Father Ken’s Message:
Good afternoon and welcome to the Catholic Cathedral of Sapporo.
Last week’s reading from the Gospel of Mark was about the ‘end of the world.’ But today’s reading is about ‘the beginning of the new world.’ It is a world where we live closer to God than before because of the birth of the Son of God, Jesus. The Gospel of Mark does not record the birth of Jesus, but it does record the birth of “the new world.”
This is the theme of the second week of Advent: God is with us, as one of us, in Jesus. John the Baptist appears in the Gospel of Mark as the midwife for Jesus to come into the world. Through his coaching words and baptism, he helped the people 2000 years ago, and us today too, to find Jesus, to find God among us and with us.
Today, I want to talk about John the Baptist. He is very important in our Catholic history. There are only three birthdays celebrated during the Catholic liturgical year: the birth of Jesus on December 25; the birth of Mary on September 8; and John the Baptist on June 24. All three of these famous characters are individually honored in this way by the Church because in the New Testament each of them has miraculous stories associated with their lives. St. Hippolytus (170-236 AD) who wrote a history of the early Catholic Church in Rome records that Anna, the mother of Mary, and Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist were sisters. By the answer to prayers to God by the parents of John the Baptist, Elizabeth who had been infertile most of her life suddenly becomes pregnant, probably in her late 40s. This information was told to John the Baptist’s father Zechariah by the angel Gabriel during his prayer ceremony in the Temple in Jerusalem. It was like a miracle to the Elizabeth and Zechariah. Up to this point in Jewish history there was no Baptismal Ceremony, instead boys were circumcised 8 days after their birth and their name was publicly announced. Against local tradition, Zechariah names the new son, John, which was the name which Gabriel instructed him. John means, “God is gracious.” This incident is recorded in the Gospel of Luke chapter one about the naming of John the Baptist is already similar to our Baptismal Ceremony in the Catholic Church when a new name is given to the person being baptized. The new saint’s name and their model of life should have an impact upon the person bearing the name. Thus, is true for John the Baptist. He chooses to live a life of dedication to God’s love for people inviting them into God’s Kingdom through Baptism and following Jesus.
For me personally, John the Baptist is so believable because he has no personal agenda of gaining power or popularity for himself, instead he is totally devoted to his cousin Jesus. Everything about John the Baptist’s lifestyle tries to dissuade people from looking upon him as star or idol. His place of work in the hot desert outside of Jerusalem, his clothing of animal skins, and his diet of bugs and natural honey are his way of personally humbling himself so that Jesus will be more attractive to them. Even though John the Baptist had collected his own group of disciples to help him with his work, when he realized whom, Jesus was, he released them to follow Jesus who could guide them more perfectly to the Kingdom of God. It is recorded that two of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew and John (John 1:29 and 36). John the Baptist spent his life in dedication to the mission of Jesus and sacrificed everything for Jesus, even his life which King Herod ended. John the Baptist showed us a new way of unselfish life. Adam and Eve tempted by the devil to close their ears to the will of God and lived a life of selfishness, but John the Baptist showed the world beginning 2000 years ago that we can resist the temptations of the devil through a change of heart and way of living in the world for the greater glory of God.
Jesus acknowledged John the Baptist’s great role and service for God in many of his talks to people. And, Jesus kept the tradition of Baptism created by John the Baptist as his initiation ceremony into the brave new world, a sinless world, which Jesus came to recreate through his life, death and resurrection. Even Jesus performed baptisms after the death of his cousin John the Baptist (3:22). We Catholics are indebted to the lives of Jesus, Mary and John for creating the way into this new world. I think of it like what we have to do nowadays to board an airplane. At the security check we are asked to empty our pockets and we cannot take anything dangerous with us onto the airplane because it could endanger the lives of the other passengers. Our personal sin is like that, it endangers the lives of others. People full of selfishness and hate for others create a bad environment for all the rest of us. Baptism restarts us spiritually as human beings and protect us with a force field of grace against the temptations of the devil. Even though the old world still lives around us, we each know that our lives have been transformed and improved through becoming Catholic-Christians. We now see the world through new eyes, the eyes of Jesus. The lens of our new eyes is love.
Our final legacy from John the Baptist is also the Holy Eucharist. No, John the Baptist was not at the Last Supper but it was he who knew the power inside Jesus as “the lamb of God.” Still, 2000 years after the death of John the Baptist before receiving the Holy Eucharist we say the Agnus Dei prayer or the Lamb of God prayer which he invented. John the Baptist is the first person to recognize Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29). According to Jewish culture, lambs were sacrificed as an offering to God for personal sins. People in Jesus’ day would go to the temple to buy a lamb. Then in front of a priest they would touch their head to the head of the animal to transfer their sinfulness into the animal. The priest would then sacrifice the animal by killing it and burning it to help the person be free from sin. Of course, Jesus did this service for all humanity by dying on the Cross. Therefore, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John the Baptist knew all of this even before Jesus would die on the Cross to take away our sins; it is mysterious. So, when we come to Mass and say the Agnus Dei, we can recall the voice of John the Baptist. Like the way he pointed out who Jesus is in a crowd of people 2000 years ago for his disciples, he still does for us
for us in 2023.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, Mary and John the Baptist are important to us for helping us find Jesus in our lives. Mary and John message is that Jesus is everything that sin is not; sin is made up of disregard for God and other people. Jesus lived a life without sin, which manifest itself in love of God through prayer and love of others through healing miracles and words of encouragement. Christmas is important because we all come back home both to our family homes and to our spiritual home the Church. The similarity in our two homes is the virtue of love. Let us also love like Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist. Thank you.