HOUR OF COURAGE ^_[1]

PROPHET'S BLAZING CANDOR

1.  John the Baptizer lived in the Judean wilderness--a semi-arid stretch east of Jerusalem beyond Jericho near the Dead Sea. There he lived and preached a message of reform. Powerful and magnetic, the Baptizer attracted notice far beyond the silent austerity of desert in which he lived. Throngs of people travel to the Judean desert. The Baptizer's ascetic bearing and solemn message gain him wide renown, including the attention of the elite and powerful in Israel's capitol city.

2.  Hence, it was not unusual for men of privilege to be among the throng because of its proximity to Jerusalem. They, too, are attracted to the conspicuous man who plainly stirs old memories. By his uncompromising proclamation of God's truth, John evokes Elijah's blazing candor. For the price of a short trip into the desert, the elite and powerful can observe the Baptizer and murmur among themselves. They can be entertained. John is the equivalent of the latest, best-selling, big-picture coffee table book, do you see, a book filled with provocative pictures and a controversial message.

NOT A PASSPORT

3.  But John is more than an amusing eccentric. His contribution to the kingdom is nothing short of extraordinary. He preaches the necessity of receiving a baptism quite unlike any other purification ritual preceding him. It was to be administered by a credible person other than one's own self. From the beginning, baptism was understood to be non-repetitive. Moreover, John's baptism emphasizes moral purity and conversion of heart. Thus it bears little resemblance to the external cleansing rite associated with the great temple in Jerusalem.

4.  Many of the elite and powerful Pharisees and Sadducees step forward to receive John's baptism. Some are sincere. Those who are not sincere are there to gather evidence against John. However, the Baptizer has no patience for Pharisees or Sadducees whether they are earnest or otherwise. As a body they are not approaching him for the right reasons. Hence, it is the elite and powerful leaders of Jerusalem for whom John reserves his strongest words--even outright condemnation. Johns baptism is not a base to be covered, nor does he see himself as an endorsement to be stamped on one's spiritual passport. "You brood of vipers", he exclaims, "who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"  [Mt 3:7] 

ESCAPE FROM AXE AND FIRE?

5.  Up to this point, the Jerusalem brood had monopolized God's message, perpetuated its own power and made religion a lucrative profession. As well, consider that Palestine is regarded by Rome as a stone in its belly. The Judean stone intends to persuade the gluttonous empire to spew it out and relinquish it.  According to the religious leaders, God would to purge the Roman occupiers from Palestine. For Israel, which saw itself as the one valid, stable spiritual and temporal entity in an otherwise sordid world, political liberation was inevitable.  Everyone and everything else might suffer change but not Israel and its powerful leadership--or so the Jerusalem elite assumed.

6.  Bear fruits that befit repentance, John exclaims.  [Lk 3:8]  He warns the elite and privileged that time grows short, indeed the "kingdom of heaven is at hand".  [Mt 3:2]  The things of God neither originate in the earth nor return to earth. Far from the tortuous affairs of men, the message of God is birthed by a prophet laboring to deliver it in the austere wilderness. Matthew's gospel does not reveal the Pharisees' and Sadducees' reaction to John's prophetic message, but are they anything less than shocked? John hammers his message home to the legates of power standing before him: You who judge, do you presume to escape from axe and fire?  [cf. Mt 3:10] 

HIGH PRICE FOR FIDELITY

7.  Ritualized corporate religion, the Baptizer announces, does not deliver one from a personal reckoning with God, now or at death or the general judgment to come. Nor will religious affiliation or membership claims shield anyone from judgment. The words of St. Paul explain Johns sense of urgency:  "Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."  [Rom 13:11-12] 

8.  As one might expect, fidelity can exact a high price. John's uncompromising allegiance to God is purchased at the tithe of his own life. Over the centuries, many others have walked the path of the Baptizer. They preached in his tradition, never compromising the gospel and yielding always to the will of God. Nor did they preach a gospel of convenience. Rather, they preached the eternal truth of our God, the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. One cannot presume what John the Baptizer would say to this present generation.

