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One of the most significant things for Christianity took place in 313AD. In the Edict of Milan the Roman Emperor Constantine proclaimed religious toleration across the Empire and made Christianity the official religion. After a time of great persecution when many Christians were martyred for their faith a new age dawned and Christianity flourished under the new conditions but in the process became perhaps a little worldly. There were those who thought that it had compromised the Gospel to co-exist with the State and had therefore lost its cutting edge. Holy people like St Antony of Egypt left the city and went to live in the Desert. Hundreds of them lived as hermits and then later formed religious communities following a common rule. This was the birth of the monastic life.
It also brought to birth a rich spiritual tradition because these Holy men and women followed our Lord’s example in the wilderness and contended for God against the wiles of the devil. They were tempted and severely tried but, throwing themselves humbly on God’s mercy and grace they found a new inner strength to prevail. These holy men and women, known as Abbas and Mammas (Fathers & Mothers) were much sought after by other Christians who came in droves to the Desert to consult with them, seeking advice for their own Christian pilgrimage. This was the beginnings of Spiritual Guidance, often called ‘Soul Friendship’. The legacy of the Desert Fathers and Mothers as they are called has come to us in a vast collection of remarkable Sayings which are still in print. Many Christians, myself included, have found in these Sayings a great deal of guidance for the spiritual journey today. In order to gain this advice, those who visited the Abbas in the Desert often began with: Speak a Word, Father.
Often, a few words were all that was needed to set people on the right spiritual path – as in the case of one seeker who, asking for a word, was told:
You must love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.
The seeker left the Desert and began to put into practice what he had been told. 20 years later he returned and reported to the Abba that he had succeeded. He asked for another word –
Love your neighbour as yourself.
The seeker left and never needed to consult the Abba again.
The Speaking of a Word requires from those who say them a deep attentiveness to the Word of God. The Holy men and women of the Desert were steeped in the Scriptures, especially the Gospel and the Psalms. The Psalms were recited from memory every day and as with Judaism and early Christianity the Psalter became a living Prayer Book. Only those who have heard the Word of God and taken it deep into their souls can have any authority to help and guide others. Soul Friends must first make God the friend of their souls and this is the power of the Desert Holy men and women. It is also, of course, the power of John the Baptist who enters our Advent thoughts today.
It is widely held that in the hidden years from his birth to Elizabeth and Zechariah to his arrival from the Wilderness as the Forerunner of Jesus, John lived in the Desert, like the Desert Fathers after him. Some believe he lived with a religious group called the Essenes whose way of life was similar to that of the later Desert Fathers. Whatever the truth of this, John was certainly carefully prepared for the role he was destined to have and which began with today’s Gospel. Living a life of solitude and prayer, John waited in the Desert for his destined moment.
It came to him as we heard in today’s Gospel: Luke is quite exact about when this took place. It was in the 15th year of the Emperor Tiberias when Pilate was Governor of Judea, Herod ruler of Galilee and during the High Priesthood of Annas & Caiaphas, that
The Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
The Word of God coming to individuals who had a special ministry immediately aligns John with the Old Testament Prophets for whom the Word of God came giving them authority to proclaim God’s message to God’s people. Time and again in the Old Testament we hear of the Word of the Lord coming to Prophets. In the Book of Jeremiah, for example, we read that the Word of the Lord came to him at the beginning of Chapters 7, 11,16,18, 21, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32,33…..and so on. It may be simply a formula adopted by the biblical writers to signify that the Prophet concerned had God’s authority to speak in His name but it is a powerful commission to the prophet all the same.
That the Word of God came to John the Baptist places him very firmly in the prophetic tradition of Israel and he has rightly been called the last of the Old Testament Prophets. Jesus calls him the greatest of the Prophets in Luke 7 : 28. To him has been given the most special role. The other Prophets could only dream of the Coming of the Day of the Lord but John’s role was to actually announce it and see it fulfilled.
John the Baptist is not just the Last of the Prophets – He is the first to herald the dawning of God’s new age brought to birth by Jesus. His ‘Word’ given to him in the Desert is therefore of particular significance for the destiny of the human race and therefore, by extension, for us.
He enters the world’s stage at a point of low ebb. As in the days of Samuel, the first of the Old testament Prophets,
The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. (1 Samuel 3:1)
The conditions for Jesus to begin his public ministry were auspicious. The religious leaders were providing no leadership; the country was ruled by foreigners; there had been no Prophecy for over 400 years and the people lacked Spiritual direction and purpose of life. So when John appeared from the Desert with his Word from the Lord he was like a breath of fresh air or perhaps it should be as a wind from God. He begins his message with a quotation from Isaiah.
He was indeed a voice crying out in the wilderness but this should not be taken to mean that his was a futile voice. As with the Desert Fathers, the Wilderness was a place of spiritual formation where authentic messages from God are shaped in the souls and lives of those who heard them.
Quoting from Isaiah, as John does, is another way of telling the people – the voice of Prophecy is not dead and I claim the same right as Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and all the prophets to speak to you. What he then tells them is that they are to Prepare the way of the Lord for the Lord is coming to bring Salvation and that salvation is Jesus Christ. How are they to prepare for His Coming – by making his paths straight – in other words be re-ordering their lives so that Jesus can make his way directly into their hearts. How they are to do this will be revealed in next Sunday’s Gospel but basically, like the sayings of the Desert Fathers, his Word is both simple and profound. They are to Repent – that is – they are to turn their lives back towards God and forgo all the things which prevent God’s loving salvation from reaching them.
Of course this Repentance, whilst having the immediate effect of bringing people to John for his kind of Baptism as a sign of a willingness to repent – will take our Lord’s ministry, Passion, Death and Resurrection to make it clear what it really means. It means, of course, to have a Right Relationship with God but what is this Right relationship?
We see it best and at its most complete in the relationship Jesus has with His Father. The Call - both to those who heard John the Baptist when he left the wilderness and to us now – is to so study the Word that is Jesus. For this, of course, we need to study prayerfully the Written Gospel, as the Desert Fathers did until it is so rooted in our Soul that we are totally steeped in it. We then need to apply what we discover about Jesus to ourselves – for it is in imitation of him that true Repentance will happen in our own lives.
Imitate means to be like and we are to be like Jesus- developing his qualities and seeking God’s grace to help us grow more Christ-like.
In the tradition of the Desert Fathers, people went into the wilderness to seek them out. With John the Baptist, it is the reverse. He seeks us out. He brings God’s Word directly to us. And this should tell us that God thinks our Salvation is too important to wait for us to realise it for ourselves. So concerned is He that we shall enter into a totally loving and God-centred relationship with Him – a relationship which will save our souls – that He seeks us out, first with the clarion call of John the Baptist and then more fully in and through His own Son.
At the heart of all this – and why we should ask that he speak a Word to us - is that He loves us so completely that his eternal Kingdom needs us in it. Isn’t that an amazing thought!
But, of course, we are not to keep this knowledge to ourselves. As in the days of John the Baptist and of Samuel The Word of the Lord is rare in our world today and the vision of God is not widespread. Yet as with those who heard John the Baptist, there is a longing and yearning in many for a new purpose, a new direction. That is what Jesus, whose birth we are preparing to celebrate once again, has to offer. He needs us to spread His Word. We are to reach out to the World with his uncompromising and unconditional Love. We are to speak His Word of Repentance and Love to all.
So, In the 57th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Janet Hedges was Mayor of Epping, during the Archbishoprics of Rowan and Sentamu, the Word of the Lord comes to….. Insert your own name here… Now, Proclaim that Word as fearlessly and as confidently as did John the Baptist. The world needs to hear what you have to say about God.