Today’s readings: Isaiah 49, 3.5-6; 1 Corinthians 1, 1-3; John 1, 29-34.
As we experience various kinds of setbacks of institutionalised religion in our culture, the spiritual market still flourishes with people who long to belong and who search authentically for some sort of spiritual satisfaction, whether this is found in adherence to a group or sect or just in solitary wanderings. Alongside, we are made to think in terms of pluralism even where belief is concerned, and even when this ends up in a relativist attitude to life and faith alike.
In this context, does it still make sense to speak of adherence, to demand commitment to a belief or faithfulness to a community? Many would answer negatively in the name of freedom of conscience or for the sake of pluralism itself. Without sounding integralist, faithfulness to one’s beliefs is still important, and firm witness in words and deeds is still demanded in everyday life.
Today’s readings from Isaiah and John’s gospel address very similar contexts to that of today. Both in Isaiah and in John, God’s people were in astray insofar as salvation was concerned. Promises were abundant, but people were disillusioned. Isaiah speaks of a saviour who would be “the light of nations” and the Baptist speaks of “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.
We are at a point in time when we all need to start speaking of remedies rather than just highlighting the maladies of the societies we live in. We badly need to move on to some form of spiritual and moral awakening that can bring healing to the wounds that plague us all.
The so-called ordinary time of the liturgical year that follows the lighter and brighter Christmas season takes off with the firm witness of the Baptist about the true identity of Jesus as saviour. The time of the Baptist was a time to decide. The testimony of the Baptist was crucial for the early communities of faith.
In the fourth gospel the picture we are given of the task and activity of the Baptist is different from that in the other three gospels. The writer of this gospel knows the primitive Christian tradition and presents the Baptist as bearing witness to Jesus as the Messiah coming from God and not any ordinary messiah. This was done also to avoid any confusion, given that at the time there were baptist movements that worshipped the Baptist himself as the messiah.
Jesus is a breakthrough in Israel’s history. Israel could no longer afford to wait on past promises. Lingering on and on was risking alienation and tiredness. Many were losing hope.
Isaiah’s times were already marked with uncertainty. When the Baptist appeared and was proclaiming with urgency that something needed to be done, even the religious institutions themselves were no longer a guarantee of enduring hope.
Independently of times and culture that change, faith in the living God has some constants. There is always mist to be dissipated and darkness to be cast off.
Jesus is not someone who promises heaven on earth. He is the lamb of God, symbolised in the sacrificial lamb because he takes upon himself the sin of the world and all our turmoils and shortcomings to redeem them and give us back our life brighter than we would have dreamt to make it.
From the earliest times in the Old Testament the lamb was the image of innocent and helpless suffering. Now Jesus is announced as the saviour who is ready to suffer for others, to redeem by giving himself up.
This is precisely what was special about Jesus. This is what the Baptist confirms in presenting Jesus to Israel as a Messiah who comes from heaven, as bringer of salvation. “He baptises with the Spirit”, not with water as the Baptist. Which means he was to inaugurate new times.
But these new times would come to an end and would not be new at all if they are not sustained by the firm witness of all of us who claim to believe in Jesus as Lord. The world still yearns for this witness. We owe it to those disillusioned and to all those who are still in search of authenticity in religion.