GOSPEL TONIC

9.  Certain of the elite and powerful legislators and officials of this nation are known to seek the counsel of spiritual leaders from time to time and to seek assistance in the matter of reconciliation. Would before God there were more! The more sincere, the better! One cannot help but draw parallels between the tortuous affairs of the Jerusalem aristocracy and the noxious soup of religion and politics in our own nation and its capitol. As with 1^st century Palestine, our nation needs a gospel tonic, specifically the uncompromising proclamation of God's eternal truth. The demands of the gospel Kingdom are as utterly relevant to this generation as in any preceding generation.

10.  That every man and woman must choose for or against the Kingdom of Light is manifest, for God's law governs the sacred order of his Kingdom of light and life. To choose against life is to choose against God's law; anyone who opposes God's law is an enemy of God's Kingdom. To choose against life is to choose for the principalities and powers of darkness which deal out devastation and death.  [cf. Eph 6:12]  Like John the Baptist, we must condemn the works of evil corrupting our culture and society. Chief among the works of darkness is the culture of death:  "This situation, with its lights and shadows, ought to make us all fully aware that we are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the 'culture of death' and the 'culture of life'. We find ourselves not only 'faced with' but necessarily 'in the midst of' this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life."^[2]   

SCANDAL AND MANIPULATION

11.  What might St. John preach if he were living today? Standing on solid ground, we declare the Baptizer's solidarity with the respect of all human life--especially the lives of the weak and innocent. St. John would denounce the tyranny of the strong who impose the culture of death upon the weak and innocent. He would condemn the idolatry of the imperial self^[3] which exalts man as his own creator. Likewise he would denounce the heresy that man's highest activity is the frenzied pursuit of selfish pleasure. The Baptizer would brand many of the elite and powerful as high priests and priestesses of the cult of gullibility--smooth-tongued flacks who forge smarmy idols of impulse and superficial plausibility while hollowing out faith and life.

12.  With unstinting fidelity to the truth and loyalty to God, John the Baptist would urge members of the Church in the third millennium to shun exploitation in every form. Regrettably, some politicians--discredited by scandal--manipulate clergymen as part of their public orchestration of damage control and rehabilitation. Some clergymen, allured by publicity and personal advantage, permit themselves to be manipulated. Even more egregious are those politicians--and the clergy who support them--who legislate abortion and contraception while declaring fidelity to the Church.

MERCHANTS OF DEATH

13.  By what faith and reason do these evil-doers emplace the culture of death and expect to escape the judgment of God? Does the culture of death have any claim to the Kingdom of Life? By what faith and reason do merchants of death presume to walk in both darkness and light? Let them know, then, who hover at the edge of eternity's grave: the darkness is crumbling even now beneath your feet, toppling into the depths of hell. Stand back from your own grave, merchant, while you can! Repent from your grievous sins against life! Seek solid ground while there is still time!

14.  Choose life and the Kingdom of Light! Choose life and live! Actively participate with God, therefore, in the fulfillment of your own salvation! Be reconciled with God and one another! Perform the works of justice. Grant to every person--especially the weak and innocent--what he is due in the eyes of God. Demonstrate true concern for the poor. "Do not presume to say to yourselves"  [Mt 3:9], the Baptizer might say, that by darting in and out of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass you will find salvation. Do not imagine that the Father of the Our Lord Jesus Christ is merely a higher power, whose divine factor of benevolence is a common denominator compatible with any sin or sinful life. Do not for an instant equate yourself with God by arrogating to yourself the power to define what sin is or is not. Do not for an instant make Lucifer your god by trespassing against life; the enemy of life is the enemy of its Divine Creator.

