2nd Advent "Of men born of women there has risen none greater than John the Baptist". Mt.11:11

Jubilation, Diamond celebration of Fr. Raymond,
family 3 generations

MASS

Second Sunday of Advent

Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12

Homily: Fr. Raymond

When we call St John the Baptist the Precursor of the Lord we immediately think of the way he prepared for the Lord's coming by the example of his ascetic life and by his fearless preaching - a fearless preaching that cost him his life in the end. But there is another way, a much more important way, in which he prepared the way of the Lord and that was not so much by what he did or by what he said as by who he was; by what he represented in God's great plan of the gradual preparation of his people for the One who was to come.

Jesus hints at this when he says of John that "Of men born of women there has risen none greater than John the Baptist". In these words Jesus proclaims to all the world that the Person of John was the climax of all that the Old Testament was meant to be. He was its perfect fulfilment. Sanctified in the womb, he stands in the Old Testament in something the same kind of way as Mary, sanctified at her conception does in the New. As Mary is the ultimate fulfilment of the New Testament children of God, so John is the ultimate fulfilment of the Old Testament children of God. God's plans are not frustrated: The Old Testament was not a failure, John the Baptist brought it to its perfect fulfilment.

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So the greatness of John the Baptist is a relative greatness as Jesus explains when he goes on to say: " ... but even the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he." Here he is speaking of us, of you and me who are no longer waiting for the Kingdom but who know that Jesus has established it on earth. It is obviously a greater destiny to be a part of the Kingdom that has arrived than to be even the greatest of the Prophets who could only look forward to it in the future.

This greatness of John then as the personification of the ultimate fulfilment of the Old Testament means then that the whole of the Old Testament is a preparation for the coming of Christ. All its wonderful stories, all its great characters, are meant to illustrate in one way or another the person-and mission of Christ. If we stick to the New Testament only then we cannot fathom the full depth of the mystery of Christ. We will miss so much of the meaning to be drawn from the beautiful and powerful imagery of the Old Testament as it gradually unfolds for us the heights and depths of the riches of Christ.

When St Jerome gave us his famous saying that "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" he was not referring only to the Gospels but also to the whole the Old Testament as well, from the wonderful stories of Genesis, through the Historical Books of Kings, the Wisdom Books and the Prophets right down to John the Baptist himself.