He Must Increase
Machaerus, the Black Fortress of Herod the Great, loomed prominently on the eastern skyline of Israel in the days of Christ. A sign of paranoia in the puppet-king of the Romans, its citadel maintained direct line of sight to all of his other strongholds in Israel. This fortress was one of the most strategic, but also one of the most lavish of Herod’s properties, an indisputable sign of his absolute authority as the Roman-backed “king of the Jews.” Sixty years later, his son, Herod Antipas, securely the accomplice of the Roman occupation, and in no need of an eastern military outpost, would convert the dread fortress into his personal pleasure palace. Soon thereafter, he would compel through its gates as his prisoner that peculiar prophet from just a few miles away on the banks of the Jordan River: the notorious John the Baptist.
John was imprisoned over his criticism of Herod’s marriage to his own sister-in-law. Though John was clearly in line with the Levitical law, such a law did not seem govern the so-called ruler of Israel. And so John’s hilltop imprisonment served as a sign of the spiritual sickness and decline among God’s people. Were he able to look out the window from his holding cell, he would have been met by a number of sacred places. To the east was the ancient path that Israel took as they emerged from their weary wandering in the wilderness. A few hilltops to the northeast would be the cliffs where centuries earlier Moses stood to watch his protege Joshua lead that stubborn people into Canaan, knowing that he would have to stay behind. On the horizon to the north would be John’s own place at the Jordan River, the entrance into the Promised land, where he had been about the work of baptizing and preparing the people for their coming Messiah. To the west would be the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, where his father first learned of John’s name, his birth and destiny, and where in a few years his cousin Jesus would be condemned to death by their own High Priest. From this place, this symbol of all that was wrong in Israel, of her foreign occupation and her spiritual emptiness, John stood at the crux of the past and future, at once where God’s people had been and where they were heading, and waited out his last days as the prisoner of a political puppet and a lush.
Chapter 11 of St. Matthew’s Gospel opens from this moment on the news of John’s imprisonment; the disciples of John have been sent to inquire of Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” It would be easy to read this question on its face as John inquiring after the identity of Jesus. But that seems odd considering that this is the man who recognized his Lord before he was even born, who leapt in the womb of his mother Elizabeth upon hearing Mary’s voice (Luke 1). As a prophetic testimony to Christ, John had disdained all basic comforts in order to wear rough pelts and eat locusts in the wilderness (Matt. 3). John confidently called the nation to repentance and boldly rebuked the hypocrisy of the lapsed shepherds of Israel’s religion (Matthew 3). This is John we’re talking about: the one who pointed straight at Jesus on the banks of the Jordan and proclaimed the words enshrined in our Liturgy: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1). So then, what are we to make of this question?
Perhaps John is having a crisis of faith. We’d certainly find that relatable. It’s an especially compelling reading when we look at his situation through a practical lens. After a life dedicated to ministry, he’s been imprisoned by a puppet king of the Romans in the basement of a party-house--all for the crime of calling out the obvious wrongdoing of the king. Upstairs, everyone is enjoying the party and then there’s John in a cell. Faced with darkness and dryness and despair, how easy it is to look into the loneliness of the room and think, maybe this is all there is. It’s so easy to imagine that kind of moment and perhaps that’s why it’s easy to read doubt into John’s question for Jesus--it’s the way we might see ourselves asking that question. Was all this for nothing? Is this the reward of faithful service to God? Did John get it wrong, waste his life? And how would we even know, really?
This problem of judging the truth of things is at the heart of St. Paul’s instruction of the Corinthians. St. Paul is in the middle of a teaching about the essential qualifications of ministers when he says, “it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (I Cor. 4). Very well, faithfulness is clearly a desired quality in leaders but the question we would ask St. Paul is the same we might hear in John’s question: how do we know someone is who they seem to be? In a world that is sometimes uncertain, in which those who seem evil seem to thrive and those who seem righteous seem to suffer, how do we come to know who people really are? It is an ancient question seated deep in Jewish thought going back to Ecclesiastes: the world is ancient and often inscrutable and we are young and our knowledge is partial--how can we know the truth of things? For St. Paul the solution to this riddle is in Jesus Himself, saying: “judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God” (I. Cor 4). To our comfort, we get the relief of knowing that the truth is indeed out there, that Jesus is master of the truth, to whom all things are known. But then we find out the perhaps disconcerting truth with which we begin every Mass: He is the one who knows the thoughts of every heart, to whom all things including our deepest secrets are known. He is able to judge the truth of us entirely. Jesus always knows. St. Paul’s point is that we must hold as partial the knowledge that is partial until it is confirmed by the word of King Jesus. Then all will be known as He knows it to be.
Which brings us back to John. What is the truth of John’s question? Let’s listen to Jesus: “What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind? Why then did you go out? To see a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who wear soft raiment are in kings’ houses. Why then did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.’ Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matt. 11). To Jesus, is John looking back with doubt? Far from it: John is faithfully finishing his ministry. From the darkness of a prison cell he will never leave, at the culmination of a life of utter humility, John sends away his own disciples to Jesus; John’s question is not asked for his own sake, but so that his disciples might clearly see Jesus. John knows the Master has arrived and it is time for John to yield the way--his work is accomplished. With his entire life, he has pointed to Christ. It is the last martyrdom of every teacher, every minister. When the Truth to whom all teaching points comes among us, all teachers must give way. When the Lord whom all word and sacrament signify comes among us, He must increase, and we must decrease.
A friend of mine recently said both sagely and succinctly: “decreasing is painful.” He’s right. The preparatory fast of Advent calls us to a diminished participation in the comforts of life and to look honestly and the impermanence of the world and our stake in it. There is an error here to be avoided. Advent, perhaps more than Lent, can set us in a moralistic opposition to the anticipatory celebrations of Christmas already underway. As Christians, we may not use fasting as a reason to curse our neighbor. But there is a point to our altered participation in this season. We stop partaking for a little while as a living sign that there is something beyond the immediate hows and whys of our fasting. Left to ourselves, we will always turn this season into a cause for consumerism and consumption. A brief fast, however qualified, reminds us and points out for the world that even the Feast of the Nativity points beyond itself...to the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Second Coming. We fast because we await the Bridegroom, and so we fast to throw open and sweep clean His rooms in our hearts. We decrease in all else so that we may increase in Him.
Advent is a season of waiting for all things to be revealed by Christ. Ultimately, faithfulness to Him is something He determines and He will pronounce. Christ has declared His servant John a faithful forerunner to His mighty work. This week, we celebrate the ministry and witness of St. John the Baptist as the one who, in the wilderness, declares the Lord's arrival and who, in the house of a king, does not yield to the trappings of power and violence and luxury. John knows that Christ has come. In this third week of Advent, we do well to look with John to Jesus and point with our entire being to the One who comes to judge and rule as our everlasting king. Therefore, let us then attend as John teaches us to attend in his words we remember every Mass. For one day, in the place of both priest and sacrament will be the Lord Himself to give us Himself as our Lord and as our Savior. He is coming among us. He is coming in the remembrance of His Birth. He is coming in the Blessed Sacrament to dwell in us and make us to dwell in Him. He is coming at the Last Day to reveal all things for what they are. May we be found in Him, then and forever. Amen.