HELL BEFORE YOUR EYES

15.  John the Baptist is a sign of authentic holiness. His uniqueness originates in Christ and thus nothing of his identity among men is lost. Over the centuries countless numbers of Christians have experienced, as did the Baptizer, a personal and unique "baptism" into martyrdom--a defining moment in which one chooses God's Kingdom in the face of overwhelming odds. From the second world war emerged the compelling story of Ernst Kasemann who discovered the depths and riches of his uniqueness in Christ. [cf. Rom 11:33] This was a man whose public loyalty to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ made him one of a chosen few during World War II. His public allegiance to God cost him the approval of the political thugs who governed Germanys Third Reich.

16.  Ernst Kasemann was a German Lutheran pastor from 1933 to 1946. He denounced Adolph Hitler's National Socialist ideology in 1937 and, shortly thereafter, the Nazi Gestapo sentenced him to prison and hard labor without parole. Unlike the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed one month before Germany surrendered in 1945, Kasemann survived to tell his story. Many years later, after retiring as Professor of New Testament at Tubingen, he wrote: 

WHOEVER TOOK part in the German Church struggle  (i.e., of 1933-39)  was a very individual partisan.  I was one, too.  I stood in the pulpit and right in front of me, in the gallery and below in the chancel, sat the Gestapo and the Nazis. You wont believe how much an individual I felt then! To preach Heaven and to have Hell right before your eyes in the person of its legates....A thousand listeners were asked, at the highest pitch of individuality, to what end they were listening....We represented our Lord and we risked His cross. We were called revolutionaries and were dealt with accordingly. But the Kingdom of God is revolutionary! ^[4]

SIGNATURE PHRASE

17.  Kingdom of God is Jesus signature phrase. John the Baptist, Ernst Kasemann and countless others throughout salvation history have held membership in God's kingdom above all other allegiances. Many more are experiencing their defining moment of faith at this very hour! Apart from the providential will of God, human words and deeds count for nothing. Indeed, they are either wrong or useless, for they do not contribute to the fulfillment of God's plan of salvation. Words and deeds, animated by mere human will, actually oppose the final unity God has in store for all creation: 

BUT EACH in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.... When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one.  [1Cor 15:23-28] 

You have received the prophetic example of St. John whose influence on the course of world events endures to this day. The whole point of St. John's message is this: every person, proud or humble, powerful or frail, famous or unknown, needs purification.

18.  We need to be washed clean from sin. And by what logic would one bathe his body every day while at the same time refusing to cleanse his immortal soul which cries out to God day and night to be liberated from the stains of his transgressions? Be reconciled with God and one another! Seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation! Return to the saving waters which cleansed you from all sin at baptism! Entrust yourselves to the Father through Our Lord Jesus Christ! Hear and believe the words of absolution: "Through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."^[5] Reform your lives, says the Baptizer, the Kingdom of God has overtaken you.

"WE RISKED HIS CROSS"

19.  You have heard the powerful story of Ernst Kasemann. He courageously defended the cross of Christ. His example has inspired many others. His story confirms the universal truth that every man is propelled in life to a decisive moment which can change the course of his and the world's destiny. Irrespective of his accomplishments or the manner in which he orders his life,  the defining moment will come. What will you choose? Abdication to the evil one? Or sweet surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to be remembered for having let the hour of courage slip through your fingers or that you were struck down by your own hand because you did not reform when you had the opportunity? A decisive moment always hinges on what has gone before.

20.  Expect Christ to recognize you in your hour of need if you have been faithful and attentive to the needs of the least of his brothers.  [cf. Mt 25:31-46]  You cannot count on making a greater sacrifice for God, yourself and others if you habitually ignore the lesser opportunities. If you need an example, look to the martyrs of the Church. Read the stories of their lives. The meaning of your life will have its antecedents in theirs. To understand the Spirit's prophetic work in this present generation, follow the courageous example of Christians being martyred now for their faith. Recognize what the martyrs sacrifice: their livelihoods, public approval,  their comfort and security, their families, even their own lives. And for what? For the sake of God's absolute truth!  For the sake of the name of Jesus Christ!  For the uncompromising witness of their faith! For the preservation of life! "We represented our Lord," writes Ernst Kasemann, "and we risked his cross!"