Pointing to Christ the Saviour

Today we hear John the Baptist's reassurance that there is no other Saviour but Jesus Christ. The day after Jesus was baptised, John the Baptist found himself surrounded by a number of disciples.

At this point, almost unexpectedly, he saw Jesus approaching him, and so he grasped the opportunity of formally presenting Jesus as the true Messiah and Saviour of the world. Here we can imagine John pointing his finger at Jesus and saying: "Look, this is the Lamb of God, this is he who takes away the sin of the world!"

It comes to mind here how Christian art has emphasised the importance of this impressive scene, with John "pointing his finger" at Jesus and proclaiming him unhesitatingly as the only Saviour of mankind. We see this scene reproduced in many works of baroque art, like statues and paintings, especially those connected with John baptising Our Lord on the shores of the River Jordan.

The Baptist appears as the herald of Jesus's arrival in all the Gospels. Three times in John's Gospel, for example, and precisely in the prologue, we read that John the Baptist's role is to offer testimony to Jesus's mission from the Father as the Redeemer of the world.

Today's Gospel, we might say, is a preview of the main themes of John's Gospel, in which Jesus is on trial by the worldly powers arrayed against him. John appears as a "witness for the defence", who courageously offers true testimony about Jesus. Jesus is the Lamb of God, which recalls to memory what we read in the book of Isaias about the 'servant' led to death as the paschal lamb and sacrificed for the 'sin of the world', the sin that encompasses all sins and evokes the motif about the world as the place of rejection and opposition to Jesus.

In today's Gospel, John the Baptist goes one further to emphasise both our Lord's divinity and his divine mission: "One is coming after me who takes rank before me; He was when I was not." The pre-existence of Christ, not only to John the Baptist's mission, but to the very creation of the world, provides the background for the divinity of Christ, who became man in time, as well as for the authenticity of his entire saving mission.

Today's Gospel is both a preview of Johannine theology and a summons to faithful witness on the part of all the believers in Christ. Despite the vocation of the Christian to find God's 'footsteps' in the world, worldly powers and values are often in conflict with Christ's teaching. As someone has put it, "being a witness for the defence" involves speaking the truth about Christ and all he stands for.

Resuming the idea of the Precursor "pointing his finger at Jesus" and applying it to ourselves as Christians, an obvious question comes readily to mind: "Am I as a Christian pointing enough to Christ as my only Saviour?"

There will be occasions when giving such a witness to Christ in what I think, say and do becomes difficult and quite uncomfortable, as was the case with the Baptist, who eventually paid with his own blood for his courage in doing so. It has always been so from the beginning of Christianity and, as things have been developing all over the world as far as Christian values are concerned, it will probably remain so till the end of time. With God's help, I can make a difference: first within my own self and then all around me.