Mark 12:28-37:4
Acts 19:1-8
John 1:29-34
He hung on the Cross, the great Compass, which set direction for all humankind. The four Greek letters announcing the cardinal points of the compass spell "ADAM," for Eden was the good beginning: the place where God set His Image upon humans, the Image of the Son of God, upon humankind. Untarnished. Bright. The fullness of God. Eden.
What is salvation? What is the fullness of divinity with the human person? What is perfect union with God? Eden. The completion of our sanctification and the end point of our journey in theosis mark the return to Eden.
If God were to send a Forerunner, a human messenger, to announce a return to goodness and to union with Him, what would he look like? What appearance must he have, what tone must he sound in order to ring true? He would be a man from Eden. And he was.
Just being near to him one could detect a faint fragrance, a strangely familiar scent, stored in the deepest recesses of our racial memory. It was a goodly scent pouring balm upon the spirit and enlivening the cells within. It was the sweet air of Eden. Among those who saw St. John the Forerunner, there was no doubt as to his identity: dressed only in natural clothing, having no spot of the corrupt city life upon him, eating the perfect food of honey cakes called manna. As the Greek word for this manna, ενκρις (enkris), sounds very much like the Greek for locust ακρις (akris), we have been handed the ridiculous image of this vegetarian from Eden preying upon insects!
Who could possibly be a more perfect image of preserved Israel than this man of Eden? The preservation of pure humanity. Preserved, like a creature from a prehistoric time, frozen in clear amber, perfect in every detail: St. John the Forerunner. As we read in Psalm 81:
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"O that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways! I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." |
As any pure man or woman would, John was exquisitely sensitive to the impurity all around him. Have you ever given up smoking? Then you know how offensive cigarette smoke is to one who is cleansed of it. Have you ever given up drinking? Then you know how offensive is the crude and foolish conduct of a drunk when you no longer have any part in that world. Likewise, John's body and soul were ever fresh and new. The pink flesh of his heart beat in sync with God's heart. Unholy things that people had come to accept in themselves where unacceptable to him as they are unacceptable to our holy God. Yet, John's heart, like God's, was full of compassion for the people. "Wash away the corruption that sucks the life out of your souls like a great leach!" in effect, he told them. "Be rid of it! For you can return to God! The salvation of God," John said, "now draws near to you! Prepare the way! Prepare!"
Within his mother's womb, John leapt as the new Eve approached his mother, Elizabeth. As St. Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, C) and St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, III, 22) have commented, Mary was the obedient Eve, the one who would crush the serpent's head. Female creation begun anew! As Mary approached Elizabeth, the two who would usher in the end of our exile from Eden met and pointed forward to the one who was Eden, the restoration of the God's Image upon humanity.
It is a wonder that we can only faintly grasp all of this today. A wonder that it is so distant for us. The encrustations of time have faded it in our American imaginations. We do not see the pristine and pure John, the natural man of Eden, which first-century Judeans saw so clearly. We have been too much exposed to the "mountain man" depictions of John the Baptist and disgusted by the (false) report of his insect diet.
Our American ears, hearing the word wilderness, picture a forbidding landscape, a dangerous place, the great Northwest with its timber wolves, mountain lions, and grizzly bears, and rocky precipices and crags. But the Greek word used in St Mark's Gospel ("one crying in the wilderness") or St. Luke's Gospel is ερημω (erymw) . It means solitary, like the signature place where we meet with God, as Moses did in Midian or as God's people did at the foot of Mt. Sinai. And it means uninhabited like the one place on earth, guarded by angels, where no human may enter. Where is the one, surely uninhabited place? It is Eden.
We have watched too many Hollywood movies, where John's baptism is seen in the background as a marginal event, depicted to one side of the main action. We have missed the epic scale of this phenomenon. But those living during the first century in Palestine did not. On the contrary, they saw a tsunami that swept over the whole Levant. St. Peter compared it to a Noah's Flood. The Gospels report that all participated in it. We do not get that the people were coming alive with a real expectation that Eden's gates were opening. Had they not seen the man from Eden with their own eyes? Had they not heard the pure tones of his voice? Had they not smelled the fragrance of his purity, the scent of the morning of the earth?
The Lord Jesus declared St. John the Forerunner to be the greatest of prophets (Mt 11:11, Lk 7:28). That is, his momentous appearance in history announced the end the Age of Prophets.
St. Mark's Gospel finds its starting point with this great prophet's words:
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As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
"Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight — " John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. (Emphasis mine.) |
The entire introduction of St. John's Gospel is preoccupied with these scenes — of the first thirty-four verses of St. John's Prologue more than half dwell upon St. John the Baptist. And the Evangelist John must repeatedly insist that the Forerunner was not the light to all nations, so persuaded were the people of John's greatness. To them, he was manifestly the man of Eden and, therefore, had the power to bring everyone back there with him.
St. Luke's Gospel may be said to be about the tale of St. John the Forerunner and Eden. Consider its "bookends," its opening and closing verses. The entire beginning invokes Isaiah, depicting the advent of St. John the Forerunner. And Luke's Gospel closes with the Son of God hanging on a Cross promising, "this day you will be with Me in Paradise."
And on this hill, outside the walls of Jerusalem, do we see God's people gathered all around Him? Everyone is there. Those who love Him, and those who do not. All humanity is depicted: with one man on His left, cursing his life and cursing his God as he dies; and one man on his right, heeding the Forerunner's words, "Prepare. Repent." And he does. For that penitent thief, the Gates of Eden were opened. And forever after, at the foot of that Cross, the Gates of Paradise beckon to all of us. The ancient word etched that word, Paradise, on the walls of its apses.
For the blood and water that flowed from the side of God are to heal us and cleanse us and restore us. Within our very souls are preserved the vestiges of Paradise. And they prick us and prod us and cause us to long for the end of our horrible exile.
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Prepare.
Repent. Be baptized. And if you are baptized, be baptized again in the holy waters of Reconciliation. |