John the Baptist had a testimony about Jesus, “I saw the spirit come down on him like a dove from heaven and rest on him.” (Jn1:32) “I have seen and testify that he is the chosen one of God” (34). He pointed to Jesus, and said, “Here is the lamb of God” (1: 29). Many of the disciples of John left him and began to follow Jesus.
See what makes the person of John. He said, “I am not the one who is to come, … I am not worthy even to untie his sandals, … I am the voice crying out in the wilderness.” John was a voice, powerful and faithful but he was not the Word. Word incarnated, and in him there was fullness of life, truth and grace. There is no greater blessing, no greater prophesy or scripture, no greater reward or retribution than the Messiah. Now, John is imprisoned, perhaps as Jesus was in the desert. In isolation and loneliness, he heard in depth the voices he had once heard.
In the religious or spiritual interpretations of cultural or social concerns, did we make our own possible interpretations or sincerely searched for the divine voices within them. Did we encounter the truth? We don’t possess the truth, we belong to the truth, and bear testimony.
Did John expect Christ conquering kingdoms, erecting great walls or statues in place of the great symbols of Roman imperial power? We do not know. But the darkness in the prison gave him a second womb experience where at the hearing of what Christ is doing the heart of John once again leaps with joy. He goes to further depth of silence.
Dear friends, God is almighty. But conceiving God, the Word in our heart, in our mind, and in our attitudes, even in our body is very delicate. It has to be the real one. However prophetic, charismatic, devoted and zealous we are about matters of faith and religion, it is important to recheck often whether we testify to the true one. There may be wrong Christ being formed in us.
There are evenings and depths of darkness in our life too. What is that voice resounding in our hearts? Do they point to the lamb of God who is full of life and grace that was able to fill the emptiness of death and sin? When God seems to be dead, and hope begins to fail we also need to have the courage to reaffirm once again that we recognised and witnessed the true one. “Are you the one, or do we have to wait for another?” was John’s question. When we see the blind begin to see, a generation without vision receives new insights, the deaf hears and the closed hearts hear the voices of inspiration, the young begin to walk a new path of goodness and solidarity even keeping away the gods that divide we have a light to see that ‘here in our midst is the Holy One.’
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