Monday, June 24, 2024
Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
He was in the desert until the day
You, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, because you will go before the Lord and prepare his way.
John wanted to play stickball, but he was prophet of the Most High. He didn’t cotton to sackcloth any more than the next guy, but that’s what he wore, in the desert, until Jesus came. And he wore sackcloth after that too. John offered the willing sacrifice of one who prepared the way of the Lord. The owls hooted and the eagle screamed, “Pre … pare … ye the way of the Lord!”
John said he was not worthy to untie the sandals of Jesus’ feet.
Who do you think I am? What do you suppose? I am not the Messiah. But behold, he is coming soon.
We’ve been with Margaret’s family in Evansville and we’re leaving today, headed back to central Illinois, a fine, quiet visit, learning in another part of the world to pray and sing, worship and listen to the voice of God in all that’s everyday, all that pulses with life all around us, all the time, everywhere.
We have plenty more to do while we’re in Illinois. But more than all we have to do, we have more time to sit and be still, pray and sing, find ourselves in the way of the Lord. Won’t this be our way in heaven?
You know when I sit and when I stand, you understand my thoughts from afar. Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Would I have known of this fearful, wonderful thing if my mother hadn’t told me? Many mothers don’t. I do think Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, did tell him.
And so he was not afraid of Jesus when they met. He was amazed, and overjoyed, and humbled, but never afraid.
In a column this week Ron Rolheiser wrote about a dream in which he met Jesus.
In my dream, for whatever reason, I was asked to go to an airport and pick up Jesus, who was arriving on a flight. A bevy of apprehensions beset me: How would I recognize him? What would he look like? How would he react to me? What would I say to him?
 More frightening yet, would he like what he saw when he looked at me? With those feelings surging through me, I stood, as one stands in a dream, at the end of a long corridor nervously surveying the passengers who were walking towards me. How would I recognize Jesus and would his first glance at me reflect his disappointment?
 This dream taught me as much about God as I’d learned in all my years of studying theology. All my fears were alleviated in a second. Suddenly, walking down the corridor towards me was Jesus, smiling, beaming with delight, coming straight for me, rushing, eager to meet me. Everything about him was stunningly and wonderfully disarming. His eyes, his face, and his body embraced me without reserve and without judgement. I knew he saw straight through me, knew all my faults and weaknesses, my lack of substance, and none of it mattered. Jesus was eager to meet me!
What is worth far more than honey from the honeycomb, more precious than silver and fine gold? First, that you know how much your mother and father love you, because they say it and show it. Second, that you move from that first-half-of-life love to second-half-of-life love – God’s love absolute and unchanging. Love is all you need.
My frame was not unknown to you when I was made in secret, when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth. Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord.
 (Isaiah 49, Psalm 139, Acts 13, Luke 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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