When the Mute Speak Again

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.