks, the eyes that even in death
seemed to sparkle with the fire of God; the lips sacred to purity and
truth, the lips that could not gloss a sin, even the sin of a Herod.
Yes; it is there, the head of John the Baptist. The courtiers see it,
and smile; Herod sees it, but does not smile. That face haunts him; he
never forgets it. The dead prophet lives still, and becomes to Herod
another conscience.
"And she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came, and took up
the corpse, and buried him; and they went and told Jesus" (Matt. xiv.
11, 12). Such is the _finis_ to a consecrated life, and such the work
achieved by one man, in a ministry that was only counted by months.
Shall not this be his epitaph, recording his faithfulness and zeal, and
at the same time rebuking our aimlessness and sloth?--
"He liveth long who liveth well;
All other life is short and vain:
He liveth longest who can tell
Of living most for heavenly gain."