As I sometimes do, I'm repeating a blog
from a few years back, owing to what today represents in the Church Calendar.
Though initially somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the meditation does take a deeper
look into a humble, yet fiery, man we could do quite well to emulate, yet never
hope to equal... let alone surpass.
Want to have a
little fun with someone who fancies that they know their Christianity,
Christian history, theology, Bible, and so on?
Just ask them
who the greatest man in the Bible was.
Jesus?
Wrong.
Really! Jesus
was a man, yes, and all man, and human – or he could not have died. But he was
also divine, or he could not have risen again. Unique to all of creation and
beyond, Jesus has two natures: the divine and the human. This was
clarified in the fifth century. I'll spare you the heavy theology on the hypostatic
union, the Council of Chalcedon (and the first Nicean Council), monophysitism,
arianism,
modalism,
and other issues – suffice it to say that this was settled over 1,500 years
ago. You and I are humans, the dog over there's a dog, a planet's a planet
(unless it's Pluto): each has its own, single, defining nature. But Jesus has
two.
So, no, Jesus
was not the greatest man in the Bible because he wasn't only a man.
Moses? Good try;
no. Elijah? Jeremiah? Jonah? Adam??
Heh-heh. Nope.
If you trust the
authority of Jesus as a teacher (as he was addressed in his own time; the word
in Hebrew is "rabbi", or even "rabboni"; I believe the
Aramaic word is the same), you have the answer. Look up Matthew
11:11 – if you're a Protestant, you've got the page marked and the
words underlined. If you're a Catholic, just look over that Protestant's
shoulder, since you probably aren't sure where to find Matthew.
Right there it
is. Jesus says, "Among those born of women, there has been none greater
than John the Baptist." As I said in my previous posting, you wanna call him a liar?
Today the Church
celebrates the birth of John the Baptist (officially, "The Solemnity of
the Nativity of John the Baptist"): half a year before Christmas. What
does that have to do with it? Well, this is because Jesus was conceived when
Elizabeth, John's mother, was six months pregnant with John.
So for this week
(and maybe a bit longer), the header for this blog is a detail from Fra
Angelico's fifteenth-century painting, "The Naming of John the
Baptist". (Likely when you read this, though, I'll have changed the header
image again.)
Anyway, I
propounded on Elizabeth's pregnancy (among the usual array of other topics)
back on Mothers' Day, so I won't repeat it here. This
painting, now, corresponds to the scene that followed after John's birth (you
can find in Luke 1:57-80), where Zechariah (Elizabeth's
husband) has wised up after nine months of being struck deaf-mute. He'd
literally had the fear of God thrust on him by scoffing at an angel's
announcement of Elizabeth's unexpected pregnancy, so now quite obediently he
does exactly as that angel had commanded, and writes down that his son must be
called John.
With his tongue
loosened back up and ego refreshingly long-since humbled, he breaks into a
sweet, inspired prayer that beautifully parallels Mary's own canticle,
the Magnificat. My guess is that he never lived to
see his son's ministry as a preacher in the desert, but there can be no doubt
that he drew great comfort in knowing there was a clear and beautiful destiny
that would unfold for his son… who, in growing up under God's "tender
mercy" (I like that phrase), would "guide our feet into the
path of peace" as the greatest man ever born.
